Sure, plenty of people out there say they can write for the web.
But, as the common saying goes, talk is cheap.
How do know when you’ve stumbled on a professional word ninja, or when you’ve been hoodwinked by an upstart money-grubber masquerading as a copywriter?
Luckily, we have some ideas.
Look carefully at their qualifications, both the ones they say they have and the ones that shine through their writing samples.
The best web copywriters will be able to claim all of the skills we have compiled below.
If you’re a copywriter working your way up in the industry, study this list and take note. Having these skills could be the key to nailing your next big gig.
Marketers/agencies: Look for these traits in the next writer you hire.
9 Skills, Traits, and Characteristics the Best Web Copywriters Have in Spades
The best web writers have honed their raw talent and turned it into an occupation where they earn money for every word they set down. Do you (or the web writers you’re hiring) have all the skills on this list?
1. Nimble Creativity
The best web writers need to be able to turn on a dime and write in a completely different style and voice for different clients.
That means their capacity for nimble creativity needs to be very high.
Online writers also need to be able to produce copy and content when that creativity well is drying up. A nimble, can-do attitude is essential, here. Sometimes, you just have to buckle down and get some words out.
The best writers who live and breathe online content will be able to do it and do it well, no matter the circumstances.
2. Research Chops
Research is a huge part of online writing. To underline your authority, you have to prove yourself in your written content and copy.
That means relying on the knowledge and research of others, along with your own. It means citing sources and studies, and providing statistics and evidence that back up your claims.
The online writer who is well-versed in research best-practices, including how to properly cite sources and link to them in content, is indispensable.
3. Strong Understanding of the Basics of Constructing Great Sentences
Writers construct, tweak, and manipulate sentences to get their ideas across clearly. Without the basic ability to craft really good ones, can you call yourself a writer?
This ability includes understanding grammar do’s and don’ts like noun-verb agreement and comma usage, but it also includes knowing how to create a compelling call-to-action, how to write effective meta descriptions, and how to compose a zinger of a headline.
As a copywriter, you need to know which of these is correct. (Source: Grammar Girl)
4. Sales and Online Marketing Knowledge
Does your web writer understand the various stages of the buying cycle/sales funnel? (Have they even heard of a sales funnel?) Do they get how to tailor their words to what the audience knows/doesn’t know at a particular stage?
What about landing page copy? Do they understand how best to craft a page that leads the audience to take action?
If they don’t, they should.
If you’re the writer, according to Content Marketing Institute, your knowledge should be T-shaped.
You need a deep knowledge of content – best-practices that earn traffic, engagement, and conversions, and how to tie in SEO –- that’s a given.
You also need at least a passing understanding of online marketing concepts like technical SEO, UX, press & PR, and analytics.
5. Generalist AND Specialist Expertise
A web copywriter needs to be a jack-of-all-trades and a master of one… Or two.
The former is important for that aforementioned nimbleness factor. You need to be able to pivot from topic to topic without much trouble, research topics if you’re shaky, and write about them like you know what you’re talking about.
That is the power of a skilled generalist writer.
On the other hand, you also need specialist knowledge in at least one topic. This means you have the background to write about that topic from the viewpoint of an expert.
This background can include education, experience, or a mix of the two. A blend of both is a good place to start honing your expertise.
Either way, the best writers can specialize and write with an incredibly authoritative tone for at least one industry.
6. The Power of Persuasion
Persuasive writing is a huge part of online copywriting.
Your readers’ attention spans are shorter than ever (the average currently clocks in at 8 seconds – one second shorter than that of an average goldfish). They’re distracted by every shiny thing that’s blinking at them or screaming in all caps.
They’ll click away from your content faster than you can blink – unless you can persuade them to stay.
This means knowing and using proven writing styles and copywriting formulas that keep visitors glued to the page. It also means formatting your words for maximum ease-of-reading on tiny mobile device screens or headache-inducing computer monitors.
There’s a lot that goes into persuading audiences online, so the copywriter who can do it (and do it well) is worth their weight in gold.
Want to get better at persuasive writing? Check out the work of past and present copywriting giants. Look to David Ogilvy, Joanna Wiebe, Jon Morrow.
A copywriter’s job is to speak to the reader on a deep level. You need to be able to address their hopes, fears, and desires like they’re your own.
The only way to truly get on their wavelength is to empathize with them.
If you have a fair amount of natural empathy, you have an advantage. If you don’t, you can practice it.
Step outside yourself. Put your thoughts and feelings aside.
Imagine trying on the perspective of the person in question, like a pair of glasses. What do you see differently? How do you feel?
