If you’re like most small businesses, you slave away on your website design and spend sleepless nights worrying about SEO. But have you neglected your writing – one of the most important parts of any website?
The words you use have the power to instantly convert (or chase away) potential customers. Nothing is more saddening than a beautiful website with poor writing – it implies that the business is carelessly run, or at least lacking.
Writing is something that you can never perfect, only improve upon. Make a promise to yourself today to improve your writing. (Find a couple websites you like and ask yourself how they use their copy effectively.)
Here are my three favorite tips to get started up your copy, right now.
1) Use short sentences.
It’s the opposite of what you learned in school. Flowery language and the use of colons and semi-colons can impress, does it sell convert customers online? Respect your visitors’ time and get to the point.
2) No typos allowed.
Sounds obvious, right? However, most websites have at least one or two typos somewhere on their site. Hopefully it’s not in your headline or url! (URL typos earned Google $497 million last year.) It’s not enough to spellcheck – many spelling mistakes are because of homonyms – words that share the same sound but are spelled differently). Ask someone you trust to spellcheck your site.
3) Write lively!
Think punchy, vibrant and active. Use strong, confident verbs to excite your customer. Be sincere and don’t be afraid to use humor – people prefer to buy from people, not a faceless brand name.
One of our favorite blogs, Copyblogger, goes deeper with 11 Smart Tips for Brilliant Writing that will have your website quickly singing like Shakespeare. What are your favorite writing tips?
November 18th, 2010 at 7:21 pm
1. Read your copy backwards, one word at a time.
2. Read copy aloud, “if’s, ands, buts, ” missed are found.
3. If it sounds”off,” it probably is.
This is what my newsletter was about, the six typos I found, then the newsletter page errored!
September 6th, 2011 at 12:00 pm
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