THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO SUCCESSFUL WRITING WRITING FOR WEBSITES S AND OTHER MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS PROVEN TECHNIQUES

Transcription

1 THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO SUCCESSFUL WRITING WRITING FOR WEBSITES S AND OTHER MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS 6 PROVEN TECHNIQUES

2 CONTENTS Contents Why is online writing important for your business? STEP 1: Understand your target audience STEP 2: Shorten your text STEP 3: Make your content scannable STEP 4: Give some thought to your links STEP 5: Write content that can be easily understood STEP 6: Create consistent page structures Final thoughts Additional sources of information

3 WHY IS ONLINE WRITING IMPORTANT FOR YOUR BUSINESS Whether you sell your products through an online store or simply need to display your credentials to prospects, a strong online presence is now an indispensable marketing tool for any business. There is no doubt that good web design plays an important role in demonstrating your business s credibility and in delighting and engaging your audience. But it is the written content of your website, s, blogs and banner ads that will explain what you do and bring in sales and enquiries. Ideally, you would hire a professional web copywriter to write this content for you. But that will get expensive if you require fresh content, for things like blogs and product descriptions, on an on-going basis. Fortunately, there are a number of proven techniques that you, or your team, can follow to write this content yourselves. And you won t have to be a literary genius or a marketing guru to do so. These techniques are based on research into how people behave online and they inform the online content of major brands including Morrisons, RBS, Natwest and Virgin. What follows is our handy overview of six of the most useful. We hope you find this guide useful. Remember that you can access additional business advice at: 3

4 AUDIENCE1 STAGE 1 UNDERSTAND YOUR TARGET The more you know about your target audience, the better placed you ll be to write online content that persuades them to place orders with your business. Research is crucial to getting under their skin. So send surveys to your current customers asking what they want from products and services like yours, read the publications your target audience read and scrutinise at your competitors websites to see how they go about the job of selling themselves. Top Tip: Use social media to see how your target audience talks about the types of products and services that your business sells. Make a note of the language they use and the problems they experience with your competitors offerings. Then get involved in the discussion yourself to build your business s reputation among the online community. To survey your existing customers and build a more rounded picture of your target audience, you can use a free resource like com Alternatively, you can set up polls on your business s Facebook page or LinkedIn group. Major retailers are experts in building up detailed profi les of their target audience and commissioning content that speaks to their needs. To see just how compelling the end results can be, visit or 4

5 2 STAGE 2 SHORTEN YOUR TEXT Because it s a struggle to read on a computer screen, your target audience will refuse to plough through the volume of text they might for a brochure or sales letter. Most experts recommend that you cut print text by half for the web but even this is a conservative, and frankly arbitrary, estimate. Be ruthless! Revise your text so that every word that remains is required to make your point. Top Tip: Remember: you can offer more detailed information, such as brochures and white papers, as PDF downloads for your audience to print off and read at their leisure. Businesses who sell products with complex specifi cations such as mobile phones or fi nancial offerings are experts in writing online content that is short and to-the-point, yet persuasive and engaging. Take a look at their websites to see how they do it. Two good examples are and 5

6 STAGE 3 MAKE YOUR CONTENT SCANNABLE 3 Research into online behaviour demonstrates that people don t read online content in a linear fashion. Rather, they will quickly scan your web pages and s for specifi c information passing over whole blocks of text on their way. To help them, make your online content scannable. Here s how: Break long, unwieldy paragraphs down into bite-size chunks Highlight key phrases in bold Replace sentences that contain lists with bulleted lists and tables Bring important information to the surface via info graphics, graphs and charts Write headlines and sub-headings that let the audience know what information comes next and which make sense when read out of context Bring your benefi t messaging to the beginning of headings, links, paragraphs and sentences to entice your audience to read on. Top tip The web is a highly functional environment. So we recommend steering clear of puns and other clever devices when you write your online marketing content. A punning headline may read well, but it asks your reader to make an extra effort to fi gure out what you mean. Rather than bother, they may pay a visit to your main competitor s website instead. The big brands know that if their online content isn t scannable it won t get read. This is a challenge for banks and building societies who need to provide a lot of information about their products and services. But it is one that among others, have learned to meet successfully. 6