Try to stay in that headspace while you write.
You can also try reading lots of books written in the first-person perspective (with lots of “I” language – “I did,” “I said,” “I wanted,” “I tried,” etc.) These narratives literally immerse you in someone else’s thoughts and may help you hone your ability to empathize.
8. Little-to-No Writer Ego
A copywriter’s job is not to get their own writing style airtime. If you’re in the hot seat, your job is not to write the way you want to write.
A copywriter’s job is to get other people’s words out there, and to do it in the best way possible. Copywriters have to write to make their clients sound knowledgeable and interesting, and their products enticing.
They need to write for their clients’ audiences, not their own.
Naturally, many copywriters also have higher writing ambitions. They may have wanted to be a writer from a young age, or have dreams of completing a longer work of fiction or nonfiction under their own name.
For some writers, their motivations for their personal writing career may clash with what’s expected of them (and what’s needed of them) as a copywriter.
If your writer ego is a little too big for its britches (don’t get me wrong – this isn’t a failing; it’s actually what gets many writers published), you may want to rethink copywriting.
Similarly, if you find it very hard to put that ego aside and write with equal verve for clients, you might want to rethink copywriting.
9. Self-Motivation and Determination
These days, most copywriters aren’t hunched over desks in a communal space, writing elbow-to-elbow with their colleagues in a Mad Men-esque office setting.
Instead, most are working from their laptop in a coffee shop or toiling away behind the monitor in their home office. Some even are scraping a living from a seat on their couch in their tiny apartment.
(Take a look at how our remote team here at EW gets down to business. We each have our own personal spaces and methods.)
Needless to say, when you’re working alone with no boss over your shoulder, the chances that you’ll deviate from the task at hand are 10 times – nay, 100 times greater than if you are working in an office with supervision.
That means the best web copywriters are self-motivated, determined, and on-point when it comes to time and work management.
They don’t need constant supervision because they have the skills to stay focused and on-task.
This focus is 100% necessary, especially when an assignment looms that is hard to write. You have to wade through that beast no matter what, and the best copywriters can get through with aplomb.
Without that kind of self-sustaining motivation, you’re sunk as a remote copywriter.
Web Copywriters Who Reach Success Have These 7 Skills in Common
Great web copywriting is an art and a science. You need lots of technical knowledge, but you also need to know how to riff once in a while (and understand when you can riff on the rules).
Arguably, though, these eight base skills serve as the foundation for greatness.
You don’t have to be born with them. You can cultivate them, grow them, and become a bonafide amazing online writer.
So, whether you’re getting your foot in the door or looking for fresh talent to do the writing for you, look for these characteristics. Make them your mantra.
Great web copywriting isn’t just something nice to have.
Exquisite online writing skills are necessary for anyone involved in creating business for an online presence.
In addition to attracting visitors, great web copywriting helps strengthen a brand voice, differentiate you from the online crowd, and create a unique and distinct presence on the web.
You can’t do any of the above without this fundamental base: words. To put it simply. Words that appeal to your audience, attract their eyeballs, engage with their emotions.
It’s the vehicle for standing out online. Rather–it’s how you stand out online.
30 Actionable Copywriting Tips for Online Writers
Use these thirty online copywriting tips to boost your copywriting and achieve more online success with better, stronger, far-reaching online copy.
1. Provide context
In web copywriting as in journalism, answering questions like who, what, when, where, and why can help strengthen your copy. When you add context for people, places, things, or developments that you’re referencing within your text, you provide more value for your readers and create more balanced, informative content. To make this actionable, offer context on products you mention, recent events you cover, and third-party companies you reference. In addition to helping increase your readers’ understanding of the topic, these simple steps can also make your writing more informative.
2. Write in the active voice
Writing in the active voice makes for stronger online content and a clearer message. Writing in active voice means that the subject of your sentence does something rather than having something done to him or her. For example, “Jane kicked the ball” is active voice, while “the ball was kicked by Jane” is passive voice. Using active voice more often in your writing makes for clearer content and a more valuable message.
3. Write clickable (engaging) headlines
While 80% of people read headlines, only 20% of people will click through to your body content. In light of this, it’s pivotal to spend the time and energy that it takes to write attention-grabbing headlines. In addition to creating a more well-rounded content strategy, this approach also allows you to capture the attention of your readers and grow your company’s online presence. While writing clickable headlines isn’t something you master in a day, it is something you can learn with some ongoing education. By learning to craft compelling headlines, you can immediately improve your online content and help your business get found online.
