The problem of writing content yourself

As a business owner, you know about your products, markets and customers. But do you know how to:

• Write for the way people use websites?
• Write for search engines as well as customers?
• Write what will make online customers want to buy?

Writing for websites isn’t the same as writing for print. Nor is it like writing reports, letters, proposals or anything else the typical business owner regularly writes. The online attention span is much shorter than offline. People won’t forgive you if your copy is too long or too difficult. They’ll just move on.

And as well as customers, Google is reading your website every day. If it understands and likes what it sees, it will rank your site higher. If it sees your customers liking your site, it will rank it higher still.

Typical faults seen in web copy

Content produced by business owners typically shows these faults:

• Words, sentences and paragraphs that are too long.
• Industry jargon instead of the language of customers.
• No clear calls-to-action at important decision points.
• Little or no use of hyperlinking, even though it is important to both customers and Google.
• Structure based upon the organisation of the business rather that the interests of customers.
• A lack of cues such as subheadings that make information easy to find.

Any of these faults will reduce the effectiveness of your website. Several combined will limit your results, no matter how good the design. I’m sure that’s not what you want.

Good copy doesn’t cost thousands of pounds – and soon pays for itself in customers and sales. You know about your products, customers and markets. I know how to structure content so that it works for both people and search engines.

By working together, we can make something that gets the results you need from your website. I’ll learn about your business, customers and market by asking questions and talking to you face-to-face or over the phone. I’ll add insights from keyword research – online market research about how customers look online for what you do. From discussing your typical customers, I’ll suggest a set of customer personas to guide the structure, content and pathways of the website.

Next, I’ll produce a content architecture to meet the needs of our customer groups. Once that’s done I’ll write the copy, either from scratch, or based on what you already have or can give me. Before the website goes live, we work together to edit and fine-tune for launch.

The content on a website is like the food in a restaurant. It’s not the first thing you notice, but it is the thing that matters most. Do you want to feed your customers well?