We’ve known for years that we only have seven seconds to make a first impression on a website visitor. People who find our websites begin to develop an opinion on us, our products, and our businesses the second their eyes hit our home or landing pages.
So, to ensure your website visitors get the right impression from the get-go, here are 7 hacks to help you to create engaging conversion-worthy website copy:
Express What Makes You Unique
Your website copy should make it abundantly clear what value you bring to the table. It should explain why your firm exists and how your services or product can help your visitors. It should also detail what makes you unique from other businesses in this space and why you are the better choice.
If you’re having trouble identifying it, this short article by John Locke might help you to formulate what makes your business unique.
Have The Essentials
There are certain pieces of content which should exist on every website if you want to target as many audiences as possible. Some of these pieces of content include:
- An “About Us” page: i.e. about your company, its philosophy, competencies, licensed, accreditations etc. this is NOT a page for sales pitches
- Testimonials: you can wax lyrical about how good you, your products/services til the cows come home, but your readers place more credibility on what others say. Testimonials should be from real customers/clients, with real names, locations, business names etc as appropriate. Having a fake testimonial from “John B., Colorado” just doesn’t cut it.
- Blog posts: You can share so much in blog posts. Consider company announcements, new equipment acquisitions, success stories, sponsorships, tips and hacks, industry relevant news – so many opportunities to engage!
- Free downloads: for example, checklists, eBooks, or whitepapers. Load them to your site for instant download and they become gifts that keep on giving.
- Case studies, if applicable: people love to read examples of how you tackle and solve problems.
- FAQs: Having a frequently asked questions page gives you a golden opportunity to reinforce messages that appear elsewhere on your site. Consider delivery times, guarantees, active ingredients, and points of differences from your competitors.
- Content variety: written, video, graphics, photos
Understand What Your Visitors Want
Step out of your shoes for a moment and into those of a potential visitor. What are they looking for when they arrive at your website? What problem are they trying to solve or what information do they want? Once you understand this it will help you to create engaging and relevant web copy that will give your readers what they want.
A big mistake is having content designed to impress your peers, or that is too technical. Keeping it simple, with your ideal customers/clients in mind is the key.
Make Your Content Scannable
Nothing is more intimidating than visiting a web page loaded with written text. Your copy should be appealing to the eye and easily scannable by your readers. This means:
- Keeping sentences and paragraphs short
- Including headers and subheadings
- Adding bulleted/numbered lists
- Incorporating a lot of white space
- Images, video, and infographics sprinkled throughout your content will also make it a lot more palatable to your web visitors.
Map Out a Content Strategy
Your content should target audiences at various stages throughout the sales cycle. This means having copy that addresses a variety of concerns or questions visitors may have depending on where they may find themselves along the buyer journey.
A new arrival to your website may be interested in reading your blog or downloading a “how-to” eBook from your website, or a checklist that they can refer to often. A seasoned visitor who is closer to making a purchase, however, may be more interested in a case study that demonstrates the success of your product or service.
Stick to a Content Schedule
With an arsenal of content in your virtual pocket, you can begin to schedule your content in a strategic way so that you target as many visitors as possible. Start off by deciding what is going to be your primary focus: a specific target market, industry, or a stage of the sales lifecycle. When that has been decided, you can start to map out a strategic content marketing campaign and align content with specific dates on which it will be published.
Continue to Track, Audit and Add Content
Website copy is an ongoing process if you want it to have the greatest impact on your visitors. Formulate a way to track and measure the performance of your content. Regularly comb through your copy to ensure that it is consistent and relevant to your business. Lastly, keep your website fresh and interesting for readers by making a firm commitment to include blogs, premium content, and videos as a important parts of your overall marketing strategy.
Looking for guidance?
If you need help with your written content, I’m just a phone call or email away – no gatekeepers, just me. Here are my contact details.
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