4. Break up your content
While long-form web copywriting converts better than shorter content, big blocks of text can easily be intimidating to a reader. To ensure that you’re not scaring traffic away from your site with never-ending paragraphs and startlingly dense web pages, break your web content up into small and digestible chunks.
What content without formatting feels like to a reader…
Paragraphs, subheads, and bullet points are all an excellent way to make your text easily readable and skim-mable for all of your readers. There are many ways to do this, including adding bold or italic text and creating numbered and bulleted lists. You can also use headings and subheadings to break up your content in an intuitive and easy to understand way.
5. Be as concise as possible
Too many writers torpedo their online content by being too long-winded. In online content, brevity is king and businesses who can be concise and informative at the same time are the ones who are likely to win the race. To boost your online content and ensure that you’re not boring your readers or driving them away with wordy material, be as concise as possible. Short sentences, short paragraphs, and targeted messages are ideal for capturing a reader’s attention and keeping it. By being concise throughout your content, you build value for your readers and ensure that they keep coming back to your content.
6. Eliminate jargon
Jargon is one of the most damaging things your company can include in online content. By peppering your text with jargon and industry-specific terms, you immediately make it unapproachable for a wide variety of readers. Luckily, it’s easy to get past this by eliminating jargon altogether and making your text approachable to everyone – even people who aren’t experts in your field. Once you’ve eliminated the jargon, take your readability one step further by using short words, cutting out unneeded adverbs, and keeping your text as simple as possible throughout. This can help ensure that your online copywriting is approachable to all readers and that your message doesn’t get bogged down in techy language.
7. Incorporate a sense of urgency
Incorporating a sense of urgency into your online content is a great way to grab your readers’ attention and keep it. By doing this, you can encourage your prospects to act quickly and convert in the way that you want them to. Urgency is especially useful when you’re running a promotion, offering an incentive, or providing a “customers only” discount of some type. Incorporate urgency into your online copy by mentioning that there are a limited number of spots for a webinar or that there are only so many products remaining on the shelves. This is a simple yet effective way to improve your online copy and drive your readers to action.
8. Utilize keywords naturally
While keywords used to be one of Google’s primary ranking factors, search engines are getting smarter on a daily basis. Today, Google will de-rank content that relies too heavily on keywords, stuffs them into content, or utilizes them in an unnatural way. In light of this, be sure that you’re writing your web copy for people first and search engines second. If you’re planning on targeting keywords throughout your content, they should be incorporated in a natural way throughout. This can help ensure your company isn’t inadvertently damaging your SEO by writing keyword-stuffed keyword that’s chunky to read and worthless to customers.
9. Write in positive voice
Just like active voice, positive voice is a powerful writing tool. Positive voice helps your readers feel more trusting and optimistic toward your product, good, or service. The reason for this is that online copywriting that uses negative voice leaves readers with negative feelings. Because of this, it’s important to alter the text to use positive rather than negative voice. For example, “Don’t make these SEO mistakes” should become “Learn to avoid common SEO mistakes.” While this is a simple change, it’s one that can make a world of difference for your online copy.
10. Embrace multimedia
While text will always be relevant to readers, it’s critical to learn to balance your text with images, videos, and graphics. This helps vary your content and create a more exciting, well-rounded experience. While it’s important to maintain a blog, it’s also important to ensure that you have a substantial presence on sites like Periscope, YouTube, and Pinterest. This keeps your content exciting and provides value for your readers.
11. Write to one consumer
Developing your voice is a huge part of honing your online copywriting. One of the best ways to do this is to write to one consumer rather than your company’s entire “Target audience.” When you write to a single customer just like you would write to a friend, you personalize your copy and provide more value for everyone who reads it. Remember that today’s consumers don’t want a hard sell. They want a relationship and a conversation. By providing them with this, it’s easy to differentiate your brand and improve your copy.
12. Craft quality CTAs
The CTA is one of the most important aspects of your copy. For the copy to perform well, your CTA needs to tell people what to do in an efficient and inviting manner. While this may seem overly simplistic, the fact of the matter is that if you don’t tell people what to do next, they’re likely to avoid taking any action altogether. By crafting a compelling CTA, it’s easy to drive the type of engagement you want while also giving your readers something to think about at the end of your copy.
To be as efficient as possible, your CTA should feature the following things:
Actionable language
Copy that runs parallel to your landing pages
A value proposition
Time-sensitive language
Large, visible formatting
Contrasting design
Clickable buttons
Prominent placement
By incorporating these elements into your CTA design, you can ensure that it performs well with the reader and drives the action your company wants.
