Your business or brand needs a website. A website is your way of telling everyone exactly what you are about, how you work, and of course, what you are selling – you might even turn your site into an online shop if the items you are selling can be bought in this way.
Yet simply having a website is not enough. You need to ensure that the content on the website is working for you. Get the content right, and it will be easier to convince people to buy from you, show them that you are trustworthy, and rank higher in search engine algorithms. Here are some things to think about when it comes to the content of your site.
Make It User Friendly
Content isn’t just about the written word; it incorporates other elements of your website as well including the menu system. Making this a lot more user friendly with custom software design so that no one has to search through lots of different menus and options to find what they want and so that the entire site looks a lot cleaner and simple is important.
No one wants to waste time on a website when they just want a simple answer to a query or they want to buy one item but can’t find the simple way to do it. They will go to a different site rather than stay on yours, losing you a sale that you otherwise might have had. Keep things simple and elegant.
Have A Conversation
One of the most important things you can do when it comes to writing content for your site – or outsourcing this task to a professional content writer – is to use conversational English. If you try to become too technical or show off using big words, you will lose the exact people you want to keep, and that will reduce sales substantially.
Write copy that sounds as though you are talking with someone, not lecturing to someone. It will make a big difference in how your business is seen and will make you a lot more approachable. As well as that, people will spend longer on your site if they like what they are reading and aren’t bored with it, and that will help with your search engine rankings.
Avoid Jargon
Unless you are writing a business to business blog post or you work away from the general public, writing industry jargon is not a good idea. It will alienate everyday people, and the only ones who will read what you are writing are those who already understand what you are writing about, including your competition.
Write simply, and you will be much more successful. You can even do this if you do work solely in a B2B sphere as it will help you to stand out from the crowd as long as you keep everything professional as well.
Provide All The Information
There is a school of thought that suggests it is necessary to withhold information about your company or your products from your website. The idea is that this will entice potential customers to contact you to find out more, and you can engage them in conversation and try to sell to them this way.
Although the idea might sound like a good one, in reality, it just doesn’t work. All that happens if you miss out information is that the potential customer will search around and find that information on a competitor’s site instead, and then proceed to buy from them.
By providing as much information as possible, you are helping the buyer to make a purchasing decision, and that will make them more likely to buy from you (because you have assisted them) than anything else.
Make sure you include:
- Prices
- Dimensions
- Color options
- Delivery times (and prices)
- Tax information
- Contact details
As well as anything else you can think of that someone would otherwise have to ask you about. The less time someone is spending having to find out the information that could easily be included on your site, the more time they have to decide to buy the item from you.
Be Honest
Customers are faced with spin and hype all day long. Every advertisement they see proclaims to be offering the very best in whatever it happens to be marketing. This happens so often that people have a hard time believing any claims that are put to them in an advertisement, or even on a website.
Being completely honest about your products and services and not writing any hyperbole but instead relying on the product itself and the reviews and testimonials you have received will be a refreshing change; your customers will like it, and it is easy to do. When you are writing copy, it is far simpler to be entirely truthful about something than it is to embellish the truth in some way.
Your Home Page Is A Summary
In the majority of cases, the home page of your website is where most of your visitors will be directed to first. If this page is packed full of information and is cluttered and hard to navigate, they will be put off straight away. They may not go any further.
Your home page should be neat and well ordered, as this will give a much better impression of you and your business. There doesn’t need to be a lot of information here – the other pages on your site can be used for this.
Instead, make the home page a summary of what you do. It should include why your products are beneficial and what you can offer, but there is no need to include pricing or delivery options, for example – these can be saved for the product pages. Neither does it need to explain the history of the company, which is ideal for an about page.
Adding anything else will simply push your potential customers away, and once that happens, it will be very hard to get them back again.
