Bloomtools Client Guide. How To Write Content For Your Website

Transcription

1 Bloomtools Client Guide How To Write Content For Your Website

2 Part 1: Essential Pages Home Page The home page is the front door of your website and in most cases, it is the first thing potential customers see. So it has to sell! It has to show what you do, why you are better than your competitors and why the customer should choose you. Here are the must-haves: Bold heading that says who you are and what you do at the top of the page. Maximise this heading by making it work for humans and search engines explain what you do for your customers while also using your keywords so your website gets picked up by the search engines. Eg: XYZ Financial Planners experienced personal and business financial planners, Gold Coast and Brisbane. Your unique selling proposition. Clearly promote what is unique about your business that your competitor's don't offer. This should definitely be in the words on your page but if you have the option you should display it visually as well (eg. a flash header rotating your key messages). Eg: Johnson Cabinets is the best company for your home or office fitout because we have 30 years of experience in the industry and guarantee your money back if we don't finish your job in the quoted timeframe! Links to your products and services. You need to have links to your products or services pages, catalogue or shopping cart in the copy on the homepage (for sales and SEO), plus 'featured products' or 'featured services' boxes are a great idea to grab visitor's attention and promote your full range. Eg: Smith's Book Shop sells a variety of books including children's fiction, adult fiction, cook books and business books. We also stock a wide range of boxsets and collector's edition books. Calls to action to drive enquiries and sales. You need to actively push your website visitor's to take action on your website, whether it's to send you an , fill out a form or buy from your online shop so include lots of links and appealing copy that creates excitement and urgency. Eg. Tickets for the February tour are selling fast - click here to secure yours now. Eg. New ladies shoes in stock browse and buy now! Eg. Top 11 ways to decrease your tax download your free report here. Page 2 of 9

3 About Us Page This page is all about building the relationship with your prospect and showing them you are a trustworthy, reliable business. It must give your business a 'face' and make people feel comfortable about dealing with you. Company history to show your crediblity and experience. Many prospects will want to know a bit about you before they decide to do business with you and your About Us page is where they will look so share your company history in an interesting way that positions you as the expert. Eg. Team profile to show your personal side. It's a well known fact that people like to buy from people, so your business must come across as real and personable the best way to do this is by sharing information about your team such as bios and photos. Eg. The Computer Shop has a team of seven experienced technicians so you can be sure your computer is in safe hands with us. Here are some facts about our team... Vision and values to differentiate your business. Prospects judge a business on whether or not their values match those of the business, so use this page to explain your values, promises, passion and share anything that makes you stand out from the crowd, plus include your vision and mission statements if you have them. Eg. Bob's Couriers are 100% committed to delivering your precious parcels safely and on time. To give you complete peace of mind and to show we are serious about providing quality service, we offer a money back guarantee on any parcels that are not delivered in the quoted timeframe and will replace any items that are damaged or lost in transit. Pictures to build trust. Photos on your About Us page also help to build trust by proving that you and your business are real so use some good quality, professional photos of your team and your office or factory to give your customers peace of mind. Eg. Products and/or Services Page You only have a few seconds to give your prospects the information they are looking for, so this part of your website needs to be easy to navigate, with straightforward information and lots of calls to action to persuade visitor's to buy online or contact you. If your website has a shopping cart or a product catalogue, you may not need this page. But keep the copywriting tips in mind Page 3 of 9

4 for your product descriptions. Each product clearly broken down. The layout of this page or section will depend on what you sell, but basically you need a listing/summary page of your full range of products and services with links through to your shopping cart or additional pages with more detailed information. Eg. Focus on benefits rather than features. The features of your products are important but most consumers buy benefits they want to know what results they will get from using your product or service so ensure your content explains the great results they will get, as well as specifications and inclusions. Eg. Use pictures of your target market. We all know a picture paints a thousand words, so a strategically placed image of someone in your target market looking really happy while using your product or service sends a really strong message to your prospects and can encourage them to take action. Eg. Contact Us Page If your products or services are not available to buy online, your contact us page is where you want to be driving all your website traffic. So it has to be good! It should give them all the information they need to easily contact you through a variety of methods. An enquiry form is essential. The standard on the internet today is a form on your Contact Us page that a visitor can fill out to give you their details, as addresses just attract spammers and lucky for you, every Bloomtools website comes with a contact us form. Include your contact details and important information. As well as the form to facilitite enquiries, you need your phone number and address (physical and postal) to make it easy for people to contact you, plus important information like your trading hours. Have a easy to read map and directions. It's a good idea to have a map of your office or shop location on your website just to make sure all your prospects can find you and if you are in a complicated spot you should also write up some simple directions for prospects to view and print. Page 4 of 9