13. Become a storyteller
With all of the buzz about storytelling and marketing that’s been flying around lately, it seems obvious that telling a story is one of the best ways to engage readers and provide unique value. The fact of the matter is, however, that it’s not enough to simply weave tall tales. Instead, your company needs to be able to draw readers in and engage with them on a deep and profound level. Contrary to what many people believe, storytelling isn’t reserved for certain portions of copywriting. In fact, storytelling can be a helpful tool in everything from website content to blog posts. To use this tool effectively within your corporate copywriting, use storytelling elements to beef up a brand persona and engage readers with products, goods, and services – like Progressive has done with Flo or Geico has done with its signature Geico Gecko.
14. Match your copy to buying cycles
The best copy in the world isn’t much good if it doesn’t apply directly to the person reading it. In light of this, it’s critical to align your target audience, content, and buying cycle with one another. This ensures that your company’s content will be relevant to the person reading it and that your readers will always have access to personalized, specific material. For example, customers in the early stages of the buying cycle will appreciate broad, informative content while those further down the funnel will appreciate more specific content that helps them make purchasing decisions.
15. Appeal to emotions
Readers aren’t emotionless robots. They want writers to appeal to their emotions and give them content that’s worthy of connecting with, laughing about, or thinking deeply about. This is one of the main reasons that storytelling is so effective. Because storytelling connects with readers on a deep, emotional level, it remains one of the most effective forms of business copywriting.
16. Include research
Your customers are smart people, and they’ll catch onto inaccuracies quickly. In light of this, it’s important to back up the claims you make within your copywriting with well-sourced research wherever applicable. This lends authority to your writing and helps you establish your company as a leader in the industry.
17. Link to quality sources
Google (and your readers) want to know that you’re using reputable sources to write your content. This is why it’s so important to link to quality sources throughout your copy. In addition to helping you build authority, this also helps you connect with thought leaders and make your copy more reputable.
18. Stop selling
Today’s customers hate being sold on anything and using pushy language or obnoxious sales tactics is only going to push them away. Instead, use value and relevance to draw readers in. Focus on building the relationship first and making the sale second.
19. Pay attention to detail
In copywriting, it’s wise to sweat the small stuff. Simple things like a misplaced button, bad grammar, spelling mistakes, or even using the wrong words can have dramatic effects on the conversion rates of your copy. Luckily, you can avoid them by reading current research on what converts well and what doesn’t, proofreading all of your material, and conducting A/B testing on your company’s buttons, CTAs, and links.
20. Don’t make false promises
Today’s readers have superhuman BS detectors. If you promise something you can’t deliver on, they’re going to abandon your company for one that’s more transparent. Because of this, it’s important to ensure that you’re only making promises you can fulfill.
21. Demonstrate
While many writers rely primarily on adjectives in their online writing, a wiser choice is to show rather than tell. While it’s one thing to report that your company is intuitive, funny, and relatable, it’s entirely another to show your readers why this is so through research and demonstrable evidence. The latter approach is much more lasting and much more powerful.
22. Use power words
Power words can completely overhaul your writing. By addressing readers with “you” rather than the impersonal “one” or using right now words like “Instantly” or “today,” you can transform your online writing and craft a more compelling and engaging experience for your customers.
Let’s face it: the subject matter that some companies specialize in isn’t thrilling. Accounts payable, for example, or adult diapers. Your job as the corporate copywriter, however, is to add interest to these topics to draw your customers in. This helps produce better content and ensures that the subject is interesting and engaging, no matter how dry the subject may be at its core.
24. Showcase your personality
As a company, you have a unique personality, and one of the best things you can do for your copywriting is to inject that personality into the material you write. While some subjects require straight, educational content, some are just asking for a shot of humor and unique perspective.
25. Think of the audience first
If you’re not writing for your audience first and foremost, you’re missing out. By writing to give the audience what they want, you create valuable content they’ll want to engage with. This, in turn, can help improve your conversion rates and produce happier customers.
26. Make your copy beautiful
Who said a blog post can’t also be a work of art? When you intersperse your content with beautiful design elements such as custom visuals and graphics, you provide more interest for your readers and create compelling copy they’ll want to come back to.
27. Don’t try to be TOO clever
While injecting your unique personality into a piece is one thing, trying too hard to be witty or clever is entirely another. When you do this, you cheapen your company’s content and make it impossible for readers to derive real value from it. Instead, seek to be informative and helpful. If it doesn’t come 100% naturally: the wit can wait.
