by Anoop Rohera,
published October 10, 2008
syndicated: 1 | total views: 130 |
word count: 696
laesbarhedsindex readability score: Difficult Readability
website: http://www.kirkcommunications.com
M
any believe that writing for the Web is the equivalent of placing brochure copy in between html tags. While it’s true that your key messages should be consistent across media, there are unique aspects about web readers that make writing for the Web an exciting, and different, world from that of print.
Getting to know the Web Reader
While we try to avoid generalizations, and every website has its own unique visitor base, it’s safe to say that reading on the Web is not the same as reading a brochure. Web visitors are less likely to spend an extensive amount of time trying to find the information they’re looking for, and you won’t find the same level of patience for long and elaborate introductions to your product portfolio as you might be have for someone reading a brochure after a sales meeting. So keep the following points in mind when writing content for your website:
Keep it short
People often refer to copy “above the fold” or “scroll”, which basically refers to how much copy a visitor can read without scrolling the page. Whether or not you place anything below the scroll is your decision, but be sure to position your most important and strategic messages above the fold, so that even the most impatient of web readers will see your key messages when they first hit the page.
Remember the goal
Instead of just presenting the reader with “nice-to-know” information, you want to keep firmly in mind why they are there and what you want them to do. While this is a fundamental principle of all effective copy, it becomes increasingly important in the web environment, where readers expect to find what they need quite quickly. Do your homework
As we discussed in our Website development piece, you need to look at your existing website statistics to get a clear idea of what information captures the attention of your audience. Statistics can also be valuable ways of measuring the effectiveness of your content. Try monitoring one page over a period of time, making changes to the positioning of key messages and calls-to-action to see if this has an impact on the time spent on the page and its overall conversion rate, i.e. how well it prompts the reader to complete the desired action, e.g. downloading a brochure or requesting a sales contact.
Ready, set, action!
Make him do something! Once you have visitors on the page, don’t miss out on the opportunity to convert them from casual browsers to actual prospects or leads. How is this done? By using calls-to-action. Make sure that each page on your website tells readers exactly what you want them to do once they’ve finished reading your pitch. The particular call-to-action depends a great deal on your business and your audience, but make sure there is one.
They don’t always start at the beginning
While it might seem logical to develop your web content based on a step-by-step process, where visitors are introduced to your company via your homepage and then directed through an introduction to your products and services followed by a sales pitch to contact the office in their area, the fact is that many visitors will not come into your site via the homepage. They might land on a page deep in your site via a search engine result or a campaign reception site. So you should build up your content in such a way that visitors who land on a page deep within your site will still get a clear understanding of your core message(s) and where they can easily find their way to the key pages on your site. This can be done through strategic use of interlinking content (where you link back to other areas in your site by tagging words in the copy on each page) and use of shortcuts.
We could go on about this topic for days. The point is to take a good, hard look at your website copy and make sure it is optimized for your business and written with the Web Reader in mind. Our web copywriters have years of experience in adapting content to dynamic copy for today’s web universe. For a website content evaluation, contact Optimize Agency today.
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