This blog takes a look at the golden rules of writing website copy. It would be useful for content writers, marketers, strategists, and startup and small business owners.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Let’s begin this blog with some data.
According to a recent survey, visitors take only 50 milliseconds to form an opinion about a website. In that short time, all they can do is scan the headlines and form an initial impression.
A poorly designed website with irrelevant information can drive 38% of users away. On the other hand, a recent UK study claims that websites with high-quality copy and proper SEO rank about 53% higher in search engine results. This means more organic traffic ultimately leading to a booming revenue growth.
Clearly, no business that takes its revenue growth seriously can afford to ignore its website copy.
But first things first.
What does a website do for a business?
It builds credibility
What is the first thing anyone does when they want to check or look up something? That’s right, they Google. A good website validates the existence of a business and can increase its visibility a great deal.
It feeds multiple marketing channels
A website creates an archive of compelling and good content that can be edited into bite-sized pieces and shared across social media.
For example, you can write a good, relevant, value-enriched blog for your website and then create a podcast from it.
You can then keep sharing bits of it as reels, videos, etc. across Instagram and LinkedIn.
That’s months of social media content sorted for you.
It creates brand awareness
This one thing done right can change the Google SEO game for you. If you have enough relevant content on your website, you might get a lot of organic website traffic.
Say you own a cosmetics brand and you have a lot of content on your website about “ How to Apply Makeup”, “ Ten Trendy Lipstick Shades” etc. A lot of people who were previously not aware of your brand might discover it by chance.
Publishing around 16 blog posts per month can increase your website traffic by 3.5 times.
It is your whole time, 24/7 salesperson across the world
Websites are always active, responsible, accessible, and approachable. Anybody from anywhere can reach you through your website.
This also helps a business in tracking data to understand who are the people who are taking an active interest, in other words, who are the potential customers.
This helps in creating services to improve customer experiences.
It is a great place to tell your story
Every business has a story. A narrative that talks about how it came to be and what difference it makes to the world. A website is a great place to tell the brand’s story directly. This is an excellent way to give a human face to the brand. The more a brand becomes relatable, the more chances of it becoming a consumer favorite.
In simpler terms, the website is the brand’s human face, that is presented to the consumer. E-commerce websites serve an even more important function as business mainly occurs through them.
Website content plays an extremely important part in making a website memorable, engaging, and relatable.
The different kinds of websites
The most popular kinds of websites are:
Business Websites: Those which talk about the business or the brand at length and do not sell anything directly from the website.
(Source: https://www.tata.com/)
E-commerce Websites: Those which are used to directly sell products.
(Source: https://www.flipkart.com/)
Blog Websites: These websites host a number of blogs and indirectly generate leads for a specific brand.
(Source: https://blog.ipleaders.in/)
Media Websites: These websites host a lot of videos and articles. Most of these websites generate revenue through subscriptions.
(Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/)
Lead Generation Websites: These websites often have only a landing page and a big and bold CTA button.
(Source: https://www.flowersofcharlotte.com)
Some of the other types of websites are portfolio websites (individuals who offer creative services often put their work up in a simple website for easy sharebility), non-profit websites (these websites carry the achievements and origin stories of non-profit organizations), event websites (they carry all the details of a specific event like venue, date, time and also a button for online booking) etc.
You can see that all of these websites have different sections and serve different purposes. For example, business websites are focused on showcasing their brands and achievements, as well as their origin stories, e-commerce websites are more focused on showing their range, lead generation websites are all about generating leads quicker.
The most important thing to note here is that all of these websites use different kinds of copy. While e-commerce websites use as little copy as possible, putting more emphasis on products or product descriptions, business websites use storytelling techniques to build a solid brand presence.
Two deadly effective storytelling techniques for website content
If you are selling a solution through your website or your objective is to generate revenue without directly selling products, here are the two best formats you can use.
In order to show you how these two frameworks work, I would take the help of a hypothetical brand. Let’s assume I am writing copy for a website which offers SEO optimized web copy solutions to businesses.
PAS – Problem Agitate Solution
Here’s an example.
Problem: How the problem affects you
It must be so difficult running a full-blown business, taking care of products, catering to customer demands, and finding out more ways to generate business every day.
Agitate: Appeal to emotions
We can imagine the frustration you must feel with your website. It is supposed to generate leads automatically after all the money and time you have spent on it, but right now it is little more than just a domain name.
Solve: Introduce the brand as the solution
This is where we (name of the content solution providing brand) come in. We create SEO optimized content that generates 3x leads for your business.
Book a free call with us today for a website copy audit.