28. Survey the competition
To create great copy, it’s wise to keep a running tab of things you love or were moved by. This can include emails, blogs, articles, websites, or graphics from other companies in your industry. While it’s not advisable to copy anyone else’s content, it can be helpful to keep a careful eye on what else is out there to boost your content strategy.
29. Employ productivity hacks
One of the biggest challenges facing copywriters is distraction. When you’re having a tough time getting the job done, don’t stress. Simply focus on creating a space for productivity, instead. An excellent way to do this is to use a website blocker that keeps you off of email and social media for a set period. Alternately, you can set a timer that helps you focus on a set task for a period of time of time.
30. Offer examples
Today’s readers are example-oriented. They want to know why something works and where it’s worked in the past. To provide them with unforgettable content, ensure that you’re offering specific examples throughout.
While copywriting is a learned skill rather than an inborn talent, these 30 copywriting tips can help you improve your business copywriting on a daily basis.
Have a favorite copywriting go-to tip you always use? Share in the comments below!
Do you have a lot of visitors to your site? Do you do a happy dance every time the number increases or you see someone from a faraway country stop in?
It is really exciting to see all of those numbers and all of those people, but eventually it becomes exhausting and overwhelming when those visitors leave and never become customers. Turning them into customers is important and now is the time to do just that; but how does one go about that? This blog is going to discuss five ways to use web copywriting to convert visitors into paying customers.
How Web Copywriting Helps Convert
1. Get the Blog Going. We say this time and time again, but it is crucial when you are trying to convert visitors into customers. “How does blogging do this?” Blogging gives you the opportunity to become an authority in your field with Google, helping you rank higher on the search engine results page (SERP). The higher you rank, the more visitors will come. Once the visitors get to your site, they’ll begin reading through your posts and deciding whether or not your company is worth their hard-earned money.
If the visitors like what they see, they could just add you to their RSS feeds and keep up with your blog. This is where hyperlinks become important in your blog. If you add them throughout your blog posts, you have a higher likelihood of getting visitors to other parts of your site and to your products.
Did you mention a service or product similar to yours such as dog grooming and gourmet food? Hyperlink those terms to your specific service or product, showing readers you do exactly what they are reading about. This will help convert those casual readers into consumers quickly. Never underestimate the power of the written word, especially on the Internet!
2. Publish Yourself. Getting your content published in various formats around the web will also help convert visitors to customers. You can publish Whitepapers, which can give potential clients detailed information about your company or you can publish press releases to make people aware you exist. These are great ways to create interest in your product all while giving potential clients the information they all want. These forms of web copywriting can help act as an FAQ of sorts.
3. Email Is Not Dead Yet. An important part of web copywriting is email. Many seem to think email marketing is going away, but that is simply not the case. We all check our email first thing in the morning and the last thing before we go to bed. We are all hopelessly addicted to the Internet and email, which gives you a perfect opportunity to market your company. Encourage visitors to sign up for your newsletter when they stop by to read your blog. You’ll be surprised at the amount of people who will sign up if given the choice. Don’t force people to because this tends to scare people off. Give them a choice and then send out weekly or bi-weekly emails about services or new blog posts to keep interest alive in readers.
4. Research Your Audience and Keep Researching. Research is the name of the game when it comes to converting visitors into customers. The more you research, the more likely you will hit the target perfectly. Business2Community says that by providing information regarding your services and industry, visitors will already know if you meet their needs. This gives potential clients enough information about your products and shows that you are worthwhile.
Another excellent way to research your visitors and industry is to formulate case studies. A case study will tell an interesting story filled with facts about your current clientele and success rate, which will encourage those reading it that you are a company that is trustworthy. A case study will help you beat your competition and can also help you see any changes that need to be made for your company.
5. Landing Pages Are Crucial To Creating Customers. A crucial way to use web copywriting to convert visitors to customers is having an incredible landing page. Landing pages are great for taking visitors to the location you want, instead of them going to the overwhelming front page. You may think that customers want to see that front page, but the reality is most people find the main site to be confusing no matter how organized it is. Do you have a specific product you wish to sell to your visitors? Send them to that landing page. This is a great way to generate leads for your company.
Let’s take a quick look at a few handy tips for your landing page:
Make sure it is simple and only has the basic information you want your visitors to see. Don’t overwhelm them with tons of images and other information about your services; stick to a specific product. This will cut down on any confusion your visitors may have, helping to make them into paying customers.
Make sure people can navigate around your site easily. The harder it is, the less likely visitors will want to pay you for any service or product.
As with all web copywriting make sure you are friendly with visitors. If you site is hyper professional, this will come across as snooty and arrogant. However, if you are friendly or down-to-earth, this will come across as someone people will want to work with in the future.
