In online marketing, what you say matters, but how you say it is just as crucial. Unlike reading a book or a newspaper, where people can spend hours flipping through pages, online users tend to be impatient and read differently. Because of this, a website’s usability is key—it’s important how easily users can move from one section of the site to another and how quickly they can find the information they need.
You might think, “surely this is a web design matter?” but copywriting also has an important role to play. Here a few ways in which a professional copywriter will make your content more usable, and thus improve your conversion rates.
Descriptive titles – When visitors land on your webpage, you have just a few seconds to grab their attention. The first thing they notice, whether on the page or in search results, is the title. To quickly engage readers, a skilled web copywriter will create a title that is brief, impactful, and clearly shows what they can expect if they continue reading.
Helpful sub-headers – Sub-headers help to break up the content and also make helpful ‘signposts’ that the reader can use to find specific information that they’re looking for or to get a quick overview of the piece of content before they go ahead and read the whole thing.
Bullet points – When people are reading online, they’re often trying to find out specific information. By using bullet points you can get this information across quickly and make it easier to locate. Seasoned web copywriters also use bullet points to break up the content and make it easier to read.
Short paragraphs – Reading text on a computer or mobile device screen takes longer and is generally regarded as more difficult than reading from paper. Particularly in the case of small tablets or smartphones, long paragraphs may take up the entire screen, making it difficult to follow. A good copywriter will always stick to shorter paragraphs when writing for the web.
Succinctness – It’s not just paragraphs that should be shorter but the whole thing. Online articles should generally be around half as long as their print counterparts. If you’re over 35 you may not be familiar with the popular internet acronym TLDR, but this stands for ‘too long, didn’t read’. People don’t expect to spend 20 minutes reading anything online, and if your article is too long then there’s a serious risk that they simply won’t bother reading it.
Scannable content with relevant words/ phrases – The best way to encourage people to read your content is to make it scannable. This means not only making it easy to read but also ensuring that it’s full of relevant words and phrases that people can pick up on to determine whether it’s what they’re looking for. Doing so will also naturally take care of the search engine optimisation requirements for your content.
If you invest in web copywriting that is clear, accurate and interesting, your online marketing will benefit from a considerable boost. More importantly, by making your content usable and accessible, you’ll encourage users to visit again, and to potentially tell their friends about your site.