When you’re writing for the web, you need to keep your audience in mind. Write for readers who are in a hurry and don’t have a lot of time to read.
If you have a business website, you have likely spent time making it look visually appealing and filling it with information you think is important for customers to know when making a purchase decision.
To make sure your website is as persuasive as possible you can follow these tips:
1. Speak in your target audience’s language
If you’re looking to appeal to former police or military officers, for example, consider creating content for an academy that caters to their needs. This could include topics on leadership, management and how to adjust to civilian life. By creating content that is relevant to their interests, you can more easily reach this target market.
In summary:
- One way to build trust with your target audience is to use words, phrases and concepts that are familiar to your audience. This is especially important for audiences with their own slangs and shorthand.
- The need to sound familiar (therefore unthreatening) is why it’s important to understand who you’re writing for. Understanding who your product or service benefits and what they’re looking for is key to writing persuasive web content that draws them in.
2. Personalize your message
The word “you” creates a sense of intimacy between the writer and the reader. The more “you” is used, the more the reader feels like the writer is addressing them personally. This creates a connection between the two parties.
People come to your site because they want a change. Keep your copy focused on the change and the benefit that your reader is looking for. That’s what they’re interested in. Every word you write should tie directly to that.
3. Use simple language in your web content
It’s easy for digital marketers to rely on jargon and fancy words because they think using difficult language makes a message sound more authoritative. But using difficult language usually just alienates readers altogether. It will definitely confuse people, and confused people usually don’t make purchases. That’s why using simple language is usually better than using confusing lingo.
If you use industry jargon you’re confident your audience is already familiar with, and those terms mean the same thing to everyone who thinks they understand them, then it may be more appropriate to use jargon specific to an industry.
4. Complement your website content with high quality images and visuals
Our emotions play a bigger role in our buying decisions than we like to think. We rationalize our decisions after the fact, but our emotions are what guide us.
Images and visual content can help to create emotional responses in web design, as well as making a text-heavy page more interesting. Images can provide context and additional meaning to web content by illustrating concepts in ways that text alone cannot accomplish.
Be choosy with the images you use on your website. Make sure they reflect the brand and tone of voice you’ve established. Don’t just go with the first stock image you find when you search for words like “growth” or “sustainability.”
How to increase the visual appeal of your web copy:
- Replace text by photographs or videos
- Consider different font sizes – think about people scanning large text first
- Emphasize quotes of customers (or experts) to add credibility
- Play around with highlights, bold text, CAPS, or italics
- Break a long headline into a headline with a sub headline
- Change paragraphs into bullet points
Most importantly, reduce noise and add white space to make your website easier to read and increase your perceived trustworthiness.
5. Create a pathway of low resistance
If your website is hard to navigate or has a cluttered design, it will only confuse people, make them leave your site, and hurt your ranking on search engines.
6. Create content that answers your audience’s questions
Many people who come to your website are doing so to see if you can provide a solution to their problem. They want to know if your products can do what you say they can, and if you offer a better solution than other businesses.
The most important thing you can do for your website’s visitors is to make sure the site is easy to navigate and the information they are looking for is easy to find.
7. Persuasive website content offers proof
Proof is one of the most important elements of copywriting, and including it with your claims can improve your conversion rate. Omitting proof from your marketing can lead to campaigns that fail, even when they could have been successful.
If you want to make your message sound more convincing, one of the things you can do is include social proof in your writing. This is one of the techniques that Dr. Robert Cialdini, a psychologist who is known as the “godfather of persuasion,” discusses in his book Influence.
Embed positive feedback on your website that proves your product or service is exceptional to gain the trust of customers.
8. Toss out superlatives
Inflated statements that are not based in reality can lead people to make poor decisions. If you’re considering buying a product or investing in a company based on false information, you could end up losing a lot of money. This is an exaggeration that is not based in reality and can lead people to make poor decisions.
Puffery is unnecessary and takes up space that could be better used.
Puffery is an overblown or exaggerated claim that is often used in advertising. It can cause readers to think that you are like everyone else, which can harm your business by making it difficult for you to stand out from the competition.
In order to avoid coming across as insincere, find a way to show that you are better than your competition. Creating trust with potential customers by demonstrating what you can do, rather than simply telling them, will cause your conversion rates to improve drastically.
9. Inject urgency in your website content
The recent mainstreaming of the term “FOMO” has given digital marketers and copywriters a new tool to use. The Fear Of Missing Out is a powerful motivator that keeps people focused on taking action.
What is the best way to create a FOMO-inducing site? Write content that makes it clear what prospects will miss out on if they don’t take the desired course of action on your website. This will make people who are hesitant to act, feel more uncomfortable, and more likely to take the desired action.
Persuading people works best when they are feeling emotional. If you can make them feel like they need to act quickly, they are more likely to act.
