Writing good website copy
Posted by System | Thursday, May 28, 2009
Which is more important on a website: text or images?
Some people believe that great copy should be the crux of your website, and that the design should be dictated by the text you want to display.
Others believe that website users seldom read copy; preferring to navigate the page using images, and that text simply serves as an aide to the website being found by a search engine.
The resulting opposing opinions can spawn two types of bad website. Be careful not to fall into either of the following traps!
Design Heavy
The website boasting cutting-edge design, perhaps with a dynamic flash home page. These sites are often inaccessible through some browsers, confusing to navigate, with key information taking a back seat to design elements. After the initial "wow-factor", users become frustrated that they cannot retrieve the information they need, and leave the site without doing business.
Text Heavy
The website featuring numerous pages of solid text, with little thought given to aesthetics. Content-rich, these types of websites will naturally be indexed by search engines for a combination of key terms, however the sheer amount of information on offer can be baffling. Users can find it difficult to find the exact information they need.
In terms of usability, the best websites feature attractive design which has been balanced with succinct, well-written copy. Your website should reflect the goals and ethics of your business, and you can back-up the imagery used with elegant copy.
In an age where online trust is paramount, businesses need to take control of their brand online and aim to reassure, inform, and offer solutions to their website users.
There are many people who offer professional copy-writing services for web, however there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to produce your own perfectly good text. You are the authority on your business, so who better to write about it?
Getting started can be difficult, particularly if you aren't used to writing, but persevere and you may surprise yourself.
Why not use Illusion Media's top ten tips for good website copy-writing as a starting point?
1. Decide on your goal- Are you writing copy to direct sales? To generate leads? To provide technical advice? To encourage subscribers to a newsletter? Before writing anything you need to decide this, and your style should follow suit.
2. Get to the point - People want to find information fast. Start with the conclusion. The main point should be included at the top of the page, rather than at the end of a long article. Remove any unnecessary words.
3. Write about what you know - Although you may not consider yourself to be an authority in your subject field, the chances are you have a lot of knowledge about your business arena which other people don't. Write about your business in order to engage with your users and educate them.
4. And conversely.. write as though you DON'T know the subject - Don't assume that users have years of knowledge in your specialist area when writing an article. Remember that many people will be new to what you are writing, so product descriptions need to be as clear and informative as possible.
5. Keep your audience in mind - Use language appropriate to that group and keep your vocabulary consistent.
6. Anticipate your users' questions and answer them - Brainstorm the things which you would want to know about your product if you were coming to it with fresh eyes. Ask others what they would want to know, then include this information online so that people aren't left wondering.
7. Back-up your promises - If you are stating that your product delivers miraculous results, back up that statement. Web users have the ability to compare your product to hundreds of others within seconds, so you can't rely on generic statements about your offerings to drive sales.
8. Use lots of short paragraphs - This makes the page easier to digest and users can quickly skim-read the content.
9. Read out loud - Read your article back to yourself out loud once written. The chances are your first attempt will be too 'wordy', and you can then sort the wheat from the chaff.
10. Finally....Spell-check - Don't publish anything online until you've run it through spell-check. Even great writers make typos.