7 STAGE 4 GIVE SOME THOUGHT TO YOUR LINKS 4 Used effectively, links can help your audience fi nd pertinent information quickly and easily. Good links: Clearly communicate where they lead: Web users are impatient and will leave your site if you send them down blind alleys. Sit at the end of sentences or paragraphs: Your links shouldn t break the fl ow of your text. Emerge organically from your content: Concentrate on what you want to say fi rst and it will become clear which related information you should be linking to. Must be used sparingly: Too many links make web pages and s look confusing, jumbled and unprofessional. Point your audience to other resources: Linking to other websites will enhance your credibility and win the trust of your audience. Include keywords: Featuring keywords in links is a major aspect of successful search engine optimisation. Top tip Try to give your audience a clear idea of the subject of a link in the fi rst two words. For example, Moyes appointed on six-year deal and New music releases. News websites rely on links to communicate the subjects of their stories in very few words. For this reason, they are the masters at writing hard-working links. Leading the fi eld by some distance is the Online Media Awards Website of the Year 7

8 STAGE 5 WRITE CONTENT THAT CAN BE EASILY UNDERSTOOD 5 The typical web user is extremely impatient and task orientated. Consequently, if your online content doesn t make it clear how they can achieve what they want to achieve, they won t hang around to fi gure it out. Here are some ways to write clear online content: Structure your content carefully: Before you start writing, consider the points you want to make and draw up a skeleton structure in which each one follows naturally from the last. Use plain English: Employ the active voice, not the passive; break down long, complex sentences; avoid jargon unless your audience is sure to understand what it means. Write well-structured, single-subject paragraphs: Establish the subject to be covered by the paragraph in the fi rst sentence and expand upon it in the subsequent sentences. Think carefully about your website page titles: These will appear in other forms of navigation, such as links and menus, so they must make sense when read out of context and clearly describe the page to which they refer. Top tip Before you write online content selling a product or service, make a list of the benefi ts it offers your target audience. Benefi ts are distinct from bare features. They answer the critical question, What s in it for me?. Once you have your list of benefi ts, arrange them in order of importance. Then write your content by covering each one in turn. The Complete Plain Words by Penguin is an accessible guide for anyone who needs to express themselves clearly, fl uently and accurately in writing. Another classic, and freely available, resource is George Orwell s essay, Politics and the English Language. 8

9 STAGE 6 CREATE CONSISTENT PAGE STRUCTURES 6 You will need to think much more carefully about structure when you write for the web than when you write for print marketing. Indeed, it s sensible to determine the structure for all the types of pages (e.g. product description pages, news article pages, blogs etc.) that will appear on your website as part of the initial web build process. By ensuring that all pages of a certain type follow the same basic structure, your site will remain consistent over time even where several people have been involved with writing content. More importantly, consistent, predictable page structures will help your audience fi nd the specifi c information they are looking for fast! Top tip By putting some effort into determining the structure of your web pages and s, you will make life easier for yourself in the long run. If the structure of a page is pre-defi ned, the task of writing the content for it becomes far less onerous; in fact, it s almost like fi lling out a form. E-commerce websites are very hot on consistent, repeatable page structures. Good examples include B2B stationery websites such as Also see news websites and recruitment websites. 9

10 FINAL THOUGHTS Good online writing can have a profound impact on your business, both in terms of how your brand is perceived and the volume of sales and enquiries you generate from your web marketing. Unfortunately, while the majority of businesses place great emphasis on the design of their websites, s and banner ads, many overlook the potential value of good content. Unfortunately for them, that is! because, by following the techniques in this guide, and investing a little more love in your online content, you can gain a distinct advantage over your competition at little to no expense. We hope you found this guide useful. For further information about the SME Club and how we can support your business, please SMEClub@pro-manchester.co.uk For further information about the SME Club and how we can support your business, please call

11 ADDITIONAL SOURCES OF INFORMATION Advice, tips and information on a variety of topics such as marketing and advertising Accessible one or two-day online writing training courses Daily tips for anyone who has to write as part of their job Campaign against gobbledygook, jargon and misleading information Insight into how your visitors are using your website and where they are visiting from Expert advice on social media and related subjects for businesses Online social media campus with articles from a team of marketing experts Personalised support for high-growth businesses Business information portal, practical guides and advice Ask your local council whether they have services to support business 11 Concept & design: Pickles Creative & Media Limited