Writing for your website - tips and techniques

Whether or not you choose to hire a professional copywriter to create content for your website, be aware that writing for the internet is a bit different than writing for printed collateral.

Writing for print captures reader interest with introductory phrases, sentences, and sometimes whole paragraphs before arriving at an article’s main point. Readers find it relatively easy to flip a magazine page or brochure panel to look for additional information.

In contrast, website visitors are impatient. If important information is not readily available, they will move on quickly. Most website visitors are lazy. Scrolling through long articles or clicking on links, hopping from page to page, isn’t fun. Therefore, website text must be concise and to the point.

You’ve got a lot of information to present to your website visitors. How do you coax them to remain at your site, look for more information, and ultimately make a purchase? Here are some website writing tips that (hopefully) will keep visitors at your website:

1. Select a readable font size - 10 points minimum, preferably 12 to 14 points.
2. Font color – Black text on a white background is easiest to read for most people. Except for small areas of emphasis, avoid very light text on a very dark background, i.e., white text on a black background.
3. Locate important information at the top of the page – Grab your reader’s attention with a descriptive, but brief, tag line followed by a summary of the major points.
4. Keep paragraphs short – Feed content to your visitors bit by bit. Information can be scanned quickly, and is more easily understood and retained.
5. Eliminate fluff – Useless text clutters the page. Descriptive words and phrases work well only when used to convey additional information about the product or service.
6. Stay on topic – Except for the home page which summarizes your products and services, each web page should address one topic and all content should be relevant to that topic.
7. Get feedback – This is very important. After you write your website copy, solicit the opinion of relatives, friends, and colleagues before your site goes live. Is it readable? Is it understandable? Is it interesting? If your acquaintances don’t know what you’re talking about, neither will your customers.

Good luck. After you launch your website, it’s a good idea to perform a monthly check of your text to make sure it’s still relevant and makes sense.

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