Website Pages Have to Connect with Visitors
Everyone in the internet industry has their own opinion about what makes effective content for a website. Some SEO experts have insisted that, to rank high, a web page needs at least 1,000 targeted, carefully crafted words on a particular subject. Others have put the number at 800. Still others claim that length doesn’t matter at all.
Of course, the use of keywords still counts in website content writing — at least until artificial intelligence makes them obsolete, a day that is getting all too close. But there’s more to writing engaging website content than relying on multiple keywords. And keyword stuffing is a bad practice anyway. (So use keywords, but don’t overuse them.)
But that’s still not the answer, since keywords are designed only to attract people to your website. Once they’ve arrived, keywords are unnecessary and superfluous. Something more is required if you want an effective website.
What Website Content Writing Is Supposed to Do
The Holy Grail of websites is persuading visitors to take action. That’s it, really. The conversion of a website visitor into a customer begins with a single mouse click. When people find their way to your website, which is in itself a remarkable feat, the website’s goal is getting them to:
- Want to learn more, which means visiting other pages on your website
- Contact your company through a contact form, a phone call or an email
- Sign up for your newsletter to stay in touch and maybe get special deals
- Order your product or service, ideally, but that rarely happens on the first visit
If your website content connects with visitors, it’s done its job. It’s generated a sales lead. The rest is up to you and your team.
But What’s the Best Way to Engage Visitors?
Now it gets down to the nitty gritty of websites. What separates the websites of successful companies from those of less successful companies? It’s all about engagement, getting visitors to stay on your website longer because they want to, because you’re giving them what they’ve been searching the internet for. And this is the crux of the best website content writing tip you’ll ever read.
This tip involves three parts:
- Know your audience. You have to know who you’re trying to attract with your website. You’re in business to serve your customers. You have to know who they are. Define your demographic and develop some personas.
- Understand what they want. When this target group of people come to your website, what is it they’re looking for? Information? Your phone number? Tips about your industry, products or services? You have to know what they want and make it all easy to find. That’s part website design, but it also involves good website content writing.
- Deliver it all in a responsive way. Even if you satisfy the first two requirements, if you don’t nail this one, your visitors click away to find your competitors who are doing all three. This is where presentation matters. This is where language matters. This is what so many businesses get wrong.
The Ray Access Vision for Website Content Writing
One of the factors that sets Ray Access projects apart from the rest of the internet — in addition to the careful editing process we employ — is the language and tone of the websites we write. It’s not enough to present clear, concise, easy-to-find information on your website, although that certainly helps make a website inviting.
To bring it home, you have to present your information in a way that speaks to your visitors. It’s an important distinction that demands a careful choice of words. Don’t use stilted language and passive voice. Write your website like you’re talking to a friend — because that’s what you want your website visitors to become.
Detailed Advice
Explain unusual or industry terms that come up because you know people will ask. Write in simple sentence structures and short paragraphs. Break up your page with easy-to-scan headings and relevant images. These things help people read and find what they’re looking for.
Short sentences and short paragraphs make a page more readable, more person-friendly. Concise words and phrases engage readers who are interested in the subject as well as readers who are new to your site. Simple website content writing — which is often the most difficult way to write — is the most engaging. Content that connects with your visitors gets readers to make that one click that matters most: on the Buy Now button.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.