How Website Copy Can Have an Impact on Your Online Marketing Efforts
In today’s visually oriented advertising climate, it’s important not to overlook a tried and true principle: words sell. If you don’t think it’s true, tune in to the radio. And how many TV commercials have persuaded a purchase with the volume down? In the somewhat different medium of the internet, visuals can’t be overlooked, but don’t neglect the content either. While design may draw visitors in, content will keep them there. Carefully crafted copy, or the lack thereof, can have a substantial impact on your online marketing efforts.
While a picture’s worth a thousand words, don’t assume the opposite is true. It’s not, and that holds for web copy. Most readers scan web pages, they don’t read them, so don’t use 100 words when you can use 10 or 20. Use shorter everything: words, sentences, and paragraphs. If readers want a novel, they’ll pick up Hemingway—not your website.
Here’s a basic for all copywriting mediums: your style and tone should match your audience. How well do you know your target market?
- Age: young, old, teenager, or the over 30 crowd?
- Gender: male, female, or both?
- Household income: deep pockets or budget-minded?
Consider other factors relevant to your website’s readers such as occupation, education, or race/ethnic group. Knowing your audience helps you carefully craft your marketing message. As a rule, a conversational, concise style is better than multisyllabic, lofty prose.
Group text together in meaningful, easy-to-search ways. Use headings, bulleted lists, and call-out quotes. This breaks the copy down into less daunting chunks and allows your reader to find the information they want.
- Bulleted lists turn long paragraphs into manageable bites
Seeing too much of the same old ( insert name of favorite font here)? Try italics.
Make headings, key product features, and other beneficial information stand out in bold.
ALL CAPS ALSO EFFECTIVELY CALLS ATTENTION TO TEXT.
Who, what, when, where, why, and how—another tenet of good copywriting, gleaned from the folks behind the news desk. Give your readers pertinent information, sooner than later. In fact, start with it, that’s what the “inverted pyramid” style should do: provide the meat of the information first. If you’ve got what they’re looking for, they’ll keep reading. Keep this information “above the fold.” In newspapers, this means top half of the page. On your website, this means on the initial view of the webpage—visitors shouldn’t have to scroll down. They usually won’t. They’ll just look somewhere else.
What makes you stand out from the crowd? Customers need to know why they should buy your product over the Acme brand or XYZ Company. State your product’s unique selling points and how it will benefit them (hint: “you,” “your,” and other forms of first-person are your best friend). Not “This curling iron makes hair extra curly” but “Our curling iron will give you the curls you’ve dreamed of”—or something to that effect.
- Know your search engine—use key words.
The effective use of keywords is integral to search engine optimization.
Search engines, including Google, in part link to your website based on key terms. To keep it elementary, if you sell adult baseball cleats, you’d be a wise copywriter to include “adult,” “baseball,” and “cleats” as much as naturally possible in your copy. Keywords should also be used in HTML title tags.
Don’t forget it’s called the World Wide WEB for a reason. The internet is made for connecting, for linking. To serve as a valuable resource, your site should provide links to other relevant web pages. Oh yeah, this also helps with your SEO efforts. Search engines rank, again, in part, based on how many sites link to you.
So you’ve cranked out a few pages of copy for your site. Now you’re done right?
Sorry, the fun’s just starting. Give yourself some time away from your copy and
come back to it. You’ll be surprised what stands out. Maybe “amazing” was your favorite word that day, and it’s amazing how many times you used it in one paragraph. Perhaps spell check missed a few air ors in your spelling. Whatever the case, professional, mistake-free copy communicates quality services and products.
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