Are you building a new website or revamping an old one and don’t want to hire a professional copywriter? Take a look at our 7 tips that are well worth keeping in mind.
Even if you don’t have the best text in the world and are just starting out with writing, this simple list alone will guarantee a decent result that both search engines and users will appreciate. You’ve probably heard of most of these points before, but try this: just browse through 10 random websites that Google suggests. You’ll find that many well-known companies seem to have never heard of them.
Getting a head start isn’t hard, so let’s get started.
7 common mistakes in website copywriting. Are you making them too?
1/ Website tone
A unique communication style helps a brand to be understood. You don’t need to invest in expensive analysis or make a mountain out of a molehill. But clarifying the voice you use to speak to customers and the rest of the world pays off, and not just for your website. Are you friendly and informal? Or serious and reserved? Do you maintain a professional distance, or are you the chatty neighbour next door? By the way – research shows that brands which manage to speak the way their customers speak come out on top.
When creating content, the most important thing is to maintain a consistent tone across the entire website. Speak in the same style on the homepage as you do in the contact form tucked away on a subpage.
2/ CTA: call to action
Writing micro-copy for buttons is a specialised discipline governed by several principles. The most important of these is clarity. What are we encouraging the visitor to do? Fill in a form? Order goods? Leave their contact details? Before launching the website, it’s worth going through all the buttons as a whole and ensuring that the user can always easily understand what we want them to do. Do they know what they’ll get if they click?
Another essential feature of a good button is brevity. Brevity is power. Ideally, it should fit into three words; in exceptional cases, it may be longer in certain parts of the website. Generally speaking, the shorter the CTA, the more likely the user is to click on it.
And the content itself? A personal form of address tends to yield better results in statistics. More people usually click on “Browse the offer” than on “Browse the offer”. There are more rules like this; we’ll return to them in a separate article.
3/ Informal vs formal address
Nowhere is it written what is correct. Some brands suit the formal style, others go straight for the informal. It depends on the target audience and the overall communication style. The key is to stick to one version. It really doesn’t look good when we use the informal style on a careers page and on Instagram, yet maintain a formal distance on the homepage. You may have come across brands that haven’t clarified how they address users. There are quite a few of them. Yet even a small detail that leaves a visitor with a bad impression can be enough to make them leave the site.
4/ What do you want to say?
Complex philosophical ideas have no place on most websites. However, making the text clear is often a tougher nut to crack than it might seem at first glance. Putting what’s on your mind simply, and as concisely as possible, usually takes many times longer than writing a long, exhaustive text.
Moreover, what the author understands, others may not. If you do not wish to invest directly in user testing, at least have colleagues read through the new texts on your websites. Did they understand what the author was trying to say? Did they grasp it before losing focus?
5/ Text structure
Think of your website as a precious space where nothing must be missing or superfluous. How the text is structured is just as important as the content itself. Let’s be honest – most users read the headings and, at best, the first few sentences. That’s where it all comes down to – will they stay or leave?
It is therefore worth spending enough time thinking about what you need to include in the text, why, and in what order.
Does your website have a logical structure? Can users find the headings where they’re looking for them? Can they navigate the text smoothly without getting lost? Every second counts.
6/ Keywords
The SEO perspective on content is a separate topic. However, we’re focusing on copywriting mistakes. So the fundamental question is: have you made the most of keyword analysis? Are keywords present on every page where they can do their job?
It’s not uncommon for copywriters to get so immersed in the content that they tend to forget about SEO. The good news is: it’s never too late to fix it.
7/ Does it have bite?
The texts are finished. You’ve followed all the rules, perhaps even read copywriting textbooks or listened to podcasts. Hours and days of work are behind you.
And now the crucial question: is it still you? When you’ve had a good night’s sleep and look at the texts with fresh eyes – does your company come through in them?
Customers will forgive minor mistakes if they feel they recognise you through the website and that you wrote it for them.
Do you need advice on your website copy? Or would you prefer to have new copy written from scratch? We’re here for you!