Use the AIDA framework
Alternatively, you could use the Attention-Interest-Desire-Action (AIDA) framework to write your website copy instead of the PAS formula. This approach breaks down the content into four key elements:
Attention
Grab the reader’s attention with a bold headline or compelling statement that addresses their pain point.
Example: Did you know effective website copy can give you 54% more leads than traditional marketing methods?
Interest: Explain how your solution can solve their problem and capture their interest.
Example: Our website copy solutions have helped xx businesses in yy countries garner 3x more leads within the first 30 days!
Desire: Create desire by demonstrating the benefits of using your product or service.
Example: Do you want to try it for yourself and see how easy it can be to generate business via your website by changing only the copy?
Action: Finally, include a clear call-to-action (CTA) that encourages the reader to take the next step
Example: Book a free consultation with our copy experts today.
What are the steps in writing a good website copy?
Step 1
Define the purpose and the type. As discussed earlier, websites can be of different types. Determine the type of website you want to create at the very first step.
Step 2
Determine the consumer persona. Who you write for is of paramount importance in marketing communication. The consumer persona is a hypothetical representation of the ideal buyer type built on data gathered from user information. There are several ways to gather this information, like web traffic and surveys. One of the easiest ways to gather this data is through social media polls.
Step 3
Choose a storytelling framework for the main lead generating page with an easily visible CTA.
Step 4
Provide relevant information with a synergy in copy for all the other pages.
Which is the ideal content model for websites?
The inverted pyramid
People have a minuscule amount of attention span these days. Keep the most important information about your business on the top. As people scroll down they receive less information and more visuals.
A design to copy the approximate ratio is also shown in this next diagram.
( Source: https://www.jimdo.com/blog/11-golden-rules-of-writing-website-content/)
What are the rules we need to follow to write effective website content?
Length and Formatting
Keep copy short and concise and do not write sentences that are longer than 30 – 35 words. This enhances readability. Remember, that a lot of people would be accessing your website from their mobiles as well.
74% of people are more likely to return to a site that is mobile-friendly. (WebFX)
Keep spaces between paragraphs and do not make any paragraph more than three to four sentences long at max. This will help your reader/user/consumer read it more easily.
Use bullets whenever you need to give out a bunch of technical information.
Language
Avoid lengthy and uncommon words. Depending on whether you are building brand image or directly selling from your website, the tone can range anywhere from professional to downright quirky.
But, the thumb rule remains that the content must be understood by all.
( Source: https://www.upwork.com/)
Notice the bullets and the vocabulary in this example.
Nothing complex or difficult about it, is there?
This is how website copy needs to be written.
Voice
Stick to active voice. This makes the copy dynamic, energetic, and action-oriented.
Jargon
Avoid jargon and insider words. Usage of insider terms alienates the readers. For example, where you are itching to write “state-of-the-art”, write “advanced” instead.
Uniformity
Use the same word for the same thing throughout the copy. If you are an automobile dealer, don’t call the vehicles automobile in one section and cars in the next.
How to measure the effectiveness of your website copy?
Here are some key metrics to measure the effectiveness of your website copy.
Total visits
How many people are visiting your website per day/ in a specific time period? It is vital to know this to know the effectiveness of your website content.
Unique visits
This is similar to website visits, but if Mr. X visits your website five times, it will calculate it as one visit and help you track which sections Mr. X is visiting more frequently than the others.
Page views
Which of the pages is generating the most traffic to your website? If you know this, you can optimize the rest of your website copy by keeping that page as a model.
Conversion rate
Is the user taking any action after the visit? Is s/he mentioning you on social media, buying from you, filling up a form on your website? If the conversion rate is low then your copy is failing to reach the mark.
Session duration
How much time are they spending on your website? If the copy is effective, then the visitor would be spending a long time on your website.
Google ranking
Is your website ranking on the first page of Google? The best websites rank in the first 3 of Google ranking. If not you need to reanalyze the whole content and the SEO also.
Now you not only know how to write effective website copy but how to measure the effectiveness as well! can write an effective website as simply as saying ABC!
Did you find it helpful?
Drop me a line to know if it did!
FAQ
What is the first thing you need to know in order to write a website?
The purpose determines the tone and entire layout of the website. The whole copy will be dependent on whether you are selling from your website or only creating a digital presence.
How is device compatibility important in making a website?
More than 60% of consumers use mobile devices to read content on the web. The website content must be readable on any device.
How to enhance the readability of website copy?
Use white spaces and avoid long and complicated sentences. Use bullets whenever you can.
How does SEO help in boosting website traffic?
SEO boosts website traffic by improving search rankings, making your site more visible to users searching for relevant keywords. It enhances user experience, credibility, and organic reach, driving consistent and high-quality traffic.
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