10. Turn every web page into a landing page
While it is common to think of the home page as the entrance to a website, it is not always the case that a user’s first visit will be to the home page. Unlike a book, where people typically start from the beginning and read through to the end, visitors to a website may land on any page. This means that every page on a website has the potential to be a landing page.
Well, here’s what you can do to optimize each web page for maximum lead generation:
- Every web page should contain skimmable and scannable content.
- Every web page needs to reinforce who you are, what you do, and why you are the only solution for your prospects.
- There should be a call to action on every web page. The call to action on different pages doesn’t necessarily have to mimic each other. On one page, you could have a link that takes readers to your contact page. On the next, you could have a call to action for a lead magnet.
11. Make it easy for hunters to find you
Potential customers are hunting for information or products.
Lure potential customers to your website by providing useful information. That’s how writing for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) basically works:
- Answer the questions potential customers are asking
- Discuss one key topic for each page
- Include links to relevant pages on your own website or to other websites
- Use phrases and words your potential customers are looking for
12. Expect people to arrive anywhere on your website
There is no guarantee that they will ever visit your home page. Web visitors typically don’t start on a website’s home page; they can land on any page. There’s no way to guarantee that they’ll visit the home page.
This means that every web page has the potential to be the first page someone sees when they visit your website.
- Each page should be easy to scan
- Each page should clarify to people where they are; and what your site is about
- Each page should have a call to action telling people where to go next—to read another blog post, sign up for your email newsletter, check out a detailed product description or testimonial, request a quote or add a product to a shopping cart
13. Write for lazy people
Your web visitor doesn’t want to have to put in any effort to read your text, just like a lazy panther looks for an easy catch to make for its dinner.
Make your copy easy to read:
- Use short paragraphs—four sentences max
- Use short sentences—twelve words on average
- Skip unnecessary words
- Avoid jargon and gobbledygook
- Avoid the passive tense
- Avoid needless repetition
- Address your web visitors directly—use the word “you”
- Shorten your text
14. Use familiar words
If you want to find a cheap flight to Bangkok, you would search for a low-fare and probably not a cost-effective flight.
People are looking for cheap flights, not cost-effective ones. This is shown by Google’s Keyword Tool.
The words that people are looking for are care words. We often try to make ourselves sound better than we are by embellishing what we do. We try to make ourselves sound scientific, fancy, or special, but your web visitor is looking for familiar words- care words- because they’re the scent trail that tells him he’s in the right place.
15. Write for scanners
According to research, only a small minority of people read web pages in a linear, word-for-word fashion. The majority of visitors to a website typically skim the text for relevant information.
How can you write for scanners? A check list:
- Does your headline communicate what you’re about?
- Does your image caption communicate a sales message?
- Do your sub headlines summarize your key points?
- Do easy-to-scan bullet points reduce wordiness?
Make sure your website is easy to understand at a glance for people who are looking for information or products.
16. Don’t try to be clever or creative
It’s rare for a reader to hang on to every word you write when they are web browsing because they can easily go to a different website.
If you want people to read your web copy, you need to keep it simple. Web visitors are usually in a hurry and don’t have time to read something that is complicated.
17. Put your most important information first
The way you write for the web is different from how you would write an essay or paper.
The most important points on web pages always come first.
An example would be if you were looking for a new red three-seater sofa. In this case, you would want to see that the website you arrive at sells sofas. Secondly, you would want a search box so you can quickly find out what red three-seater sofas are available and get more information about them.
The most important information for your web visitors is usually a straightforward statement of what your business does. If they understand your business, they may want to know some key details. Lastly, they might want to know some background information.
The inverted pyramid is a term used by journalists to describe a way of writing where the most newsworthy information comes first, before details and background information. This structure is used in newspaper articles so that even if a reader only reads the first paragraph, they will still understand the main points of the story.
18. Treat your web visitors like wild animals
Wild animals are known for being unpredictable, so it’s not surprising that your website visitors behave in the same way. Jakob Nielsen, a usability expert, has said that website visitors behave like wild animals, and it’s important to keep this in mind when designing your website.
They are searching for information or a product to purchase – similar to how a hungry panther searches for its next meal.
Your web visitors care about two things: whether your website has what they’re looking for, and whether they can find it easily.
Your web visitors do not want to spend a lot of time browsing your website to find the product they want. They want to find it quickly.
Similar to how a panther makes a quick decision on whether or not to follow a scent trail, your web visitor decides quickly whether your site is useful or not. If your site looks complicated with a lot of options, they click away to explore another website.
People who visit websites generally take a quick look around before deciding if they are in the right place or not. They don’t need to know for certain, they just want to make a quick judgement.
Conclusion
Do not try to make your website visitors read through difficult and confusing text. Do not try to make your website visitors read through small print like lawyers. Be concise with your words. Do not try to show off how many words you know.
Instead, make your text as simple as possible.
Don’t try to please everyone, just focus on being true to yourself and what you do.