Tips for writing content for your website

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Set a goal for each page

Every page on your website should have a goal. It may be to simply move the viewer onto a different page (e.g. the contact page), or it may be to inform the viewer about something that will affect them.

This goal will ultimately provide you with your call-to-action. This is what you want the viewer to do once they’ve read the page. A good example of this would be that a service information page asks people to get in touch if they’re interested in the service. This could be by directly providing the relevant contact information or showing a button that sends them to the contact page.

Determine your target audience

Knowing who you are trying to appeal to is key when writing content. It can help you to speak to them in their language, on a level they understand, leading them to the solution they’ve been searching for.

It can help to think about the “average” viewer for the page in question. What age are they? Do they thoroughly understand the message? Do they make the purchasing decision? These are all questions you can answer to help determine your content writing style and approach.

Decide what keywords you want to target

Now that you know your audience, think about what are the phrases and words they might use to find your product/service. Once you have a few ideas, use a keyword tool such as this one from WordStream which combines data from Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising. This will give you the average number of searches, for a variety of related terms, that you could expect in any given month. This can help you find the most popular and valuable keywords for products, services and topics like yours.

Research what competitors are saying

It can never hurt to know what your competitors are doing and saying, so take a look. Whilst copying what they put is a definite no-no, taking inspiration from what works and what doesn’t can make things so much easier when writing your content.

What they are saying might also help determine if the keywords you’ve chosen are along the right lines, or open up some new possibilities.

Section your content to make it easier to read

When planning your content, it can make it easier to break it into sections. Not only does this make it easier for viewers to read, but also gives you topics to focus the content around as you write.
Visually it also helps as viewers won’t be put off by a “wall” of text that they question whether they can be bothered to read.

Keep content simple and easy to understand

Now you’re ready to start writing. And the most important thing you can do is keep your content simple and easy to understand for your audience. At this point you should already have a good idea of the level of detail your target audience will want you to go into, so keep to that level and don’t get too technical.

When you first start to write, you may find that you overcomplicate things or often repeat yourself. This can actually be a good thing initially as it will help you to get all your points across, which you can then condense and simplify later on.

Get a colleague, friend or customer to proofread

Now that you have your written content almost ready, ask someone to proofread it for you. A fresh set of eyes can pick up on any errors much better than your own.
Having someone knowledgeable on the area such as a colleague or customer can be especially beneficial as they will be able to offer their own insight to ensure the content is still directing people towards that end goal.

One word of advice we would give is to have one person focus on writing the content, and a small group that reviews it. Involving too many people can dilute what you’re trying to say and overcomplicate things.

Find complementary media to use

With the written copy ready, now it’s time to think about media. What images, video, sound, graphics can you use to amplify your content? Hopefully, you’ll have your own album of images to use, but alternatively, free stock images/videos can get you out of a hole if you’re struggling.

But most importantly, DO NOT TAKE MEDIA FROM GOOGLE OR ANYWHERE ELSE THAT YOU DON’T OWN THE RIGHTS TO!

Phew! I’m glad we got that one out of the way. It’s a headache to avoid, that’s for sure!

Summary

And that is it. Now you know what you need to do to create awesome, attention-grabbing content for your website. It’s time to get to it.

If you could still do with that little bit of extra guidance, why not download our website content guide to help keep you on the right path. It’s free and you can download it by clicking here. No sign up necessary!