Writing for Your Website

Content is STILL King

For better or for worse, the words that we use set a tone, and form, in others, a distinct impression of our personality. Of course, when we communicate "in person," we augment our words with a continuous, real-time feedback loop in the form of facial expressions, body language, and gestures, all of which go a long way toward influencing how the listener responds to the messages we're trying to convey. These factors all contribute to whether or not our words are credible, and whether or not the listener "trusts" us as a messenger.

In the online world, we lose access to the non-verbal cues that are so important in our one-to-one communication. As a result, our audience evaluates our online messages very differently, and — without the ongoing reinforcement of our body language and expressiveness — it is MUCH more difficult to evoke trust and, in the case of say, a sales message, to move toward a "close."

Content is More Important Than Ever

Writing for the web requires a slightly different approach than, say, scripting what you'd say in person, or even in a telephone conversation, where some limited real-time feedback is still taking place. To compound things, according to web usability guru Jakob Nielsen, during an average site visit, users read only 28% of the words on the typical web page. So you really need to get to the point quickly... and convincingly. Nielsen says, for example, that the introductory paragraph(s) found at the top of many Web pages — what he refers to as "blah-blah text" — is typically skipped-over by readers, who tend to go directly to more action-oriented content, such as product features, bulleted lists, or hypertext links. So, Nielsen recommends that writers "cut to the chase" with their web content. Don't waste word count on generic, feel-good material. Hey... it's not going to make your prospects or customers "feel good" anyway, so why bother? Your site visitors only want to learn whether or not your product or service will help to solve their problems — and as quickly as possible — so they can leave your site and move on to other business.

When prospects — or clients — visit your website, they don't have the same opportunity to analyze what you're saying against a continual flow of non-verbal cues. Accordingly, it's really up to your choice of words to help them decide whether or not to trust what you're saying, and ultimately, your business and brand. The words you choose, and the way in which you present them, create an impression in the mind of the reader, so be respectful of your audience, and when writing web copy, try to put yourself in their place. Limit hyperbole— words like amazing or unbelievable — and stick to a more basic style of writing. Also, you should write in terms that reflect your audience's language, as well. If your audience typically calls something a "widget," but you refer to it as a "doodad," you're gonna have a communication problem.

Making Your Website Headlines Work for You

Writing good headlines for your website has nothing to do with writing great literature, or even articles in newspapers or magazines. Great website headlines are worth their weight in gold, but knowing how to create them is not particularly intuitive, nor is it something that you can learn by emulating what you read in newspapers and magazines. In traditional print media, the reader has clearly decided to engage and browse through the publication, while on the web, there are an unlimited number of distractions, all just a mouse click away. Folks who are browsing a website typically don't wander through the site looking for articles of interest, in the same way that they might with a magazine or newspaper. They rely on search engines to search and discover content, so once someone manages to find your site, you have an extremely limited window of opportunity in which to engage them and maintain their attention. For maximum effectiveness, you'll want to:

• Ensure that your content is easily found via search engines
• Increase your visibility and exposure on the topics about which you write
• Attract better-targeted visitors who have real interest in what you have to say

While this article is not focused on Search Engine Optimization (SEO), there are many aspects of your writing style that can help to bolster your ranking in search engines. Headlines can be particularly important. To write effective headlines for your website, you'll want to:

1. Keep your title short — Three to six words is the ideal length, with ten words probably the limit. Search engines such as Google give "high relevance" to only the first set of words you use in the title, and they will typically display only around 8 to 10 words in their results pages (Google and MSN; Yahoo displays up to 16 words). Also, Google looks at the opening keywords of your title and checks to see whether or not they are reinforced in your own content before deciding where to place your page inside search engine result pages.
2. Don't try to to be "clever," by using irony, puns, plays on words, or any other journalistic approach. Your title should really be more of a "label" for your article, making it easy to find for folks who are using search engines to find articles (such as yours) that are actually of interest to them. Remember, too, that on the web, headlines are often displayed out of context. Make it easy for visitors to find yourcontent!
3. Your headlines should be able to stand on their own — If somebody was to read your title without the associated article, would they have a clue about the content? Your headline needs to be self-sufficient, and make sense when the rest of the content is not readily available.
4. Use the same terminology that your visitors would use — Put yourself in the shoes of your prospects, and think about what search terms they would use to search for your product or service... or, better still, your competitor's product. Use this knowledge to craft headlines that will be most meaningful to your audience.

Website Body Copy: Short and Sweet

First, make your "word count" for online viewing about half the word count you might use when writing for print collaterals. Many users find it tiring to read too much text on screens, and they also tend to read more slowly on computer screens than they do on paper. Use simple sentence structures. On the web, convoluted writing and complex words are even harder to understand than they are in print. Remember that web users are impatient and critical. They haven't gone to your site because you are a wonderful person, but because they have something that they need to accomplish. Write in a simple, non-hyperbolic style that allows them to quickly find the information they need.

Also, recognize that visitors — especially those arriving through a search engine — can enter your site at virtually any page, and they can easily move back-and-forth between pages, so make sure that each page is independent of the others, and covers its respective topic without assumptions about the previous page (or the home page, for that matter) having actually been seen by the visitor. It's also a good idea to provide links to background info or explanations to explain names or concepts that might not be clear to the casual reader.

Limit the amount of scrolling that your visitors need to do, and put your most important information at the top, so that it can be seen without any scrolling at all. If you do feel the need to have lengthy pages, make sure that you provide a "Back to Top" anchor link at both the bottom of the page. Also, the Web is a fluid medium, so update your content frequently. Statistics, numbers, and examples all need to be recent, or your company's credibility will suffer. For example, before a conference, your page about the event might have a link to a general info page or even a registration form; afterward, you might have a recap of the event, or provide links to slides or transcripts of a presentation that was given at the conference.

