Some new website owners spend so much time on color schemes,
borders and online Feng Shui that they forget what’s most important: the words
they’re using to communicate with visitors.
Here are three tips for getting the words right:
Don’t Assume Too Much Or Too Little Knowledge
First, figure out your target market. Focus not only on what these Internet users
want, but also on what they know. You
don’t want to talk over visitors’ heads.
You’ll lose them within a few sentences. But you don’t want to talk down to them
either. In most cases, common sense will
tell you what the average person in your target market knows about your
product. When in doubt, ask for feedback
from others. You can’t please everyone
in this regard, but if you spend some time on it, you can draft language that
speaks on the right level.
It’s Not About You
The concept of “audience” is a crucial element in all forms
of writing. Seasoned writers write for a
specific audience, and if a joke or clever point doesn’t speak to that audience
then it doesn’t make the cut. Even if
you think it’s the most insightful thought ever uttered, if it doesn’t resonate
with your specific audience, it’s useless.
This is even more true when it comes to website
writing. The web is broken down into
millions and millions of audience-specific nuggets. People find your site because it serves some
specific purpose. They don’t care about
anything else. They don’t care if you’re
funny. They don’t care if you’re
clever. They care about the goal they’re
trying to accomplish. Whatever helps
them do what they want – that, for your customers, is the cleverest thing you
could say.
Write For Your Visitors, Not The Search Engines
This is a point made in many discussions of SEO (i.e., “Search
Engine Optimization”). Because you
probably don’t want to wade through a dozen geeky web treatises, I’ll make the
point here in the simplest terms possible:
You probably know that you need to include certain keywords on
your site so that Google users will find you when they search. You may also know that Google ranks sites so
that the “best” sites for a given keyword will pop up on top of the search results. Nowadays, most experts agree that there’s no
magic formula for how many instances of each keyword to include in your text. You do need to know which relevant phrases
people are searching for. And you do
need to include some of those phrases on your site. But beyond that, your primary focus should be
on the wants and needs of your visitors.
If your website and business are useful to others, you’ll eventually
gain prominence on the Internet.