So, your business needs a website. Or maybe you have a website but realize you need to freshen it up some. Now what? What are you going to write about? More importantly, how are you going to write it? Does writing for the web or email marketing differ from writing for print or marketing collateral? As we would say in Minnesota, “ya sure you betcha!”
I recently attended a Webinar where one of the presenters said to "get to the point within the first couple of words" of your content. Why? Because people are busy. Their time is valuable. They are looking for specific things, and you've got about 5 seconds when they land on your page, or open up your eNewsletter to engage them. Here are some tips and principles for writing powerful content that gets to the point – and gets your message across.
1. Be relevant to your target audience. To be successful, the communication on your website or in your email must appeal to your audience and be rich in the information they are looking for. People are not looking to get e-mail; they're looking to get "me-mail!" Show your readers that you understand their problem and can relate to their needs. Next, give them some benefits and articulate your solution. Let them know that their search could be over. Then, talk about the features and unique value propositions you have to offer. Finally, include a Call-to-Action letting them know how to take the next step.
2. Be concise and condense your content. Less is more for writing powerful content. Again, you've got to know your audience and the level and amount of content they need. I have always struggled with wordiness. Once I start writing it’s hard to stop. But we have to understand that our readers are scanners. They won't read long sentences and paragraphs - no matter how elegant! So here are some tips for shortening up your content:
- Write in the Inverted Pyramid style - put the most interesting and important content first
- Limit your sentences to 15-20 words
- Condense paragraphs to 40-70 words
- Keep your page content to around 500 total words*
It's a good idea to try and write in the range of what can be viewed on a web page - without excessive scrolling. If it's an eNewsletter, you may want to provide a summary with a link to "learn more." The link takes your visitor to your website to read the full article, or to view supplemental information.
When finished, read your article out loud - see how it sounds. Michelle Howe, writing in “Turn Browsers into Buyers” says, “You want your message to be professional, but not formal. Write in a conversational style that is warm and friendly, but not chatty. Make your writing real by trying to write more like you speak.” I like to set it aside when I think I'm done, go do something else, come back and give it another read. Sometimes you'll add to or tweak your content. Other times you'll come back and think, "that's gotta go!"
3. Make your content easy to read. You want your important points to stand out. And, you want to create a scan-able architecture using a variety of elements and styling. Consider using these techniques:
- Keep Headlines / Subject Lines short and sweet - 50 characters or less – maximum of 8 words
- Use ordered (numbered) and unordered (bulleted) lists in your content
- Bold important phrases
- Change font color
- Use 10pt or greater non-serif fonts like Arial, Helvetica or Verdana
- Don't underline text unless it's anchor or link text
- Avoid the use of italics because they're harder to read on a computer screen
- Provide plenty of “white space” – it makes copy easier to read and gives our eyes a rest from the flicker effect from our computer screen
Practice these tips for creating powerful content and your readership will take notice. Measure your progress through monitoring tracking and traffic reports. Constant Contact Email Marketing tracks such things as Open Rates, Click-Throughs and Forwards. When you see these key metrics increasing you know you're doing something right! Your web server or analytics reports can show you the amount of time visitors spend on your site, what pages they navigate to and where they exit from. These can be extremely valuable in measuring the effectiveness of your content and web pages to engage your target audience.