The best websites are customer-centric. You need to understand user intent and the specific goals visitors want to achieve when they come to your website. It is important to write content in a friendly and engaging tone that provides visitors with the information they seek.
Remember, your website has only seconds to capture interest. Your visitors simply want to know what’s in it for them – how will they benefit from your content, products, or services. Their initial exposure will determine whether they spend more time reading, listening or viewing.
There are 4 key elements to writing engaging website content – without each of these working together, your content may not be engaging or effective…
Design
First, think about the design of your website. Keep the look, feel and functionality of your site up to date with modern design trends. An attractive and engaging professionally designed website will help you to quickly capture a visitor’s attention and interest. It needs to be fully responsive across all devices, featuring a smooth navigation with clear signposts to all key information, calls to action and value propositions.
Visually engaging and real-life imagery should be incorporated into the design to help build a personal connection with users. Visitors want to see what they are buying and who they are buying it from. Photos add visual interest to a webpage, encouraging users to read and engage with the content on your site.
Content
Next, the content itself. Keep it simple. Your site must focus on your visitors’ interests and address the question of what’s in it for them (value propositions!) and how you will help them achieve their goals. To accomplish this, strong content must be developed to describe products, services and/or intellectual property, and this is strengthened by images and well-designed product pages.
Your content writing needs to be simple, to the point and written in a human way, so that users can understand and derive value from it. Think about your target user/customer. What would engage them? What do they want and need to know about your business? Think about the benefits to your customer, rather than just listing the features. Remember, you need your content to be relevant; consider how using important keywords in your content will help your SEO! Engage your user, if you don’t, they will go elsewhere. Keep that in mind when you are writing your website content – keep it human, fresh and simple.
Strategy and tactics
Business is all about planning, strategy and objectives. You need to determine what the business should look like, how it should position itself online and what online components are critical to making the business a success. Decide how you should reach and communicate with customers on your website: will they purchase products, read articles, subscribe to newsletters, communicate through blogs and online communities? Work out what they want. Then tailor your strategy and tactics to address those needs.
Monitoring, updating and adapting
In the online world, websites are never finished for more than a short period of time. Stale websites discourage visitors, who lose interest if they see the same unchanged content each time they visit your site – you should consider your site as a continual work in progress. Keep updating, streamlining and improving. Let your site project your business persona and enthusiasm for the company’s combination of products, services, people, and industry knowledge. Here’s the bottom line: Keep it interesting; keep it fresh.
Without all of these components, your site’s effectiveness is greatly diminished. A well-designed site with great content, but no defined strategy or tactics, is like driving a great car without a GPS system or an effective map. You’ll be wondering why you are not reaching your destination. If you’ve got great content and effective strategies and tactics, yet poor design and navigation, visitors will either close their browsers or press the back button to go to their previous site. So, try and make it all work for you, your business and your customer. And remember, it’s okay to test content tactics out and see what works best – once you’ve done this and know what is most effective, you are on your way to building a truly strong and successful online presence.
If your company requires a professional online presence please Contact Us to discuss how we can help you, on Dungannon 028 3754 9025 or Belfast 028 9002 5050.
