Website copywriting plays an important role in educating your visitors, informing about your products and services, presenting your values and above all directing people to take action.
So what is a good copy? I don’t propose to be definitive but my intention is to open a discussion about what good website copywriting is about.
Website copy should evolve with time
Writing copy for the web is not a one-off exercise, for several reasons. Firstly, your business and customer base will evolve over time, so your copy needs to adapt to reflect this. Secondly, life is not static, so you will need to build and modify your web content to cater for the demands of a heterogeneous audience. Thirdly, not every bit of copy you write will hit the nail at the first go – in this case, you will need to use web analytic tools to identify which pages are driving traffic and those with a high bounce rate. And then of course, there is SEO, a source of much heated debate, which has to be catered for.
Purpose of website copywriting
Good copy always has an end goal. Without purpose, the website copy is not targeted which in turn means that you will have no means to measure its impact. Before creating content for the web, decide what you want to write, why you want to write and for whom you want to write.
Consistency in web copy
The website copy should support the overall content strategy in terms of marketing messages, tone, and language. If one page is conversational and the next is formal, it can break the rhythm and put people off. If you have multiple contributors to the website, you can have a sort of style guide so that they write in a way that strengthens your brand.
Directive
Make it easy for people to take relevant actions. Ensure strong visual signposts for key calls to action. Within the content, text link to appropriate action pages, for example, retailers should link to products where possible to encourage product viewing and adding to basket.
Accuracy
Copy that has spelling mistakes and grammatical errors looks clumsy and sends the wrong message about your brand. If you can’t be bothered about ensuring the quality of your web copy, how effective would be the services you provide?
Relevance
Make sure you think through what your customers would want to read and how it can help them make decisions during the buying cycle. You could run a quick customer poll or survey to identify opportunities for new content and also analyse analytics to identify pages with higher bounce rate.
Optimised web content
Finally, let us not forget the search engines – after all we want to attract relevant traffic. Whilst your customer facing web content must be written to appeal to customers, it should also be optimised in line with the keyword strategy for that page.