Though SEO is a vital ingredient in the recipe for successful web copy, quality is also very important online. Whether it’s for your blog, website, e-mail newsletter or Facebook page, the words that communicate information about your company are significant in shaping your brand image and how customers/users/clients relate to you.

The most important thing to know about producing written web content is that the manner and context in which copy is consumed online is not the same as reading words on paper. If you consider the reasons people use the internet you’ll see why applying certain principles to the way you write web copy will get a more positive response from users.

Reading off a screen is 25% percent slower than reading off paper and Jakob Nielsen recommends that anything written for the web should be 50% shorter than it would be in print. This is to do with various factors such as the shorter attention span of online readers and the glare of computer screens.

When people read online, particularly copy on business websites they are usually looking for specific information, which means that instead of reading every single word they will skim over a page. Your writing should therefore be simple and navigable – Nielsen uses the term ‘scannability’.

Information should be grouped into small, manageable chunks with catchy – but clear and explanatory – headlines and subheads between every few paragraphs. Also find ways to highlight or emphasise important keywords and phrases within your copy so that readers can spot them easily and get the gist of a paragraph.

Also keep your writing style clear and informative, but relaxed and accessible at the same time. Present your most important information upfront, telling users either what they want to know, or pointing them in the right direction. Don’t be afraid to repeat words in your copy as long as they are relevant. It will make your writing clearer and can help improve your rankings in search engines.

Also where it’s appropriate you can personalise your writing – use conversational tones and phrases which convey the personality behind the words. Your users will respond better to an approachable human voice, than to formal corporate style copy. Be wary of trying too hard to be light-hearted or funny as this can come across and disingenuous and annoying.

While it is important to optimise copy for search, web writers must also pay attention to issues of style and presentation so that copy impresses both search engines and users.

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