Wording Up Your Website
Back to basics. Forget funky design, good copywriting
is the key to a clear and intuitive website.
By Glenn Murray | Advertising
Copywriter, Website
Copywriter, Article PR Specialist *
Are you losing business because of your website? More
and more customers are logging on to the Web to decide
where to spend their money because it is quick and convenient,
and they can jump from site to site instead of walking
from store to store.
Web savvy customers don't need to be patient, studies
have shown that you need to engage a potential customer
very quickly by giving them easy, fast access to the
information they need. Otherwise they will simply move
on to the next site.
Appealing design and speedy functionality are important
but they don't ensure that your site is well structured
(intuitive) or well written (clear).
Write First
The real message on most websites is in the writing,
and so it makes sense that the writing should determine
the structure. Unfortunately, this is not the usual
case. Most businesses choose the structure and design
of their site first and then try and fit the writing
around that structure. This flies in the face of commonsense.
When you speak to someone, you structure your speech
around your message, you don't decide on a structure
then change the message to suit. So you need to plan
what you want to say before you create the site. Maybe
even write the whole thing first and then use the message
to determine the structure.
When deciding what to write, think about what your
customer wants to know rather than what you want to
say. It's a subtle difference, but it is the key to
engaging a potential customer.
Most customers will want to know the basics:
- What do you do?
- What benefit can you offer them?
- Why should they choose your service or product?
- What does it cost?
- How can they contact you?
- Where are you located?
Brevity & Clarity
Your website has to communicate a lot of information
and to make matters worse, you are going to have limited
space. Ideally, your customer won't have to scroll on
any page (all your information will fit in a single
window) and that single view will need to contain more
than just words. The design and navigation elements
take up about a third of a window, and you should leave
a bit of room for white space (you don't want to overwhelm
the customer). As a rule of thumb you should expect
to have about half the window free for text.
How you are going to fit all your information in such
a confined space? This is where writing skills come
in - choose your words very carefully.
Websites can be an extremely powerful piece of marketing
collateral. You can reach millions of potential customers
for as little as a few hundred dollars. Unfortunately,
your competitors are all doing the same thing - it's
a level playing field but there are a lot of players.
It is important that your message is structured and
well thought out, otherwise your site will be a mess
and no-one will bother to read about your business.
If your message is clear, your site will be simple and
easy to use. It's all in the words.
* Glenn Murray is an advertising copywriter, website copywriter, SEO copywriter, and article submission and article PR specialist. He heads copywriting studio, Divine Write, and is a director of article PR company, Article PR. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
. Visit http://www.DivineWrite.com or http://www.ArticlePR.com for further details, a FREE SEO eBook, or more FREE reprint articles.
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