Make Your Website Content More Effective

When setting up a new website, most business owners will focus on the design and the look of the new website.

So when their web designer asks them for the text they often see it as a task to get done and out of the way as quickly as possible - the idea being that if the website looks good, you will get enquiries. Having now seen many professional looking websites that get lots of hits but few new customers, however, it is important to understand what a difference writing effective web copy makes.

Many small business owners are experienced in their trade or profession but have little formal marketing experience, and as such most websites are filled with text that has been rushed by business owners so busy in the day to day activities of their businesses that they don’t get much time to sit down and really plan their content.

So if you’re reading this, you have either written your text for your website already, or are about to start, this is a simple guide which if you implement the ideas here, will improve your websites results.

Firstly, some questions to ask yourself before you start:

1. What kind of people do you want to attract through this website – who are your ideal customers (e.g. general public, small business owners, men, women, teenagers, the older generation)?

2. How can you tailor the content to those people? (For example should the language be formal or informal, should you use lots of technical detail or make it easy for the ‘layperson’ to understand, etc)

3. What are the BENEFITS of your product/service? (Most people talk about the features of their product or service but not enough about why those features are important and why they will benefit the person/organisation that uses that product or service). For example ‘Our wooden furniture is made from the finest quality hardwood timber (feature), which means that they not only look great now but will still look great in 20 years time (benefit)’.

4. Why should they buy from YOUR business, i.e. what is different about your business? Why do your existing customers use you rather than anyone else they could buy from? If you can list 3-5 good strong reasons then include these in your copy – your existing customers already know you’re a great company to work with but potential ones don’t and you needto show them exactly why you are good and what they can expect.

5. What action do you want them to take once they’ve read your website – do you want them to call you, fill out an online form, buy something online with their credit card?

Now you have answered these questions you can start to put together the content for the different pages.