In web development, the word “content” describes any kind of text, image, video or button displayed on your site. Your website content is how you communicate, influence and persuade users to engage with your company, whether it’s simply educating them or pushing them towards a sale. While online engagement might look much different than a face-to-face conversation, you should treat your website messaging with the same delicacy and energy.
Who Are You Talking To?
All people use social and psychological cues to guide the flow of their conversations both consciously and subconsciously. Understanding who your target audience is, whether that be your current customer base or your ideal customers is key to writing website content that effectively resonates with your users. If you aren’t sure how to gauge your target audience, start by asking yourself a few questions about them, like:
- What problems are they trying to solve? How does my solution help them do that?
- What language are they most likely to understand and relate to?
- Do they expect a certain level of formality?
- What are some questions they are likely to have? Reservations?
Having a good idea of who your website is trying to communicate with will help identify the goals of your site’s pages, determine the tone of the text and dictate the industry wording you should be using as keywords. Try to think of different search phrases your typical customers would use when inquiring about your products or services and how you can best guide them to the answers and solutions they’re looking for.
Mapping Out Your Website Content
Before you start cranking out website copy, you should devise a plan that revolves around your sitemap. Think of your sitemap as the skeleton of your website and the content as the skin. The sitemap helps you organize, prioritize and link various pages together to form a coherent narrative.
The sitemap included in your website proposal contains a list of pages that need content so you can begin drafting copy for each of these items. The pages of your website will most likely hold the majority of your content because they typically house static information that isn’t expected to change too frequently like an “About” or “Services” page. Website posts, however, are updated and added to on a regular basis like those found in a blog section.
Components of Good Web Content
So, what really separates good content from bad? Good content engages users and encourages them to remain on the site or interact with it in some way like subscribing to a newsletter, calling a number or making a purchase. Your content should not only convey critical information that is meaningful and relevant to your target audience, but it should also incorporate common words and phrases that users would most likely search for to improve your search engine optimization.
Brand Trust
Every brand seeks to educate its customers about themselves. However, you don’t necessarily need to use big words to do so unless it’s appropriate for your audience and/or industry. Clear and concise messaging in combination with high-resolution images that compliment your website’s text is the best way to make a good first impression while building brand authenticity and trust.
When dealing with photos of people, whether it be stock imagery or your own, try to select shots that look natural and don’t have an overly “stock” feel to them. For eCommerce websites, your product photos should always be of the highest quality available.
Call to Action
It’s easy to get so caught up in finding the perfect words for your body copy that you forget to apply that same attention to detail to one of your most important site elements: your calls to action (CTAs). Your website should include a mix of direct CTAs like “Add to Cart” or “Contact Us” and transitional CTAs such as “Download our Brochure” or “Read More” when prompting users to take an extra step on your site that will lead them further down the conversion funnel.
Keywords and SEO
You should always try to fit a few keywords into each page of your website content. Make sure to do so in a way that reads naturally and is not excessive, as it can be a turn-off to readers and might even be interpreted as a red flag by search engines. It’s a good idea to use a mixture of common keywords and longer keyphrases that can work hand-in-hand to rank you higher on related searches, especially if your business or product has a geographical component.
Don’t Be Afraid to Ask Your Developers
When in doubt, ask your website development team for advice, tips and resources on how to create compelling website copy that converts. At Comit Developers, we are happy to answer any questions you may have and even provide you with full-suite content creation services.
Contact us today for more information on pricing or guidance on addressing your business’ unique website content needs.
