Writing to be read online
When writing for your website, you want to adhere to the principles of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) copywriting and use keyword-rich text, but you don’t want to go overboard.
You’ll also want to write readable, useful text and aim to present it in such a way that readers will find it easy to skim your web pages, find what they need and understand the information conveyed.
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Writing for online readers
Generally, people who visit your website will not read everything word-for-word. They will skim read to see what information is available, and to find the information they need – whether it be details on your products and services, prices, the location of your store or how they can purchase online.
Here are some tips to help you make the copy, or text, on your website as reader-friendly as possible, to get your business’s information across.
- Use concise headings and subheadings to give people an idea of what is covered on a given page.
- Keep your sentences and paragraphs short when possible.
- Use plain and simple language. Avoid using jargon and if you need to use technical terms, define them clearly.
- Highlight important words and phrases in bold.
- Use bullet points and numbered lists. These can be used for product or service features and benefits, for example, or when giving instructions on how to use your products.
You want your site’s copy to be clear and concise, yet informative. Have friends and customers review your site to get an idea of how it reads through their eyes. Could they find all the information they needed? Was it easy to find? Was there any information or descriptions they didn’t understand? Use the answers to these questions to make tweaks and changes to your site, to increase its readability and usefulness.
SEO copywriting
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) copywriting refers to the technique of writing copy, or text, for your website that targets your chosen search terms to help your website rank highly on search engine results pages – while still ensuring your text is reader-friendly and adheres to the points above.
It is widely believed you need to include at least 200–250 words of text on any page you want search engines to be able to index and rank, especially on your homepage. You should choose a few search terms, often called keywords or phrases, and incorporate these words into the flow of your website text.
Using keywords
For search engines to consider your site relevant for a search containing certain words, they must be able to find those keywords on your website. To ensure this, you should allocate relevant keywords (three per page is the maximum recommended) to each of your website’s pages, and use each word or phrase about three times in the text, including titles, headings, and links.
You probably have some idea which keywords people are likely to search for when looking for businesses like yours, but to learn more, take a free trial with Wordtracker. Once you know the top keywords relevant to your site, you can incorporate them into your text. But be careful not to overdo it – search engines might rank you lower if they think you are trying to trick them.
TIP: Some sites appear to have text on them that is actually graphical text. Search engines can’t index text that is part of a graphical image. To check whether your website has text or an image containing text, try to highlight the text by dragging your mouse over it when you view your page online. If you can do this, chances are search engines can read it.