In Closing
Converting visitors into customers isn’t very difficult if you follow the above steps. The more you cater to your visitors, the more they will realize your company is a great one to work with. Don’t be too upset if this doesn’t happen over night. Sometimes it takes a little while for visitors to realize that they want to purchase items from you, but soon you will start watching your customer base grow to meet your website’s visitor rates and that will be a good day, indeed.
Buckle up and settle in. It’s harder than you may think.
Good content that people want to read isn’t just well-written. It’s also:
Organized
Concise
Scannable
In other words, it’s easy on the eyes. You don’t have to do much work to make sense of it.
But, why is this important?
It’s simple: People read differently on the web than they do anywhere else. “Anywhere else” includes papers, books, magazines, and other printed matter. Whatever the physical medium, people do not read them the same way they read a web page.
If you’re not optimizing your web content for the way people read on the web, you’ll be turning them away more often than inciting them to dive deeper.
Want people to get the most out of your content? You need to fan the flames of their interest, not douse them in freezing cold water.
Why Do People Read Web Content Differently?
Why do people read differently on the web than they do for printed matter?
We could surmise that people don’t feel like they have time to read every page they encounter word-by-word. The web is so large, and there’s so much information to sift through, something’s got to give.
Think about how many pages you click through daily. If you have no idea, check out your browser history for yesterday. How many websites did you visit?
If you’re like me, the list is most likely a mile long. There’s no way I would have digested all that information unless I scanned it.
Deep reading is not conducive to web browsing.
What Does Research Say About Reading on the Web?
Research backs up the fact that people don’t read web content like they do books.
In fact, the Nielsen/Norman Group found this was true 79% of the time in an eye-tracking study they did. They measured over 300 people’s eye movements as they browsed hundreds of websites. They came to an overwhelming conclusion:
People do not read on the web. They scan.
Slate came to a similar conclusion when they tracked how far people scrolled down their web pages before leaving. Even if people do stick around long enough to scan the page, they don’t stay for long.
About 50% of users stopped scanning at the halfway mark in a Slate article before they clicked away from the page. Across the web, people stopped at about the 60% mark.
Here’s Slate’s conclusion:
“Few people are making it to the end, and a surprisingly large number aren’t giving articles any chance at all.”
Another Nielsen study found that to be true. According to the research, people only have time to read (or choose to read) about 28% of any given web page.
If this isn’t discouraging for web content creators, I don’t know what is.
If we can’t get people to read our content, how do we make any impact at all?
There’s Hope: You Can Get People to Scan and Scroll Your Web Content
Yes, you can improve your chances that people will scan your content, read at least some of it, and scroll all the way to the end.
On the internet, where attention spans are shorter than a blip, that’s a huge deal.
Some of these tips to achieve these goals may be obvious, but some may be surprising. Here are five ways to make people more likely to skim, scan, and read.
[clickToTweet tweet=”Learn the five strategies to get people to scan and scroll your web content via @ExpWriters!” quote=”Learn the five strategies to get people to scan and scroll your web content via @ExpWriters!”]
1. Organize Your Content Well
Well-organized content is scannable content. It’s a cinch to read, plus, you can easily find ideas within the text. Some examples of good organization:
Bulleted lists
Numbered lists
Headings and sub-headings
Short paragraphs with one main idea in each
Meaningful links
These all have one thing in common. They’re all ways to break up your content so it’s scannable. Readers latch on to these text markers – all of them are alerts that say, “Hey, this is important. Pay attention.”
And, luckily, most readers do!
So, what does the opposite look like? This leads us to my next point:
2. Don’t Build Walls of Text!
You can find content with zero organization most often in that infamous “wall of text.” You know what I’m talking about.
It’s hard to scan and will make people want to punch their computer – never a good scenario.
Because they can’t punch their computers, instead, they’ll leave your website without a backward glance.
3. Make Your Organization Logical
A page that’s organized is great, but if that organization isn’t logical, you’re still not helping your readers.
What does logical organization look like?
It means ideas are grouped together. One paragraph, one idea. One bulleted list, one main idea. Here’s a fantastic example:
Note that all items in each list go together. On one hand, there’s the list of ingredients. On the other, there are the instructions. These groupings make sense. They’re logical.
Here’s an illogical example:
Note the formatting. Some of the items have punctuation; others don’t. Some are one-word long; others are sentence-length.
Also, note the information itself. All the items in this list relate to ice cream, but they don’t all belong there. A bulleted list needs to have the same type of “thing” next to each bullet.
