Creating the content for your website is the hardest part, especially if creative writing is not your jam. Even if creative writing *is* your jam, it may still be a challenge. I quickly discovered that writing your own content can be quite the struggle, but working on other peoples’ work is much easier. That’s why I’ve created a few tips to help ease the pain.
KNOW YOUR CUSTOMER PERSONA
The first step is to create a customer persona if you haven’t already. Perhaps you’ve heard of this little Marketing trick before, but never fully understood why it’s so important. We’ll explore the importance in a minute, but first I’d love to tell you a little story that was shared by a friend of mine, She said, “My friend has a specific persona that she speaks to – he’s a plumber with a station wagon and has a family of four. She has yet to have a client that fits into this category, but that’s who she’s speaking to!”
Most business owners are afraid to narrow it down. They offer up massive age ranges and throw out the, “My customer is EVERYONE!” comment. Ok, yes, I’m sure your product or service can appeal to everyone, but it doesn’t often work to your advantage to speak to everyone. I know for sure that I cannot design with every person in mind. It’s simply not possible!
Once you understand your customer persona, your message will be clear and consistent. Two phrases that I’ve heard over and over come to mind:
- Consistency is King.
- Know your audience.
BREVITY WINS THE RACE
If you’re a creative writer, this may be the part that throws you for a loop. Web copy is not necessarily about telling a story. People go on to a site to see if your business is legit, learn more about your service offerings, read more about you, schedule appointments, etc. The caveat to this is that you must know how to grab their attention stat. There’s very little time to waste.
So, with this in mind, the home page ought to be short and to the point. You have less than 30 seconds to impress someone. Less than 30 seconds for them to find what they are looking for. Less than 30 seconds to captivate your audience.
How will you do that?
SALES TECHNIQUES
If you’ve ever taken any sales classes or seminars, you may have learned a little trick – pain, fear, gain. When speaking to your persona, what are their specific pain points? What do they fear? What can they gain by working with you?
If you can take a moment to think about these three very important questions, it will help you frame your content in a way that will captivate your visitor.
ANALYZE YOUR CONTENT
Once you’ve got everything written out, there are a couple of questions that I like to give people to think about.
For the home page, first make sure that it’s really brief and to the point. Please know that nobody will read a lot of text on the home page. Too much text may overwhelm the visitor and have them wanting to click off just like that. My advice is to ensure the content on the home page has the visitor saying, “Tell me more!”
The click-thru pages are where you can elaborate with as much, or as little, detail as you’d like. I like to advise my clients to ensure the click-thru pages answer the question, “Why do I care?”
Keeping these two phrases in mind, it’ll help alleviate any unnecessary fluff. Fluff will only distract the reader and will have them clicking off your website in a hot second.
Did you find this helpful? We’ve got so much more to add with our How to Create a Bombastic Website MasterClass. We dive into more detail on the above, and also talk about:
- Branding 101 (including color theory and why that’s important)
- Creating + Analyzing Your Content
- Design Do’s + Don’ts
- Designing for the Visually Impaired
- SEO Best Practices (yes, we’ve got more!)
- Testing Your Website (functional and user experience)
- Publishing Your Website (how to install Google Analytics, publish to Google, and a few other tips and tricks to get you on your way)
ZHOOSH is a web + branding agency based in Chicago + Asheville, yet servicing the global community. Please take us up on our offer for a free consultation of your website! We’re here to support you.
Content provided by Women Belong member Denise Foy
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