Web Content Writing

Writing Effective Web Based Marketing Copy

Part 2 - Core Goals

Effective web content writers know something that journalists have known for decades-most readers aren't going to finish the article. There are many reasons that Internet readers aren't likely to keep reading, but the reasons aren't important to us. What's important is making sure that we meet two key goals with every piece of web text we write.

Tell the readers everything we really want them to know RIGHT UP FRONT;
Make the copy readable enough-and compelling enough-that readers want to continue to the end.

Unless you're a journalist, getting right to the point probably goes against your training. Most of us were conditioned as high school and college students to begin with an entirely useless "introductory paragraph" of five sentences or so. On the web, where most readers skim only a few lines before deciding whether to read further or move on to the next site, that introductory language can be suicide.

Consider the following lines:

Thanks for visiting our website! We're Bob and Carol Jenkins, and we've been in business at the same location for more than thirty years. Make yourself at home, take a look around the site. We think you'll enjoy the many handcrafted products available for online order or in our shop.

You've probably seen small businesses with introductory pages like this. The goal is probably to be friendly and accessible, to personalize the business. Bob and Carol told us their names, and that they'd been in business for a long time, which is nice. They created some atmosphere, let us know that their site was a casual place and we should be comfortable browsing around it.

Here's what they didn't tell us:

What they're selling;
What sets their products apart
Where they're located
How we can get their product
How affordable their products are
Why you'd want what they're selling

It's likely that Bob and Carol have included that information further down the page, but that doesn't matter, because if they haven't caught the reader's attention and carried him forward with those first few lines, he'll never see the third or fourth paragraph.

Share a piece of your childhood with your grandchildren!

For more than thirty years, Craftiques has handcrafted toys and collectibles with an old-fashioned feel and old-fashioned quality--at a fraction of the price you'd pay for antique toys.

Browse our web catalog or drop by our shop in downtown Carlisle to see our hand-carved spinning tops, custom-built dollhouses and furniture, hand-sewn rag dolls.

This piece of text is 13 words longer than the first, but it includes all of the basic information someone searching the web is typically looking for along with a splash of nostalgia to "help" the reader want Bob and Carol's products. Each entry is three sentences long, but the first is in paragraph form. That makes it look denser, and it's harder to spot key words and phrases that we want to make sure the reader doesn't miss.

Bob and Carol probably worked hard at getting the wording for their site "just right," but they didn't know the simple rules that will allow you to write copy that delivers the key information up front and carries the reader along through the rest of the text. We'll look at those rules in Part III.

Tiffany Sanders - Copywriting Specialist

Tiffany Sanders is a freelance writer/editor whose background includes corporate copywriting, web-based marketing and educational copy, journalism, community education materials and legal reporting. She has two books currently in print--one fiction and one non-fiction--and a third under contract.

Writing Effective Web Based Marketing Copy

Web Writing Article by Tiffany Sanders

Part 1 - Web Writing - Why Web Writing is Different
Writing Effective Web Based Marketing Copy - The foundation of effective copywriting can be summed up in one sentence: Know your audience.
Part 2 - Web Content Writing - Core Goals
Writing Effective Web Based Marketing Copy - Effective web content writers know something that journalists have known for decades-most readers aren't going to finish the article.
Part 3 - Marketing Copy - Writing Effective Marketing Copy
Six Simple Rules - These six simple techniques will help achieve our two core goals of delivering key information up front and keeping our potential customers reading.

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