Don’t make these errors. Instead…
4. Format Your Bulleted Lists Well
Good organization helps your readers immensely. It also makes them want to linger on your page.
When your page is easy-as-pie to scan, your readers can glom-on to important information. They’ll grab the hook and get caught on your line.
Here are some main keys for strongly organized lists in your content:
Don’t mix sentence fragments with full sentences in your lists. Use phrases exclusively, or only use sentences with periods – not both.
If you find yourself typing out long lists with commas in paragraphs, consider breaking up that information into a bulleted list.
Try to use the same sentence structure and type in your lists for each bullet. For instance, don’t mix statements with questions.
Don’t overuse bullets or lists. Employ them when it makes sense, especially when they clarify your ideas.
In short, to make sense, use common sense. Try your best to enlighten your readers, not confuse them. Break up your content, organize it, and do it logically.
5. Use SEO Strategies
SEO is how you make your website usable and readable for both search engines and humans.
This optimization double-whammy is exactly how you should go about boosting your content for a better user experience.
SEO tenets, like the use of keywords, headers, meaningful links, and more, contribute to readability.
Plus, according to Yoast, readable text ranks. On the other hand, text that’s hard to read will not rank. Think stilted sentences, strange wording, or unorganized blocks of text.
Bottom line: Search engines loathe walls of text in web content. You should, too.
Get Read More Widely: Format Your Web Content the Right Way
Unfortunately, most internet users don’t do any deep reading on the web.
That blog post you spent hours composing? It may not get skimmed past the third paragraph. Even more people will bounce before they ever read the first line.
These are not good reasons to get discouraged and quit, though. Instead, take them as motivation to format your web content so it’s ultra-readable.
This means a logical organization with zero text walls. It means using bulleted or numbered lists to break up chunks of information. It means being smart about including meaningful headings and links.
Don’t forget the SEO! This is the perfect way to optimize for both search engines and people. Implement basic SEO tenants and you’ll find that organization is inherent to its success.
To sum it all up, pay attention to what you’re saying, but don’t neglect how you’re saying It, either. The way your words appear on the web can dramatically affect how people consume your content.
To feed the most people, make it easy to digest. Make it readable.
If your content is suffering from lack of structure and organization, call on Express Writers to help. We produce web content that’s simple to read and well-written.
If you, like me, have been in the world of website content writing services for a while, you remember a not-so-distant time when online writing was all about keyword inclusion.
Namely, how many keywords could you cram into a given web content page, and would Google notice?
While many marketers are still relying on tactics like these, Google and other search engines have changed drastically. It’s gotten to the point where marketers who have not evolved their content strategies are being left behind.
While Google used to rely on keyword inclusion as a reputable quality metric, today’s search engine algorithms are much more sophisticated. Today, Google looks at things like social signals, site quality, SEO, link strategies, image inclusion, content layout and length, besides just keywords.
While keywords still have an important place in the world of online content, focusing too much on keywords can come at the expense of your other content.
In light of this, it’s time to toss keyword reliance to the wind and to focus, instead, on all of the other things that make the world of web content writing go around.
Improve Your Content Writing on the Web By Focusing Less On Keywords Only
In the days of old, a page needed few things to rank well.
For one, it needed a high keyword saturation that helped Google interpret what the page was about. In addition to that, it needed a link strategy and some on-page content. That was about it.
Today, this couldn’t be further from the truth.
Google has gotten amazingly advanced in the last several years, and sites that are to rank well in today’s version of Google need to have dozens of different high-quality ranking metrics, including good SEO, high-quality visuals, a solid social strategy, following, and base of shares, and a relevant, long-tail keyword strategy.
Unfortunately, marketers who are too busy focusing on things like keyword saturation and density often miss these nuanced things.
The Modern Face of SEO Web Content
Today, SEO is virtually unrecognizable to professionals who worked in the old SEO styling. Today, anything that’s considered to be solid in terms of SEO web content writing must optimize for two things: people and search engines.
If this sounds like a tall order – you’re right!
Modern SEO as a whole is complicated, and it requires a set of guidelines and a skilled team to execute it properly.
Here’s a list of some of the basic foundations of modern SEO content mapping, to help you get a feel for how it works today:
Modern SEO utilizes long-tail keyword phrases in natural ways
It optimizes for people first and search engines second
It seeks to provide value and solve problems rather than to sell directly
It gains its success from click-throughs, conversions, and shares
It is more conversational and less technical
It adapts frequently to changing consumer desires and needs
How to Improve Your SEO Web Writing Right Now: 5 Tips
When it comes to content writing for websites in the modern world, improving SEO generally means making the web content writing more functional and valuable.
