10 Top Tips For Effective Web Content
Want to write good web content? Honestly, there’s no silver bullet. But there are tips you can leverage to improve your content creation skills, enabling you to rank higher in search results, drive web traffic, and convert more customers.
These include:
- Define your purpose
- Know your target audience
- Hook your readers early and keep them hooked
- Write how you speak
- Consider structure and layout
- Don’t forget a call to action
Read on to discover a few things we’ve learned about getting your web copy the reception it deserves.
1. Define your purpose
Before you even think about writing good web content, you need to have a reason for it. First consider your mission, vision, values, and USPs. These will help you establish the foundations of your digital marketing strategy and determine your tone of voice, branding, and customer experience. It’s down to you to ensure they work in harmony.
2. Identify your target audience
Next you need to pinpoint your audience. Who is most likely to engage with your message or purchase from you? What are their interests, aspirations, and motivations? This will form your customer persona, which you can strengthen with advanced data analytics to understand your audience’s behaviour on a more granular level. Then, carry out keyword research to find the subjects that your audience cares about, and the words and queries they typically search for. Subtly weave these into the text, and answer the questions your prospective customers are typing into search engines to bump yourself up the results page.
3. Know what you want to talk about
Once you’ve established your purpose and audience, you should have a clear idea of your content’s message. Ultimately, the reader is asking “why should I care?”, so make an impact and stay on topic. Try to lead with your benefits, relating every point to how it can help your customers. While USPs should be a focus, they’ll soon switch off if your content purely centres around how amazing your brand, product, or service is.
4. Hook your readers early
Where you answer search queries and meet your audience’s needs could be anything from a web page to a blog post. And if you want people to stay on your website, you’re going to need to put the answer or main message at the very forefront. With that in mind, use your opener to qualify the reader and make it clear what they’re going to get out of it.
5. Write how you speak
Regardless of your audience’s industry, you should write in a way that’s accessible and easy to understand. It’s fine if your brand is professional, but don’t let cryptic jargon or overly long sentences put barriers between you and the reader. You want to appear human; it’s key to being viewed as authentic – a value that 86% of customers prioritise.
6. Incorporate your brand’s personality
While you’re getting to grips with an appropriate tone for your target demographic, don’t neglect personality. Ensure you keep in your audience’s memory by using different writing techniques. For example, you might imagine your brand as a character, and then think about how they would sound in conversation with your customer. Are they bold, friendly, or punchy? Or something else entirely?
7. Keep your audience interested
It’s one thing to entice your readers, but it’s another to make sure they keep browsing your site. ‘Dwell time’ and ‘time on site’ are two important SEO metrics to measure, and the longer you have a visitor’s attention, the likelier they are to move down your sales funnel. Consider the overall structure of your web content – gradually tell visitors a story and give them reasons to keep turning the page.
8. Pay attention to layout
Another way to convince people to spend their valuable time on your site is to use a layout that makes it easy for them to find what they’re looking for. Break content up so it’s simple to scan and digest – use concise paragraphs, subheaders (ideally integrating keywords if possible), and bullet points. Include icons, illustrations, and images too. And add links to related pages for further reading or to convert when they’re ready.
9. Include a clear call to action
Just like your opener, your call to action should offer a summary of what your piece is saying. If there’s a particular outcome you want readers to take away, specify it here. Depending on the content’s objective, you may want to link it back to your product or service. Or if you’re writing for entertainment or education purposes, detail how readers can get in touch.
10. Don’t forget to proofread
Finally, web content should be thoroughly checked for clarity, impact, and typos before it goes live. Proofreading can be the difference between looking like a professional and looking plain incompetent. So, don’t neglect this last step. We promise it’s easier than it seems.
Produce powerful web content with MYC
Struggling to capture your audience online? Whether you need support with blogs and landing pages or you’re building a new website from scratch, we can help.
Our holistic support will take you from crystallising your brand message, to creating compelling web content, to nurturing leads and planning campaigns. Speak to us today, and we’ll get to work creating effective content that aligns with your growth goals.
