Determine the purpose of the website content
You can't write good content for a website without knowing why you're writing it.
Is the content on the website intended to sell a product? Should it attract new customers? Should he recruit new employees or help you find sponsors? Once you know the main goal of the website content you are creating, it will be much easier for you to write better texts that will help you achieve your goal.
But before you get started right away, you should know who you're writing the content for.
Who is your target group
Remember: You're writing for human readers. people! What you say and how you say it depends on factors such as:
- Their level of knowledge
If you expect your texts to be addressed to experts, you'll most likely use a different language than if you're reaching out to beginners. The be-all and end-all of writing effective website content is being able to answer your target audience's questions better than anyone else, so you have a great chance of winning them over as customers
- How and where do your site visitors come from?
When you understand where your users are coming from or what they're looking for when they land on your site, you can position your content accordingly and in a targeted manner.
- The interests of your customers
If you know what your target audience is interested in, you can better prepare content and find out which elements you need to incorporate into your website texts to keep them on your website longer. Because we know that Google likes it when users stay on a website for a long time and your chances of converting a user into a customer also increase.
Take a look at the competition
Writing good website content depends on a comprehensive overview of the competitive landscape. Comparing your website with that of your competitors provides important insights that will impact the website texts you write. And for the following reason:
Your visitors also visit your competitors' websites. Take a look at what is still missing from your website or what you can do differently or better. You can also identify industry trends in website content by studying the competition. This enables you to identify strategic changes or new tactics that your competitors are trying out early on and not be the last to hear about them.
You can use data from your competitors to compare your site's performance. Get an overview of traffic, backlinks, and keywords that your competitors' websites rank for so that you can set realistic goals that you can measure yourself against every month. Competitor analysis can also inspire you to write about new topics.
Structure is everything
Before you start writing website content, you should make a plan for how the individual pages fit together. This is easy to do with a pen and a pad or with a design program such as Adobe XD. It is important that you then have a visual overview of your pages and then know which texts you need.
For example, a website may consist of the following pages: - Home - Service - About us - References - Contact
Purpose and goal
Before you write content for a page on your site, you should decide what purpose the page should serve. When you're thinking about how to write your website content, make sure the texts on each page serve the intended purpose.
For example, your homepage serves as the main entrance to your website and helps visitors understand who you are and what you're doing at a glance. Different areas are briefly and concisely teased, which gives the user an overview of the most important concepts and helps them to find the next step.
You might also write website content for landing pages. Landing pages are pages that were developed for a single focused goal. They are designed to prompt the user to take action and are created for one of the following purposes:
Click-throughs: a page that should take the user to another website
Lead generation: a page that is intended to persuade the user to enter their data into an opt-in form
Purchase: a page that is intended to entice the user to make a purchase
Blog posts are also website content, but are usually used to provide information and build brand awareness. These are mostly time-limited pages that often relate to a current, timely, seasonal or newsworthy topic, while landing pages are usually “evergreen” pages.
Some of your pages may be designed to attract visitors who search online. If the purpose of your content is to attract searchers, it's important that you use a good keyword.
A keyword is the most important term that search engines should associate with your site. Before you even start writing, you should find the best keyword for your page.
Tips to keep in mind
Use the inverted pyramid
This means that you give the reader the most important information at the beginning of the page and less important information at the bottom of the page. The inverted pyramid corresponds to the way people read on the Internet.
Focus on benefits, not features
If you want to highlight products, services, or offers, show the reader what they're getting out of it. Don't bore the reader with technical details, such as the technical specifications of a laptop, but tell the user how pleasant it is to work with this laptop and what added value it brings to him. Explain what life looks like before and after taking action, and tell the reader how their life will improve when they take the next step.
Short and concise
- Use short sentences and phrases. Avoid complex language that loses the reader and omit any unnecessary or flowery information. Limit yourself to just saying what the reader needs to know.
- Avoid buzzwords and jargon. Don't try to confuse the reader by using technical terms that no one understands. Write in the same language that your target audience uses to express themselves.
Bullets and formatting
Help your reader find their way around by breaking up the text with bullet points, bold italics, and different font sizes and types. Skim over your text and make sure the key points stand out.
