Many small business owners struggle with writing website copy, especially if the last time they wrote more than a couple of paragraphs in one sitting was for a year 10 English assignment!
The copy or words on your website play a huge role in the success of your brand and business online. The words need to build a connection with the reader so that they feel confident spending money with you. Your copywriting also needs to sell the product or service that your business provides. And it needs to be able to do boththese things without ever seeing the person it’s connecting with or selling to.
Even the most seasoned business owner who excels at sales face-to-face can have a difficult time writing website copy. You don’t realise how much you rely on non-verbal cues and conversation during the sales process! Add to that the requirements that Google has for website copy from an SEO perspective, and you’ve got another layer of complexity thrown into the “simple” task of doing your own website copywriting.
That’s why we’re sharing these three tips to get you started with your website copy – from readability, to messaging, and blogging – we’re sharing information that every business owner needs to know.
Readability:
Reading text on a screen is very different to reading text in a book or on a piece of paper. It is much easier to lose your place or get distracted by a pop-up or notification. When you’ve got someone reading your website, you’re fighting for their attention – they’ve got multiple tabs open in the browser, they might also be listening to music or have a television on in the background, or they could be standing in line at a busy café.
So you need to make your copy as easy to read and consume as possible. Your readability score is a metric that tracks how easy it is to read your text. Can anyone with basic English reading and writing skills read and digest your text, or do they need a tertiary education to get through all of the jargon? The easier your copy is to read, the more accessible you make it to a wider range of people.
Your readability score doesn’t just look at the words and language of your text either. It also looks at sentence length, sentence structure, and paragraph structure. While in academic writing we like to see long run-on sentences and paragraphs can be hundreds of words in length, on the web we need to scale it right back.
Short, sharp sentences that are no longer than 20 words in length. No run-on sentences. And paragraphs that are 3-4 sentences in length, max. Adhere to these rules with your copywriting, and your website copywriting will look better, read better, and perform better in Google.
Messaging:
Your website copywriting has a lot of heavy lifting to do. It has to welcome and connect with the reader; it needs to provide them with value or entertainment; it needs to sell to them without them realising it; and it needs to adhere to Google’s SEO requirements. That is a lot of work for 600 words!
Getting your messaging right is key to all the above. Know your message before you start writing. Know what your value proposition is; know who you target market are, and what motivates them; know what the features and benefits of your product/service are – and how they align with your target audience’s motivators.
The more you plan your message and your key selling points before you start writing, the more direct and persuasive your copy will be. You’ll connect with your audience better, and your message will align with their needs.
Keep Writing:
Keep adding fresh, new content to your website on a regular basis to keep your audience engaged with your brand. Think of your website as your digital shopfront – if you had a physical / bricks-and-mortar shopfront, you’d change out the front window display at least once every couple of weeks. This would ensure that passers-by would keep coming into your shop to see what is new.
A website is no different – you need to keep adding new and fresh content to your site so that people keep checking in to see what is new. If they check back a couple of times and find no new content, they’ll stop dropping by.
Google also loves fresh, new content, and favours new articles and recently updated pages in its search engine results pages. So, if you’ve noticed that your organic traffic has dropped off in recent months, and your rankings are starting to slip, try adding a weekly blog or updating portfolio, gallery, or case study areas of your website.
Ace Your Website Copywriting:
Creating website copy that ranks well, connects with your audience, and improves your website’s conversion rate is so much more than “just” writing. We hope that these tips help you to get started, and we’re confident that if you focus on improving your readability score, creating clear messaging, and provide your audience with fresh insights on a regular basis, the quality of your website copy will continue to improve.