Nailing Your Web Copy
Charlotte Booth • 25 January 2023
Four top tips to better copy
Websites are becoming increasingly important for small businesses.
Not only does it act as your shop window, but it is also your business card and a way for clients to find you if they are not on the social platforms that you use.
However, simply having a website isn't enough. It needs to have clear and concise copy which appeals to your ideal client and encourages them to buy from you.
There are many things which make great web copy but here are four tips to get you started.
Audience
Knowing your audience is key. This allows you to speak to them directly with the content you create.
However, some businesses may have more than one client. For example: landlords and tenants if the business is an estate agent.
The biggest mistake is to try to write generic text to suit both on the website. All that will happen is it will appeal to neither.
Instead, have two separate home pages – one for landlords and one for tenants – and address them directly.
Keep it Short
Think about your own website usage. Do you read everything on the page, or do you scan around looking for something in particular? If you do that then you can pretty much guarantee your potential clients do too.
So when writing content for a website keep it short.
The less text you have the better.
If you can bullet it or have short sentences it is easier to scan for relevant information.
This allows visitors to your website to see what you do, and how they can buy from you without reading blocks of text.
Intuitive
We've all been on websites which are impossible to navigate, right? We either persevere because there are no other options, or we jump to a competitor's website.
Don't force your potential clients to leave your site because it is impossible to navigate.
- Make sure the journey is intuitive.
- Make it clear how visitors can contact you.
- Make it clear how they can buy from you.
- Make it clear what they need to do next.
How do I pay?
When writing content for your website make sure it is easy to buy from you.
I recently wanted to buy a service from a website. There were two purchase options: a live event, or a recording. I wanted the recording.
I clicked the 'buy now' button, which led me to PayPal payments for the live event. For the recording, I had to contact the organiser, BACS a payment over, email them again to let them know I had done it, and then they would send me the recording.
Guess what? I didn't purchase. It was too much of a faff.
How many clients have you lost because they don't know how to buy from you?
Make sure if you don't have 'buy now' buttons on your website, it is clear and easy for the client to contact or pay you.
For many products not making it easy for your client to buy probably means they won’t.
A website isn't a one-and-done project. It can constantly be tweaked and updated to make it more appealing to your ideal clients, or more relevant if you change your products, services or client base.
But it's important to make sure these four basic elements are in place.
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There is nothing more amusing than checking out mediaeval artistic renditions of lions and other heraldic creatures. These beasts, grimacing and gurning are a strange juxtaposition of human, animal and demon and as far from the cute image of Alex from the Madagascar franchise or in fact a real lion as you could possibly get. There are three main reasons mediaeval lions are so ‘bad’ and un-representational; The artists were following a very tight brief. Some of the artists may never have seen a lion, and were following the descriptions they were given. These lions were representing heraldic principals of bravery, nobility and authority; all very human characteristics. When viewed through this lens it becomes more understandable why they look the way they do, but they are still ‘not right’ and not a great tool for learning about lions. Generative AI is very similar to an uninformed but talented mediaeval artist. There is a element of intelligence but at the end of the day it is following a brief, with no actual ‘knowledge’ of the thing it is producing. As an example, if you prompt your generative AI (ChatGPT and the like) to produce a blog for your new product or service, aimed at your ideal customer avatar you will in all likelihood get a mediaeval lion out the other end. Sort of recognisable, and sort of not. This is because AI doesn’t know what a customer is (ideal or otherwise), has no idea what your product or service is and does, and has no true understanding of how this service or product will serve your ideal customer and their needs. Of course, AI is pulling all the information available from the internet to help with its answer but there is no understanding there. There is no determining fact from falsehoods or even which websites are trustworthy and which are not. So, it skims the internet and puts together content which suits the brief as it understands it. This is then when the actual work should start as this content shouldn’t be used in the raw. It should be edited and tweaked by a human who DOES understand the brief, has been a customer (ideal or otherwise) and can imagine what your ideal customer will feel when using your product or services. We are in a world now, where we have generative AI promoting products and services to humans, when it has no concept of what a human is and how it thinks, meaning the marketing department are in fact more important than ever for ensuring content and copy is aimed at humans and human emotions. You could argue that the world would be a more entertaining place if there were more mediaeval lions in it, but it wouldn’t be a great environment for learning, or for basing purchasing decisions on. If you want to maintain the human element in your content, then I would love to help . Explain the brief, your CTA and your ideal client and I will know what I need to ask to get a clear idea before writing. Then you can rest assured your content was written by a human for a human and we can leave the mediaeval lions to the museums.
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