Your business’s website is like a shop window: there will be plenty of passers-by, but if the items on display are falling apart, or look to be poor in quality, no one will want to buy anything.
Of course, you’ll want to prevent that from happening in the first place – and this means producing stellar website content.
Read on for some dos and don’ts for creating copy that will turn visitors into loyal clients (fingers crossed!).
DO: Show What You Can Give or Take Away
Good copy tailors to the client’s needs. Sometimes, website visitors aren’t interested at all in your services, but most of the time, people click onto or around your website because they want to know how you can help them.
Show clients what you can give them. Do they need virtual assistance for their business? A new logo? A redesigned landing page? Tell them you can deliver - and turn their frown upside down!
On the flip side, show clients what you can take away from them. Do they want to get rid of the headache of updating their own blog? Of writing their own emails? Let them know you’re the man (or woman!) for the job.
DON’T: Rely Solely on Testimonials
In particular, DON’T include only testimonials that have customers showering you with praise. You certainly will receive testimonials that read along the lines of ‘I love this so much!!!’ but these kinds of testimonials will do little to sell your services to potential clients.
Yes, your business is amazing, but HOW? If you want to include testimonials on your website, use those that, as Joanna Wiebe puts it in this Copy Hackers article, “tell a story of what a customer’s challenge was before your product or service…and what the outcome of using your product or service was.”
DO: Make Yourself Clear
As a general rule of thumb, keep paragraphs short. That being said, there’s such a thing as being too short. Often this stems from the desire to avoid exceeding a word limit, or to create short and powerful phrases, which can lead you to whittle sentences down until they’re dry and boring. You’re then left with bland copy that could be recycled on hundreds of other websites.
Making yourself clear also includes double-checking your spelling and grammar. You could have the best-written landing page in the UK, but you could ruin all that with the wrong use of ‘their/there/they’re.’
DON’T: Talk About Yourself
Okay, obviously you SHOULD talk about yourself, but your website isn’t just for you to list every single thing you can do. You have to show what you have to offer to potential clients who may be scrolling through your site.
Shift from overusing ‘I’ and ‘we’ in favour of ‘you.’ This Quicksprout guide shows you how you can make your content more customer-focused (with some extra website copywriting tips as well).
DO: Hire a Copywriter
Hiring a website content writer seems an obvious option to improve your website, but many turn their noses at the idea. Many will deem it too expensive, while some will have a go at writing their own content.
Yes, you can certainly write your own website content, but can you be absolutely sure it will reflect your business in the way you want?
(And if you’re still not sure about hiring a website content writer, may I direct you to some of my success stories?)
Do you have any other tips for creating brilliant website content? Let me know in the comments below.