Website Copywriting Services – More Than Words

When the time comes to think about web copywriting, the focus often turns to the words that will be used: keywords, industry buzz words, or words that will get the attention on both search engines and site visitors. However, building engaging website content begins long before words are considered.

Who Is Your Target Market?

Would you write a speech, a paper or even an email before you knew to whom you were speaking? Before you begin building a list of keywords or target phrases you want to use in your website copywriting, you simply have to understand who your target market is.

To create an effective persona for your website’s target audience, consider the following points before starting on your web copywriting:

• Professional Title: Do you work with consumers? Or are your prospective customers CEO’s, administrative assistants or contractors?
• Age and Gender: Are your customers more often male or female? Are they usually in any age range?
• Geographic Location: Does your business cater to a national, global or regional audience?
• Motivation or Objectives: What drives each of your target segments to your business? What is it that they are dealing with in their professional or personal life that would motivate them to seek out your assistance?

By mocking up a persona using the above criteria for each of your targets, you can now “see” with whom you’re talking to using your website copywriting. Knowing who they are will help build the voice and tone your website needs to engage and convert visitors effectively.

Layout and Design

Again, before thinking about the more detailed specs of your web copywriting, you have to consider the layout and design that is planned for your website. How many words you plan to write and how they will be sectioned on the page with graphics influence an optimally written page. 

A few rules of thumb:

• Keep it Simple, . When you review the site layout, keep in mind that your content needs to be easy to scan.  Don’t go overboard with paragraphs of verbiage.  Use downloadable content when you want to dive into the details.
• Links: Review the page map of your soon-to-be-site and include relative links within the copy.  This is a convenient way to provide further information if available on another page.   
• Reverse Pyramids.  Prioritize your words and sentences by importance.  Start with a high level overview at the top of a page or paragraph, and drill down to the details as you go deeper into the subject.  By laying your content out in this format, you communicate the essence of your message at a glance, should you lose the visitor if they decide to move on before finishing the page.

Keyword Phrases

Once you have a view of your target market and the layout of your website, you are ready to begin research on your keywords. Keywords or phrases are most often used to find services and products like yours by your target market. (Read our recent post on how to effectively research the right keywords for your website).

Keep in mind, there is an order to how your web copywriting needs to be approached It’s not just a matter of putting up words on your web pages. The process outlined above takes the most crucial criteria into consideration so that your website’s copywriting is processed properly. If the goal of your web copywriting is to engage and convert your website leads, be sure to take the time to know to whom, and write meaningful content that resonates with them.  Your business will see the benefits of higher, longer-lasting traffic and the sales leads that follow.