Want to know a secret? Your website design isn’t as important as your website content. Your site visitors come to your site not to view the layout, but to read your content and browse your images. Design should support and enhance your content, not the other way around. Ever hear the phrase, “content is king”? Content establishes your expertise, knowledge, and ethos. It is the backbone of any drive to connect with your customers.
I’ve designed and developed several hundreds of websites, and come across website copy on both extremes of the spectrum — from awesome to awful. Here are 3 of the most common mistakes writers make:
- Not speaking directly to your customers. For your copy to connect with your customers, you have to be speaking directly to them. Understand your target market. Get to know their needs. Understand why they are browsing your website. Use language that appeals to them. Show your personality. Answer their questions directly, and you will show that you care about them.
- Long sentences and paragraphs. It is important when writing copy to keep both sentences and paragraphs short, particularly when considering many of us now view web content on a mobile device. Scrolling long paragraphs of copy does not make for a good user experience. If people don’t find what they are looking for within a few minutes, they will move on to the next website. Remember, people don’t read online. They scan.
- Not using headlines and subheaders. While breaking up your copy into bite-sized pieces helps improve readability, using headlines for each section further increases engagement, and makes it easier for people to find the information they’re looking for. Make sure they’re short, descriptive, and catchy.
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