Content Writing: Best Practices for Creating Compelling Web Content
There’s always more to learn about web content writing because industry trends and audience behavior constantly change. You will fall behind if you cannot keep up and adapt to the changes.
Read on to learn how you can create compelling website content that captures the attention of the audience right off the bat.
What is Web Content?
Web or website content refers to the main body of text on business websites. The content is crafted with the intention of helping businesses sell their products or services, increase website traffic and explain what the brand is about.
A website’s primary pages typically include About Us, Homepage, FAQ, and Service Page.
Best Practices for Writing Attractive Website Content
- Create buyer personas and know what the audience wants
Before you start crafting website content, it is essential to know your audience. You can start thinking like your readers or target audience by creating buyer personas.
Without understanding your audience, you cannot create marketable content. So first, find out what motivates their buying habits and how they behave. Then, use your insights and research to create buyer personas so you can create content that truly attracts the target audience.
Also, it would be best to find out what your audience wants. For example, are they seeking niche topics or trending topics? Then, according to the results of your research, you can start crafting the web copy.
- Improve your writing abilities
Hone your web content writing skills before you begin drafting the web copy. You can read interviews with well-known copywriters and learn their hacks, join forums or groups for writers, etc.
You can also sign up for writing crash courses to improve your writing skills and smooth out the nuances.
- Get to know the competitors
It is a good idea to research the competitors because visitors will compare all the similar websites offering the same products or services.
While studying the competitors, you must strategically decide whether you want to offer similar content or something different. This will help you to get ahead of the game.
- Ensure your copy is scannable
How you format your website content is essential. Typically, people skim through websites, so you must ensure your web copy can be scanned easily. The web copy must include numbered and bulleted lists, headers, subheadings, short paragraphs, white space between paragraphs, etc.
- Don’t use jargon
Avoid using jargon in your web copy. Instead, the content must be written in layman’s terms so everyone can read and understand what the website is trying to say.
Using simple language will bring more website traffic, and the readers will remember the message the website wants to convey.
Therefore, you must use short sentences, do not overuse adjectives and adverbs, do not use jargon, and provide examples so readers can visualize the message.
- Include a CTA
The purpose of writing web copy is to encourage the readers to act. For example, it might be that the website visitor must make a purchase, join the mailing list, subscribe to reading blogs, etc.
Including an impactful CTA will drive the website visitors to take the desired action. You can use action words like Join Now, Subscribe, Get a Call, Buy Now, etc.
- Proofread
Web content must be free of spelling and grammar mistakes. Also, there must not be punctuation errors. If the web copy is ladened with such errors, it will make the website copy appear unreliable and amateurish.
Therefore, you must thoroughly proofread the website content before making it live.
- Use keywords
The web copy must be optimized for Google and other search engines. For this, you must include keywords when writing website content.
However, it would be best to avoid keyword stuffing, as this can damage your rankings with search engines. Instead, it would be best to aim at 1-2% keyword density so that search engine crawlers can quickly understand and index the web copy.
- Hyperlink to relevant content
It is not possible for you to put all the information in the website content because you cannot expect the target audience to go through huge blocks of text.
However, hyperlinking to relevant information can make your web copy enjoyable. For instance, if you want someone to buy products or services, you can link the relevant page within the web copy. Ensure to make your links contextual and use them as part of your phrase or sentence.
Besides these, it is also good to add images and videos to make the web copy visually attractive.
Conclusion
Crafting meaningful and compelling website content is easier said than done. First, you must invest time and effort into research, formatting, and writing. Proofreading and editing are also essential to creating engaging website content that will drive traffic and rank on top in SERPs.