Writing to be read can be a difficult task to undertake for anybody, and one that can prove even more challenging when writing specifically for the web. You must capture the imaginations of your readership quickly, without overloading them with information, and point them directly to what they came to find. If they do not locate what they are looking for within a few seconds of hitting your site, they will leave to go searching elsewhere.

Whilst rich graphics and lush backgrounds enhance the appeal and experience of a site, the words are what visitors (and by extension, searches engines) read to determine if where they have landed is where they want to be.

Below are some tips on how you can improve your website’s copy to help your customers find what they want:

1. Choose your words

Before you put your fingers to the keyboard, think about your company’s identity and the corporate tone you adopt as an organisation.

Is it one of formality and maturity, or of fun and youthfulness? Do you have ‘employees’ or ‘staff’? ‘Customers’, or ‘clients’? An ‘office’, or a ‘pod’? Is the company run by the ‘Big Kahuna’ or the ’Chief Executive Officer’? This exercise will help you select the right words to determine the register of your copy. Keep a list of these words handy for future reference.

The words should reflect the market you’re in, and how your product or service relates to your intended target audience. Are you selling high-end professional consulting services aimed at company decision-makers, or do you produce a techno-widget for 18-35 consumers?

Once you have decided on the tone and type of register, stick with it through the entire site as consistency is essential in delivering a great web experience.

2. Be brief

People don’t ‘read’ websites like they read a novel or magazine – they scan them for relevant keywords/phrases, then click through to pages of interest. They don’t have time to pour over pages of copy, so it is imperative to figure out what it is what you want to say about your product or service, and then pare down that message to its essential core.

Trimming 300 words down to 30 is certainly not easy, but it’s worth the time and effort to remain as succinct as possible.

3. Use headings and bullet lists

By breaking your copy up with headings and bullet lists of salient points, visitors will be able to scan to the information they want faster. Headings are also important in optimising your site for search, so make sure you choose words which are part of your defined keyword list.

4. Engage your readers

By its very nature, the web is a great place to employ conversational styles of writing. Just as you would speak to your friends, your copy should be warm and congenial.

One of the best ways to engage your visitors is to speak to them in an ‘active’ voice – You will find great savings in our online shop! – as opposed to a ‘passive’ voice – In our online shop, you will find great savings!

5. Be a tour guide

Ultimately, the end goal for surfing to your site should be to perform an action – to buy a product, send an enquiry email or download a brochure – and so the copy should serve as a tour guide for your visitors. They came to your landing page looking for something particular, so it is imperative that you make information as easy to locate as possible.

Take the time to weave direction into your copy e.g. be sure to check out our services page for more information and ensure you highlight and hyperlink relevant text markers on each of your pages e.g. Contact Us, Download a Brochure, Buy Now, Find a Store Near You etc

6. Avoid jargon and clichés

‘Managerial-speak’ has firmly embedded itself in the vernacular. We read every day about ‘corporate social responsibility’, ‘mission statements’, ‘key deliverables’, ‘synergising organisational directives’ and, my personal favourite, ‘inverting the paradigm’. My advice to you is to avoid this kind of language like the plague.

Why? Because it is dull, deliberately confusing and unnecessarily complicated. Write smartly, without running off strings of long, important-looking-but-essentially-meaningless words, to keep your readers on your site longer. To paraphrase George Orwell, “Don’t use a big word when a small one will do.”

Also, try to avoid industry jargon which may not be understood by general readership (unless absolutely necessary), never use acronyms without typing them out in full first (you might know what A.R.G.C. stands for, but the rest of us don’t), and steer clear of tired business clichés like ‘think outside the square’ and ‘going forward’.

7. Check, check, check! (and check again just to be sure)

Check and triple-check your work before publishing. Use a spell-checker religiously, and make sure you have a dictionary and thesaurus a click-away to build comprehensive word lists. Ask someone else go over the text for grammar and punctuation issues, and read it out loud to yourself to correct any problems with syntax. Your copy should flow on the screen just as if you were saying it to someone over the course of a conversation.

If you’re going to be doing a lot of writing for your organisation, web or otherwise, I would highly recommend investing in a style guide for those curly ‘affect vs. effect’ and ‘there vs. their’ questions.

You don’t have to be a professional author to write snappy, compelling and interesting web copy. It is my hope that some of the advice outlined above proves useful when writing for, or reviewing, your site. If you are unsure what to say, or how to say it the way you want, use a professional copywriter to help craft your message for you.

This is a guest post by Rob Frost, a freelance copywriter who works with LightBulb on digital projects . Find out more about how LightBulb and Rob can assist your organisation in preparing copy to generate more interest and business on the web. Email info@lightbulbdigital.com.au or phone 8121 4462.

For more information about general copywriting services, Rob can be reached via rob@wordsbyrob.com.au