It takes a lot more than putting pen to paper – or making powerful keystrokes – and creative instincts to churn out engaging web content!

When you are one amongst the 1.7 billion websites competing for more traffic and Google rankings, the content has to hit all the right chords in your visitors’ mind and heart. Your website will have nearly 15-30 seconds (that is said to be the limited attention span of a visitor) to make an impact.

Most content writing service providers in India emphasise the need for high-quality content for strong brand perception as well as improved web traffic and conversion rates. And these goals can be achieved at once by producing persuasive web content copy that gets the point across clearer and faster. After all, the most your visitor is willing to spare is one cursory glance to make the decision whether to stay or leave!

Want to create a long-performing web content copy that connects with the audience and delivers flourishing ROI? Here is an actionable checklist composed of handy writing tips that will help you!

Know your audience and write for them
How do you measure engagement capability of a website’s content? Engagement is about how well you manage to connect and communicate with your audience. And if you don’t know your target audience, your efforts at communicating and establishing a connection may fall flat. Hence before you begin drafting, do your research.

• Who is your primary audience?
• Who could be the secondary audience that can influence and inform this primary audience?
• How are these audiences going to find your website?
• What kind of experience is your website supposed to create for your audience?

Identifying and understanding your audience
The primary audience will be the direct recipients of your products or services. But the secondary audience may consist of all the individuals, professionals, and institutions that have a vested interest in the sector you are operational in. Now the goal is to make your content accessible and impressive for both audiences. Focus on what questions each group will ask about the topics you are writing? Where are they most likely to look for the products and services you offer? Can this be search engine results, social media platforms, backlinks from other websites, or email communications? And what kind of information and takeaways will satisfy them?

Content also influences user experience
Treat your content as an integrated part of the user experience or UX (the art of knowing what your users want). Good user experience is, in fact, an equation of both design and content. So when we concern ourselves with the UX of content, our goal is to meet the following criteria:

Useful: The content must offer great value and information to the audience.
Findable: The content on each page should have important SEO keywords in moderation.
Usable: The content should be able to communicate with your audience and guide them towards their answers.
Credible: The content must not withhold or camouflage crucial information on the website as the visitor may feel tricked upon finding them out later.

Never put your visitor’s intelligence to the test
Do a quick scan of your website. Do you notice run-on or complicated sentences, long walls of text, the reiteration of same keywords or concepts, and exaggerated promotion of products? If any of them ring true for your website, you are setting yourself up for a letdown. Most visitors are likely to skim or scan the web pages and may not appreciate the language prowess displayed on your website. Here is what you can do instead:

• Write short and snappy sentences that delight both readers and search engines.
• Use transitional phrases to offer a smooth reading experience and keep your audience scrolling.
• If you have more information, try presenting it in small chunks of paragraphs or bullet points that are easily read.
• Keep your writing style simple and stick to active voice.
• Follow the ‘inverted pyramid’ approach and offer them important information first.
• Make your headings simple, obvious, and convincing.
• Avoid making your writing repetitive and see to it that you offer them something new to learn in every section of the page.
• Make sure to be clear with the ideation of every webpage. Work out the key goal of each page so that you don’t go awry in your writing!
• Create a proportionate mix of promotional and non-promotional information in your writing. Let them have valuable information first before you ask them to sign-up or become your customer.

Wrapping Up

Writing, in general, is a lot of brainstorming and elbow greasing. But creating action-oriented content for a website that directs your marketing efforts to the right audience in a captivating way is even more challenging! However, a good rule of thumb to make your writing more engaging is to infuse a unique personality into your content.

Although you may be frantically googling for inspiration and information, resist the temptation of plagiarising. Make efforts at concocting your own unique story or ideas and build that up from there. Maintain a conversational tone throughout and proofread for unnatural and stilted sentences. You can even add some humour that you are sure your audience can easily understand and relate to. The bottom line is to keep your website goals in mind and pursue them with your words!