Every brand has a story to tell, but what matters most is how you tell it. Research conducted by the Nielsen Norman Group in 2011 showed that users often leave web pages in 10 to 20 seconds, but pages with a clear value proposition can hold people’s attention for much longer. To gain several minutes of user attention, you must clearly communicate your value proposition within 10 seconds. Now, we know this research is almost a decade old, but we believe that it still holds true in online marketing.
Copywriters and content marketers must keep this in mind if they expect to write a successful website. Here are some quick tips for marketing on digital platforms – if you’re brave enough to try it yourself:
No Bush Beating
Before you start writing, you should know the clear objectives of your website. Is it to drive your customer journey toward a product or service? Is it to attract new customers? Sometimes the goal is simply to inform, sometimes it is to sell, and sometimes it is to influence action.
Whatever it is, if your digital marketing plan has no objective, you won’t know how to focus your writing. Different pages serve different goals, so when you’re thinking about how to write your website content, make sure to set up clear expectations of what the copy should include.
Benefits, not Features
Your website’s primary goal should help your reader, not to promote your brand. Wait, what? What we mean to say is that your reader should leave your website with tips and solutions to solve their problems and improve their lives or answers to questions. This will allow you to grow relationships with your existing and potential customers.
Features are fun, but they should not be in control of your website copy. True, a Super Soaker III with triple pump-action and improved trigger speed sounds awesome, and it should be mentioned.
But, will this in itself really sell us on the product? We do fall in love with the features of our favorite products, but we fall in love with them for what they allow us to do. What makes us want to buy the Super Soaker III isn’t its triple pump-action or improved trigger, it’s the idea that these features allow you to get your little brother twice as wet, twice as fast.
When you focus on benefits in your copy, you create less work for the reader, and generally speaking, people want to be impressed on the internet more than they want to think.
Clean Organization
Use headers and signifiers to sort your information. The goal is to be as clear as possible. When some readers get their text in large chunks, they get overwhelmed at the prospect of processing all this extra information. People are exposed to so much information these days that they’ve become more discerning about their reading choices.
Your website content should be inviting. People tend to respond well to logic. If you want to make less work for the reader, you need to accept that there’s more work to do on your part.
Hemingway, Not Faulkner
Despite your literary preferences, it is clear that Hemingway would have made a better copywriter. Brevity does not mean using as little information as possible. Brevity means using the least amount of words possible for the clearest, most coherent thought possible.
Having a lot of words on your website is not bad. Having a lot of extra words is. We need to stick to the point, use metaphor and sensory language tastefully, and communicate with language relatable to our readers. In theory, people should be able to skim the text and still get something out of it.
Remember the Robots
Search engines, yes, the robots, read our website content too. And they have a lot to do with potential readers getting to the website, to begin with. Look through your sentences and see where keywords can be added or substituted in place of something else.
Of course, you don’t want to bombard your own language with a transparent name-dropping session, but you must take the opportunities for improving search engine optimization if you want your brand to appear on the top search results. Robots read differently than humans, so you need to take the time to learn about their reading habits too.
You can also increase the chances of your content getting read by making sure it works with read it later apps.
Creating relevant content for your brand or business can be challenging, but these simple tips are sure to provide value to your readers. If the thought of writing content for your website sounds like a straight up nightmare, we’re ready to help. With our help, you can rest assured that your website content will attract readers, improve your ranking in search engines, earn sales, and grow your business.
