Nearly every business has a website these days, but not every business owner knows how to write copy for it in the right way.
If your new website is looking less than professional or hasn’t been attracting the clientele you’d hoped, then you might need to rethink the words you have on your homepage.
You don’t have to be a wordsmith to do a good job, but partnering with an SEO company in Belfast can help you to maximise results. Professionals not only understand how to write in an engaging way, but they can give you the best chance at being discovered in search engines as well. But if you do want to have a go by yourself, make sure you’re following these tips:
Understand your audience
It’s very hard to write for a faceless entity you know nothing about, so make sure you have a clear idea of who your customer is before you start. You’ll need to think about their needs, age range, gender, shopping habits and personality – try to back up as much of this as you can with data. Once you know who you’re addressing, you’ll be able to make smarter decisions about your tone of voice.
Keep things simple
Most audiences don’t want to read reams and reams of text. If your web pages require users to scroll through long paragraphs, they’ll probably lose interest long before you actually get to the point. Keep your sentences short and try to give your readers all the information they need to know in as few words as possible. Avoid waffling on and get straight to the point. If you do want to offer customers additional information, consider creating a gated eBook or educational blog post you can link to for those who want to know more.
Use visual aids
Visuals can help you to break up walls of text and keep your customers engaged for longer. Try using bullet point lists, bold text and headings to make your writing easier to scan. You can even create infographics that relate to the text on a webpage, drawing a reader’s eye and allowing them to get information more quickly. To be as accessible as possible, include videos with subtitles and audio narration to help everyone understand your content.
Avoid technical language
If your audience isn’t well-versed in all the ins and outs of your industry, avoid jargon and overly-technical language. Remember that your clients are coming to you for a service they likely can’t take care of themselves, so you need to put everything in terms they will understand. Never assume a client will know what you’re talking about simply because a piece of copy is well-written. If you do need to use jargon, make sure you break down different concepts and explain terms with mini definitions.
Writing good copy takes a significant amount of practice, but the more you do it the better you’ll get. Consider hiring an editor to take a look at what you produced to make sure it’s perfect.
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Writing copy for your business website
