Simple, yet powerful. That would be the shortest description of what your website should look like if you want it to be accessible, functional, profitable, and eye-catching. It doesn’t matter if you run an e-commerce giant, a start-up web presentation, or a personal portfolio website, those would be the words to hold on to – simple and powerful.
If you notice that your website is not giving the expected results, it may be the time to rethink its concept and reinvent the content.
That does not mean that you should leave just a few features and neglect all the other necessary parts. It means that you should focus on a minimalistic approach, and try to say a lot with fewer elements. It means that you should analyze the impact that your website have right now and think through all the possible ways of making it more impactful in your niche. And it means that you might want to rewrite, rearrange, or recreate your website content.
What can you do about it, and how to improve your website content?
Here is how.
Tips For Refining the Website Content
Tell a story
Storytelling is a buzzword, and we are aware of that. But hey, we are also aware of the fact that it has not become the buzzword for no reason. Creative writing should always be incorporated into your copywriting process. You should bring your words to life, create scenes out of them, wake up the visitors’ emotions, make them laugh, make them want to dive deeper within and know more about your company’s story.
And here is another important word for you to think about – microcopy. What is it, and why should you care?
Microcopy is the text that uses only a word, or several words, and makes it an all-mighty attention-grabbing point of your website. It is usually related to the CTA buttons, it is always contextual, and it should help users get more relevant information. There are no rules for using microcopy, but you might want to follow these: be bold, experiment, try something new, be original, and create the unexpected.
Define your goals
Ask yourself – what do you want to achieve with your website? And more precisely, what goals would you set for each and every page of your website? Once you know what you aim for, you can adjust the written copy and visual content on pages to fit the bigger picture of your website objectives.
What does it mean? It means that your content should be in alliance with your goals, and there should not be sideway distractions or some kind of wrong turns along the way. Make the road to the desired destination on your website clear and easily approachable.
Users do not have the time nor will (nor nerves) to go through the lines and lines of plain text while trying to find the essence of the products or services you offer. There is no need in wrapping it all up in several layers of written words. So, be straightforward with your offer, accentualize the benefits for your users/clients/customers, explain your terms of use in simple language, and wait for the conversions to happen. And they will most certainly happen. Intelligent UI/UX design and unique website layout might help here, as well.
Know your users
When you write a copy for your website, you must know who are you writing it for. Without the target audience in your mind, you are not going to be able to create much of a meaningful content. So, visualize that persona and start writing accordingly.
The same goes for a web design process. The homepage layout, navigation bar, feature showcases, product descriptions, shopping and shipping forms, blog posts, and everything in between, should follow the logical path that your users would want to take while cruising through your website.
Make it flawless
Check, double-check, and triple-check everything you put on your website before making it public. Users are most probably not going to forgive you grammatical errors, typos, and any other kind of flaws within your content. If too many typing errors appear on your web pages, users would want to leave them, because they would not want to continue browsing the website of a company that makes mistakes.
Be trustworthy
That brings us to the next point – you should always try gaining trust from your users with your copywriting, as well as the visual and every other content that appears on the website. So, do not try to show something that is not true or to promise something you cannot fulfill. Be honest, express your professional vision, be transparent and clear about your products and services, and keep the content quality on the highest level. And user loyalty will come your way, trust us.
Keep it updated
Make sure that all of the information on your website is accurate and updated. If you change the headquarters address, for instance, do not forget to change the address info on your website. That goes for all other important information, as well.
If you manage the Blog section on your website, you should also mind the regular updates. There is no sense in putting several blog posts on your website during one year and then stopping it. Instead, you would want to constantly publish high-quality articles, that are educational, inspirational, and relevant to your audience. Depending on the topics and your niche, you can publish blog posts every day or once a month, but you should always be consistent in updates.
All In All
Simply having a website is not enough. Your web presentation or an e-shop should be well-thought through, it should bring the expected outcomes, and provide a pleasurable experience for users, along with functional features and goal-oriented landing pages. If something goes wrong, the problem may be in the content, both written and visual.
That is why we hope that this sort of a quick checklist of tips how to improve your website content might be helpful to you, in order to bring additional value to your web pages. If you find it to be too hard to rearrange the existing content, it may be the time to consider a website redesign. Sometimes, a complete makeover may bring the desired change.
What do you think? How would you make your website content better and more appealing to your target audience? Share your thoughts with us in the Comments section below, or on our Facebook page.
