How to Create Engaging Website Copy

Your website copy must speak to your visitors.

It must engage and inform them, give them something to take away with them.

Google wants high quality writing, that’s natural and that resonates with the reader.

How many times have you read or been told that?

You know Google’s constantly changing, trying to improve the experience for searchers, but how can you be sure your web copy engages?

Engaging website copy

Is it hard to write engaging copy?

Hard is probably the wrong word to use. It’s more to do with standing outside of your business to understand what your customers want to know.

Too many people, when writing their web copy, focus on their business. They fill their web pages with what they offer, the features of their products and services and details about their company.

Believe it or not, that isn’t what your reader wants to know. They want to know what you are going to do for them and how it will help them. It all comes down to benefits – your shoes may well come in an array of colours and sizes and be handmade, but it’s the air of sophistication they conjure and superb comfort for all-day wear that the reader wants to know about.

When writing about your benefits, imagine yourself stood in front of your customer. This will help you develop a more informal conversational style that will really resonate with your reader. They want to feel as though you are talking to them directly when they read your site, because that gives them the personal connection that’s missing from online shopping.

When browsing the web, there’s no eye contact or gestures to help you get your point across, but conversational, benefits laden copy will help over come that.

Constant engagement

You see, there’s no great mystery behind how to write engaging copy, it just takes a lot of practice.

But don’t be fooled into thinking that once you’ve written your web pages you can sit back and relax.

The other thing Google’s looking for is fresh content. That means adding blogs and articles to your website – again focusing on high quality writing.

Use the same informal, conversational style to make your work readable and keep to your niche. You’re an expert, so use that knowledge to help your readers. Make sure every post offers some new information, or a tip they can take away and use.

If your content is found to be useful, the reader is more likely to share it (make sure you have your social sharing buttons clearly visible on your site), boosting your web presence and so attracting more traffic to your website.

So in summary, to create engaging web copy you must:

• Focus on the needs of your readers
• Show them the benefits your product/service offer
• Write in an informal, conversational style
• Avoid using technical language and jargon
• Regularly update your website with fresh content in the form of blogs and articles
• Encourage social sharing

Hopefully, this has shown that you don’t have to a copywriter to be able to write engaging copy. But it does take practice.