Speak directly to the reader
Texts are more effective when they're aimed directly at your target group. Use the same language that you would use to personally address your readers. Even if you don't want your text to contain glaring grammatical errors, it's okay to deviate from strict academic writing rules. If it sounds more natural to end a sentence with a preposition or to use an incomplete sentence, then you may be breaking the rules. But only do this if it makes the text sound clearer and more natural.
End the page with a clear call to action
You should consider how you can get the reader to take action on your site. Use a clear call to action at the bottom of every page to initiate this activity. Tell the reader exactly what they should do and why they should take action.
Trust through reviews and evidence
Show readers why they can trust you or your product. You can back up your statements with testimonials, statistics, data, social media mentions, and positive reviews.
Put yourself in the position of your site visitor
What could prevent site visitors from taking action? Address these concerns and offer options such as free trials and money-back guarantees to make it impossible for the target audience to resist your offer.
Back to the beginning
Now that we've covered the end of the page, it's time to take another look at the beginning.
Review your headline
Like pretty much everyone, you probably wrote a headline for your page first when you started working on the text. Once you've written all the text on your page, it may make sense to revise the headline again and check whether it's meaningful enough.
Headlines for websites
Clear: Word games or clever headlines may occasionally work for blog posts or social media, but try to avoid that for landing page headlines. It's better to get straight to the point here and explain clearly what the page is about.
Relevant: The headline must be relevant to the content of the page, the call to action, and the link that led the user to the page. Tailor your headlines to the language of the call to action, ad, or promotion that brought visitors to the page. Then make sure that the rest of the text and the call to action match the page's main title.
Wish-oriented: Use your headline as an opportunity to present the action you want people to take when they get what they want on your page. In the headline, present the main solution, benefit, or outcome that the action will bring.
Headlines are an important point to focus on, as the right headline can make a big difference in how your site performs.
Add non-text page elements
The guidelines for creating website content include much more than just the text. To create strong, high-conversion landing pages and other website content, you should also pay attention to the non-textual elements on the page. Include visual elements that illustrate concepts (rather than relying on the words to describe them).
Elements that should not be missing on any website:
Images - Buttons - Text Calls - Icons - White Space - Gifs - Charts - Videos - Line Breaks - Variations of Background Colors and Images
Make edits
Once you've written the content of a page, it's best to set it aside, even if it's just for a few hours. If you then come back with a fresh look, you'll be more likely to see opportunities for improvement.
Possible improvements:
- Correct typos
- Improve weak word choice
- Rewording unclear sections
- Reinforce the headline
- Linking to other content on your site
You might be surprised what catches your eye. It's also a good time to improve your site's content for search engine optimization.
Optimize your website for SEO
Depending on the purpose of your site, you might want people to find you using search. So when you're writing content for your site, you should follow SEO best practices so that your page gets found for your main keyword.
Use the main keyword naturally, more often across your content. It's good if your text has a high keyword density without interfering with your reading flow. A keyword density of around 1-2% is ideal because it's enough to tell search engines what the page is about without cluttering the page with too many uses of the same word, which can have a negative impact on your search engine rankings.
Use the keyword not only in the main text, but also in the following SEO content elements:
- Page title (the heading that is visible on the page)
- At least one sub-heading (the text that is formatted with H2, H3, H4, and so on)
- Title tag (the 50-60 character long page title that is embedded in the page's code)
- Meta description (the 150-160 character summary of the page that is embedded in the page's code)
- Image alt tags (the text that describes an image and appears when the image doesn't load correctly)
- Link to the new page from other pages on your website.
Update your content
Now that you know how to write content for a website, you might be surprised that this is when your work really starts. It's important to keep your site's content up to date, and now is a good time to plan how you're going to update your site later on.
Consider A/B testing for landing page content on your site
Especially when creating targeted landing pages, you should test different versions of your page to see which generates the most conversions (the percentage of users who take the desired action on the page).
Create your site with different variations:
- Headings
- Subheadings
- Calls to action
- Button colors
- Pictures
- layouts
- Traits
A/B testing take turns playing the different versions of your website to the user. By collecting the conversion rate and other statistics, it is possible to determine which variant leads to better sales transactions.
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