Lastly, most web visitors scan pages; they do not read word-by-word, so if you've got a lot of uninterrupted text, think of ways to make your document easy on the eyes. For example, to make important words or ideas stand out, use highlighting, as it will aid in their visual scanning of the page.

Fresh Eyes Can Improve Your Web Content

Keep your writing crisp and simple. Each paragraph should contain just one main idea; use a second paragraph for a second idea, since readers will often skip over any ancillary points as they scan over the paragraph. When you finally think you have a good finished product, be sure to have others proof it... not just for typos and grammatical errors, but also to see if it "makes sense" to a casual reader. Readers who don't really know much about your business can often make for great editors... their lack of industry or product knowledge enables them to spot problems that might not be obvious to you, so enlist your spouses, friends or relatives. The end result will be better for the effort!

Some Easy Tips for Enhancing Your Website

Businesses live or die by their websites. But even the most savvy businesses don't always understand how to make them more effective, and wind up spending inordinate amounts of money of redesigns, Flash animations, and the kind of "gee whiz" functionality that might look impressive but really does nothing to enhance -- and is frequently harmful to -- conversion rates. What folks should be focusing on is ways to make it easier for visitors to find what they're looking for, and make it easier to convert them from visitors into paying customers. Seems fairly obvious, doesn't it? But a surprising number of businesses just don't get it. So, here's a collection of some easy (and cheap) to implement tips that can provide an immediate -- and measurable -- return on your online marketing investment.

1. Understand the Language Your Audience is Using. As a simple example, in the software business, some folks might use the term programmers, while others use the term engineers. Since you're not really sure which term might be used in searches, consider including both. That way, you don't have to be worried about which term is preferred by your prospective site visitor, and you won't lose out on prospective opportunities because of a simple linguistic concern.
2. Optimize Your Copy, Titles, and "Alt" Labels to Improve Natural Search Results.  This is really low-hanging fruit, and doesn't involve engaging a whole cadre of programmers.  Make sure that your headlines and subheads, as well as Alt tags utilize keywords that your intended audience will be searching on. Consider including a glossary of those terms elsewhere on the site, to improve orgaic search rankings.
3. Make it Easy for Visitors to Reach You. This is another one that seems painfully obvious, but once again, a lot of businesses don't take full advantage of it.  You want to ensure that folks who already want to engage with you can do so easily. This means, simplifying the check-out (or even the "Contact Us") process by using clear language, eliminating superflous content or images, and ensuring that a "call to action" -- whether it be an "Order Now" link or just a "Contact Us" button -- is available on not only your main navigation, but also at the end of every page of significant content about your product or service. A simple "Learn more about we can help you to (fill in the blank)" link puts your call to action right in front of your site visitor, at the very moment when they're most likely to want to engage with you. Make it easy for them to do so!
4. Tell Your Visitors Where They Are on Your Site.  Adding cues makes it easier for a visitor to navigate through your site. Let's day that they've reached your site as a result of a search, and landed on a third- or fourth-level page. By including "breadcrumbs" or other hierarchical links, this enables users to immediately determine exactly where they are on your site, and helps them to quickly find the content they came for.
5. Use Consistent and Persistent Navigation. Surprisingly, I recently came across a relatively "new" site for an established software development company that had no consistent navigation. Once you left the home page, a completely different navigation scheme ensued for each section. It was virtually impossible to figure out where you were, and while a lot of the site content was very informative, finding it was next to impossible. And because of the unnecessarily complex site architecture, it was extremely difficult to make even minor updates to the site. Of course, this site was done "in-house," by otherwise-talented programmers, albeit with limited User Interface experience, and directed by one of the partners, who really had no clue what he was doing, but insisted vehemently on doing things "his" way. Not surprisingly, they're on their third iteration of the site in as many years, and each iteration has been progressively worse than the previous one. Don't let this happen to you!
   
   There are MANY resources currently available on the web to help you learn about best practices in site navigation, and you owe it to yourself to take advantage of them, and ensure that your site developers -- whether out-sourced or in-house -- are actually utilizing them. There's nothing worse than getting someone to your site, then losing them because they can't find what they came for!
6. Flash: Use it Where it Makes Sense, or Don't Use it At All. Flash is cool. Everyone knows that. Those great animations make your site look lively and encourage interaction. But did you know that using Flash in your navigation scheme actually reduces your ability to be found in web searches? The problem is that search engine "spiders" can not read text embedded in Flash files, at all. The links contained within a Flash .swf wrapper are not at all accessible to spiders, so you are automatically excluding important page content from being indexed by the major search engines. There are workarounds, but they involve creating an alternate version of your code, which means more work both to create and maintain. Not really a viable solution.
   
   Bottom line? Flash works great for animating images, or adding interactivity within a page, say, for a demo or explainer. But for navigation? I strongly recommend against it. For simple animation of rollover buttons and such, Javascript or CSS is much preferable, and will allow all important parts of your website to be accessible to search engines, and, accordingly, to your intended audience. 
7. Make Sure That All Key Functionality is On Your Home Page.  Make sure that all important functionality -- such as customer log-ins, "Contact Us" links, and special offers on products or services -- is front and center on your home page. Instead of making your users click a link to get to that functionality, make it easy for them to find it. For navigation, drop-down and flyout menus provide your site visitor with an easy way of drilling into your site with the fewest number of clicks or keystrokes. Exposing subcategories like this will help create more awareness of your offerings, providing cross-sell and up-sell opportunities that might otherwise go un-noticed.

Not every website investment pays big dividends, but the tips listed above can be very affordable and very effective. By understanding the business goals for your site, you can make intelligent decisions about how to increase your site's search visibility, and improve its clarity -- and effectiveness -- to visitors who actually hit the site!