Get Writing Your Website Off to a Strong Start Part 2: Insider Tips from The Content Consultancy for Ensuring Polished Website Copy

by Kate Llewellyn from The Content Consultancy

Your website is like a shop window or, even, a television advert. Imagine if you were spending money on an actual TV ad…how much time and effort you would spend to ensure you got it right. Make sure you do the same with your website copy.

Once you have written it and are happy with the overall content and depth, it’s time to polish it to truly ensure its professionalism. After all of your time and effort, make sure the text on your website is working really hard for your business – and not let down by a silly inconsistency or typo!

Polish your copy to ensure its professionalism

When writing a website for a business, there are some secret copywriter tips that will add an element of professionalism to your copy which will enhance authority and trust – very important to keep website visitors on your pages for as long as possible.

Secret copywriter tip 1 – Be consistent

All copywriters are obsessed with consistency. You may want to write a brief style document to follow. You need to be consistent with where and how you use capital letters in headings, for example. You need to decide how you refer to your business. Consider are you using the same voice throughout (i.e. first or third person)? And, also, tone – are you formal or friendly? Essentially do all of your pages have the same feel?

Also check for consistency of information – go through prices, opening hours and other ‘facts’ with a fine-tooth comb and ensure they are all the same if they are stated more than once. Double check all of the obvious items too like email addresses and phone number. They are so easy to ‘assume’ to be correct.

Secret copywriter tip 2 – Include ‘natural’ calls to action and interlinking opportunities

When you are refining your copy consider what your calls to action (CTA) will be. A CTA is simply an instruction to your website visitor to do something. By considering this in your copy, your CTA buttons will then ‘read naturally’ as the next step. Consider also if there are hyperlink opportunities within your text where you can naturally mention other pages or a blog post, for example, that the visitor should visit.

Secret copywriter tip 3 – Proofread lots and read copy out loud

For every person who won’t notice a typo or grammatical error there will be one who does and who genuinely will not buy from you because of it. Not proofreading will reflect badly on your business so take the time to check all of your copy (more than once). It is incredibly difficult to proof your own work. So, leave time between writing and checking. The best way to proofread is to read your copy out loud. Not only will it help you to spot typos and add punctuation, you will also identify if your copy is clear and where there are longer sentences. Also don’t always start from the homepage and work through as the ‘later’ page will suffer as you get more tired. Ideally, do one page at a time on a different day.

One last tip – save your deletions

And finally, if you delete a big chunk of text or make a note to write about something but then change your mind – do not delete this information! Websites need updating regularly and changing and editing the ‘general’ information can be really difficult. It’s hard saying the same thing in a different way! So, keep any notes or deleted elements in a separate document and when it is time for an update or ‘spring clean’, these may well give you some good inspiration!

Kate Llewellyn is a content consultant who feels strongly about creating powerful marketing material which works hard for your business. She launched her business, The Content Consultancy in 2017 to support fellow small businesses.

For more support with planning your website, we have created our Perfectly Planned Website Course. Also, if you missed last week’s post, make sure you check out Part 1 of this mini blog series.