Writing web content

Here you will learn how to begin effectively writing web content

As a webmaster interested in making money online content should be the MOST important word in your online life, as you may have already established from reading this website, or simply from your own knowledge:

                                       CONTENT IS KING

Content is the making or breaking point for your website. If you have plenty of good content your website will be successful, without it your site will slip into insignificance and die a slow and frustrating death. Brutal and honest! So begin writing web content which works!

The content that you write for your website can and will hugely change the way that your audience behave whilst at your site. If it is a product or a service that you are selling then the way you talk about it will entirely change the visitor’s attitude to your site. When you are writing content for your website you must always write in order to hold your visitor’s interest. Right until they make their all important contribution to your website, whether that is by clicking on one of your adverts or by purchasing your product or service.

Below are tops tips to follow when writing web content:

 1. Make the benefits of your website clear.- Your visitors will only be interested in staying on your website if they feel that they are actually getting something out of it. Therefore you must write in order to hold their attention and to make them feel like they are ‘getting something’. It is fairly simple to, ‘give your readers something’, simply make sure that your content contains lots or original and valuable content. You are one step nearer to writing web content which works!

2. Focus on your visitors- Sadly in the online world visitors really are not bothered about you. They really do not care about your existence unless they discover that you can help them in some way. I can prove that this is true in just one simple example. If you enter a search phrase into Google it will come up with results, if you visit a page of results which is full of information about something only distantly related to your search term then you will click off the website and go elsewhere, won’t you? Give your visitors what they want! After the visitor decides that the site is of use to them they may then decide to read other pages, for example, they may read your, ‘About author’ page. Put yourself in the position of a potential customer, what would you read? It helps! You are two steps closer to writing web content which works!

3. People will not read all of what you have written- After you have spent countless numbers of hours creating content for your website this may sound depressing and maybe even hurtful. However, it’s true! It has been statistically proven that the average visitor will only read up to around 20% of what is written on a website. Your visitor is likely to only read the first couple of pages of your website, furthermore, they will probably only scan the parts that they do read. Therefore, if you are selling a product or a service make sure that you pack your punch early and make the sale before you lose your visitor! You are three steps closer to writing web content which works!

4. Organisation is important! - Visitors will not spend long on your site if they do not find what they want. Simple eh? For this reason you MUST make sure that your website is well organised. Structure it with many different paragraphs, subheadings and titles. Your content should not look like a page full of solid text. This will overwhelm many of your visitors. It should be written in, easy to read, ‘bite sized’ chunks. Remember, organisation is KEY! You are four steps closer to writing web content which works!

5. Look at your site as if you are the visitor! - Once you have finished writing the content for your website you should sit back for a while and read it through. Put yourself in your visitor’s shoes and jot down some questions to ask yourself. Below I have created some questions for you, but this list isn’t exhaustive. If you can think of more then add them! You are now five steps closer to writing web content which works. Read on..

-Do I clearly explain everything? Even though everything you have written sounds great to you it may not be quite so clear to your visitors. If you were reading the content for the very first time would you have any questions to ask? If your content is written on a certain area of expertise with technical or jargonistic language then make sure you stick in a glossary of terms! If not your visitor ‘aint’ going to understand you! Alternatively stick in a definition of any potentially puzzling word in brackets next to it.

-Is your content ordered in a natural and logical way? - When writing content for the web many writers sit down and write as the thoughts come into their head. This is a good way of writing if afterwards you read through your work and re-order it if necessary. Oh and another thing, make sure there are no spelling mistakes or obvious grammatical errors, nobody wants to take advice from someone who seems not to have mastered a good command of the English language!

-Is your site navigation logical and effective, is it understandable?-Navigation is often underestimated. It shouldn’t be. From now on think of navigation as being a highly important aspect of your site. The reasons for why are simple. If your visitor gets lost they will leave your site! No sale, no money, no product awareness or point given across. No nothing for you!

-Make sure your link titles accurately describe the pages that they link to- Make sure that they are set out in logical places; the left hand side of the page has been proven to be the most effective. Don’t go for fancy menus and pop up, click over stuff. It may seem quirky but nothing beats a standard clear menu. Seriously! No nonsense! -Have your work proof read, - i.e. Get a friend to read it through; they can look for grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, inconstancies in layout, font size and so on. Many improvements can be made after obtaining a second opinion! Packing a punch with your headlines! Your headlines speak volumes about your site! Make sure that you write them well. Make sure they grab the reader and make them read what you have written. Below I have compiled a list which contains different ways in which you can do this. You know what I am saying makes sense!

So what are you waiting for? Read my tips and make amends!

1. Really emphasise your site's benefits- the reader will not read what you have to say unless they can see why it will be beneficial to them. Write like this: ‘Make £20 an hour with Google Adsense.’

2. Do not use ‘wishy washy’ words- Select words which hit hard, e.g. smacked, awesome, incredible, etc, pow!

3. Make use of words which actually, almost physically grab your reader’s attention- E.g. Find out, discover, unleash etc

4. Communicate with the reader- Be personal! - use ‘I’ and ‘you’ when you are referring to your visitor. That way they will feel involved with what you have to say. Address them!

5. Don’t use lots of fancy colours, exclamation marks and full stops- If you do this you will make your site look silly. Silly sites don’t get taken seriously; in fact, a silly site will get you nowhere! Oh yeah, and don’t constantly write in caps lock! That would be amateur and silly too!  

6. Use the present tense- There is no time like the present when it comes to website creation and making money online! Quit wallowing in the past! 

Now you can begin writing web content which works!