Web Site Content

Effective Promotional Writing for the Web 

Q: I've decided to develop my own Web site to save some money.  What do I need to know about writing for the Web that might be different from other writing I do?

A. Just the fact that you've asked this question shows you've noticed that information provided in other types of marketing materials is presented differently in an effective Web site. Once you have a good understanding of your goals and target audiences, you've taken the first step toward writing most effectively for your Web site.

The other major consideration is how people use the Web.  Gone are the days of general Web surfing for fun.  Consider how you use the Web yourself.  A typical approach is to plug a few keywords into a search engine, review the results, make a choice from those results, and see if the site you've chosen provides the answers your seek. 

Whether you'll explore that Web site further is a decision you make in seconds.  You glance at the text, graphics and links on the homepage, and if you don't see something that compels you to look further, then back you go to the search engine results to try the next possibility.  Does that sound familiar?

Recognizing that most people use the Web in just that way when they want to research a product or service helps us understand better how to present customer-focused information on our sites.

Writing for Site Visitors

Unless your Web site was created for e-commerce purposes only (e.g. Amazon or Ebay) your most important goal is simply to encourage a site visitor to make contact with you.  You want him to find just enough information about your organization to either phone you, or send you an e-mail. 

Neither of those goals requires large amounts of copy.  An overload of information will more likely cause confusion.  Further, computer monitors produce glare, so it's difficult to read large amounts of text.  Therefore, you'll need to provide easily readable information concisely, in small “bites” such as bullet points, short paragraphs, and narrow columns.  This approach helps site visitors see immediately how helpful you can be.

Writing for Search Engines

Of course, if search engines don't get the gist of our Web site to begin with, then many visitors will never find us anyway. In the December 2004 issue of SBG, you learned how search engines “crawl” our sites to rank them in their results.  One of the most important clues a search engine seeks is an agreement between your behind-the-scenes meta-content and the copy on your Web page.  That means the text our visitors read must be comprised of the same words we used in the meta-content. So, as you write copy for your pages, be sure to build a strong correlation with your meta-tags.

Is It a Good Idea to Write Your Own Web Content?

Sure!  Give it a shot – with a caveat.  Sometimes we are too close to our own business forests to understand how to most effectively lead our site visitors to purchase our trees.  Just be sure your writing is audience-centric, organized, and concise. 

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