Do You Understand What I’m Selling?

November 26, 2008 // Drew Stauffer

Writing for the web seems to mystify a lot of people. Often, writers may have trouble when it comes to getting an effective point across. Two of the biggest problems with web copy is that users either a) leave the page not knowing what you’re talking about or b) have no idea what you want them to do.

I was talking to my sister a few months ago and asked her why she never commented on my blog or if she ever read it. She told me that she read it all the time but never understood anything I was talking about. Since she is the exact type of everyday business person I am hoping to sell my services to, this is a big problem.

Writing for the web doesn’t have to be hard; you just have to know your audience and follow a few important steps. By keeping your web copy simple and free from jargon, your message will be more easily understood be your users.

K-I-S-S

After reading any page a user should be able to answer a few simple questions about the content. Let’s look at a product page as an example.

What type of product is it?

Who is the product for?

What can the product do for me?

Why is the product better than the other products just like it?

I’ve been involved with a lot of writing projects and amazingly these points often get over looked simply because they think their “target user” is already aware of these facts. The problem is that your web page can be viewed by users with different levels of understanding about your product, and your content needs to make sense to all of them.

Content that is straightforward and provides users with all of the relevant information will always outperform industry jargon. Keep you content clean and consistent across your website and you will offer your user the ability to connect with and understand your content. Try different call to actions on specific pages to find what type of content works best for your readers and use this data to further refine your copy.

Over time, you will find the style that works for communicating clearly with your audience.

What about you guys, do you have any other methods to consider when writing new content for your website? Post them in the comments below.

Technorati Tags: web copy, writing, copy, SEO

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4 responses so far ↓

4 SEO Services // Dec 2, 2008 at 7:03 am

Hello Drew, you can have nice images which speaks about the content in briefly. I do think nice images are really helps a website, content and visitors?
What do you think on this?