While there are dozens of great ways to improve on-page content and ensure you’re making the most of common SEO standards and practices, the following steps are an excellent way to get started improving your SEO:
1. Get social with your web content writing
Social media is a key element in great SEO, and it’s one of the most important things for both humans and search engines of today. While social media is often written off as a waste of time or a platform that’s more suited to leisure than it is to marketing, the fact of the matter is that great SEO often starts on social media.
By using social platforms to distribute high-quality content, interact with followers, and build a base of devoted fans, it’s easy to improve your social following across the board and enjoy a boost in Google rankings, as a result.
2. Create a two-way dialogue in your online copy
Want to encourage customers to keep coming back to your web content? Show them that you appreciate their existing interaction!
While many companies brush over comments, likes, and shares, the trick to creating a successful online presence is to reach out and encourage engagement with your customers.
Have a new Instagram comment?
Take a moment to thank that person or company for taking the time to comment.
Have a new Facebook question or mention? Respond to it!
While this may not be directly an SEO writing tactic, it’s a simple step that can go a long way toward improving your overall visibility on the web and ensuring that your customers can find you, wherever they happen to be online.
3. Shoot for long-tail web content keywords
Right now, long-tail keywords make up 70% of all search volume.
Because of this, they’re a critical thing for marketers concerned about good SEO web content to target. While the whole point of this article is that it’s wise for marketers to avoid focusing on keywords too much, long-tail keywords are a wonderful thing to include in your overall content strategy.
Since long-tail keywords are highly specific, including them in your copy is a wonderful way to target it to your customers and boost your SEO by ensuring that the people who visit your site are qualified leads who are there because they’re ready to purchase or convert.
4. Beef up your linking strategy in your website content
Linking has been a fraught topic in the world of SEO for years.
Before SEO advanced to the point it’s at now, so-called black-hat SEOs used to stuff content full of spammy links to trick Google into ranking it well.
Since then, Google has cracked down on these exploitative practices. Today, links can benefit your copy, but they have to be executed correctly.
This means plenty of high-quality internal and outgoing links that point to other, valuable content and (in the case of outgoing links) sites with a high DA score.
This helps communicate to Google that your copy is reputable and that you’re tied into other legitimate sites on the web.
5. Create evergreen web content
Before we dive into the concept of evergreen content, let me just say that your best SEO strategy in the modern day is simply to create content – lots of it.
Every time you write a new blog, post a new web page, or develop a new article, you’re giving Google one more page to index.
This, in turn, helps boost your site’s relevance, ensure that your best content is appearing to your users, and allow you to feature more prominently in Google’s SERPs.
So, there you have it. Creating content, in general, is important, but creating evergreen content is critical. Evergreen content is content with an incredibly long shelf life. Designed to provide value to readers for months or years after its original publishing date, evergreen content is the cornerstone of any good SEO or blogging strategy.
By creating plenty of evergreen content, you do two essential things: first, you give Google pages to index, which helps you pop up in the SERPs.
Second, you create in-depth, long-form pieces of content that can help your readers solve some of their most pressing and most common issues.
This, in turn, incentivizes them to come back to your site and continue interacting with your content, both today and in the future.
In these ways, evergreen content can help boost your SEO, improve your overall content strategy, and help you hop off of the keyword train for something better and more functional.
Web Content Writing Tip: Keywords Might Be Dead – And That’s Okay
Don’t get me wrong – a great long-tail web content focused keyword can still go a long way toward improving your content. But today, we’re thinking of it as more of a tool than a foundation.
In the web content writing world of the past, keywords were the end and the beginning.
Today, they’re just a strategy to improve writing, rather than one to create it.
Content writing on the web has evolved hugely, and, mostly, it’s been for the better. Today, search engines are smarter, readers are more interactive, and useful content is designed to cater to people first and computers second.
All of these things combine to ensure that content writing for a website reads more like a story than it does a dry, crunchy piece of “marketing material.”
As website content writing services have changed, though, some marketers have stayed stuck in the past – clinging desperately to all the things that used to work – including keywords.
Luckily, we don’t need to do this anymore. Gone are the days of strained, density-focused keyword inclusion and marketers everywhere can do well to bid them a fond goodbye.
Today, great web content writing is all about value, relevance, interest, and – yes – beauty.
And it’s only by releasing our death grip on the outdated notion of keyword density that we’ll be able to grab all of those things.
Does your website content writing need a high quality copywriter? Get your web pages custom written at Express Writers today!