5 Part 2: The Copywriting Process The hardest thing about writing your website copy is getting started. The best advice we can give you is to do it in bite-sized chunks, relax and the words will flow. Here's a simple process you can follow to get over that writer's block and get your content underway and the sooner it's done, the sooner your great new online presence can go live! Step 1 Sitemap First you need to decide what pages you want on your website and how you want the navigation structured. The pages mentioned above are essential for every website, but the rest of the sitemap really depends on your business. The main thing is to make it logical so someone new to the website can find what they want in a few seconds and in no more than 3 clicks. Here is a generic sitemap as an example for you to work from: Home About Us Our Products Product A Product B Product C Our Services Service A Service B Our Stories News Contact Us Also check out our client directory for more inspiration on what others have done. Step 2 Bullet Points The easiest way to get started writing the content for each page is to do a bullet point list of the topics you want to cover. Think about all the important information you want to convey on each page, such as features and benefits, prices, your USP, guarantees etc. and come up with a list for each page. An example of the home page: Intro sentence with keywords Bloomtools - Developer of leading online solutions for businesses Web design, website development, marketing What we do: Website design marketing Search engine optimisation Why work with us: Page 5 of 9

6 Industry leaders Experienced and reliable Business focused solutions Next steps: Contact an Internet Consultant Download our ebook Step 3 Write Paragraphs Once you've got all your ideas down in a bulleted list, you simply need to write a few sentences expanding on each point. Your web pages should be short and to the point, so you will find that one or two sentences for each bullet will be enough to fill up your page and get the message across. Here are some important tips for writing for the web: Use persuasive language (make people want to work with you/buy your products) Focus on benefits as well as features Use your keywords throughout the copy Use short sentences so people can read it quickly Don't use jargon or complicated words Use bullet points where possible to break up the text Keep it simple and to the point Aim for about words max per page Use headings and sub-headings as signposts through the text Step 4 Proofread This is an extremely important and often overlooked part of writing. Nothing looks more unprofessional than a website littered with typos and grammatical errors, so take the time to carefully proofread your content. Make sure it reads well and makes sense, has no spelling mistakes, uses correct grammar and punctuation and most importantly, makes you want to take action! Tip get someone else to read it for you as well. Because you've been working so hard on it, you can easily overlook errors so get a colleague or friend with to go over it with fresh eyes. Page 6 of 9

7 Part 3: Choosing and Using Keywords Keywords are the words that your target market are using when searching for the products or services you sell in search engines like Google. You need to figure out what these words or phrases are then use them throughout your website so the search engines display your website in the results when someone conducts a search using those words. Step 1 Keyword Research Your choice of keywords can mean the difference between lots of search engine traffic to your website and none. So you need to put some time into choosing the best ones. Search engine optimisation is very competitive these days, so you will most likely need to target niche markets by including things such as your location or a specific product name. Here are some tips: Use a free tool like Google Keywords Tool to find out what people are searching for ( Two words together can count as one keyword - if you are selling tennis equipment, you could use keywords like 'tennis balls', 'tennis rackets', 'tennis shoes' etc. You can choose combinations of keywords like, 'buying tennis rackets', 'tennis rackets for sale' etc. Think about your keywords from a customer point of view - what words would potential customers use to find your business/products/services Use your company name in phrases as people do search by company name Use your geographic location as a keyword - people will often search for businesses within their local area Review your competitor websites to get ideas of words you can use Don't use keywords that are too broad. Instead use modifiers to make generic keywords and phrases more specific. For example, insurance related companies might use the key phrase 'health insurance quotes' Try to use multi-word phrases, eg 'car rentals newcastle' If you are ready to go beyond the basics, get our detailed guide to the process of keyword research here - Step 2 - How to Use Keywords To get your website appearing in the search engine results for your chosen keywords, they need to be strategically placed throughout your website. The most valuable places for keyword placement are the page titles, page names, headings and internal links within your content. Tip Write the content for your pages first, then go back over them and add keywords in where possible. This ensures your copy reads well for humans, not just search engines. SEO essentials: Page 7 of 9

8 Ensure keywords are included in the title of each page you create Repeat your keywords near the top of each page as headings or use bold Design your website with pages that don't have more than words per page, with keywords repeated 3-6 times for every hundred words Your overall keywords should be repeated throughout the whole website, not just the individual page - use links back to the home page with the keywords in them At the bottom of each page, link to another part of your website using its keywords. Eg: 'Click here to view our tennis shoe collection' Fill out the meta description and meta tags for each page in The Web Console Give all your images alt text rich with keywords A great strategy for getting qualified traffic to your website is creating pages within your website to target specific niche markets and optimising these with lots of keywords. For example, a law firm that specialises in family law could create a page with information about their family law services and optimise it for keywords such as 'family law gold coast' to attract that specific market. Another thing to keep in mind with your content and keywords the search engines often reward websites that have fresh, regularly updated content by giving them a higher spot on the search results. So you need to be regularly adding to your content with new pages, articles or a blog and ensure you always use your keywords as much as possible with lots of hyperlinks. If you don't have these tools (articles, blog etc.) running on your new website, talk to your Internet Consultant once the website is live and they will help you take it to the next level with more functionality. Page 8 of 9

9 Part 4 Checklist Content is king on the web you need well-written, effective copy to get results from your website. So before you send your content to your Internet Consultant, go through this short checklist to make sure it is going to get the best results for your business. Spell checked Grammar and punctuation checked Another person has proofread the content Each page is words max Focus on the benefits of your products/services Lots of calls to action to facilitate your prospect's taking action Short sentences and paragraphs for easy reading Bullet points used to break up chunks of text Headings and sub-headings used to break up the text Keywords in page names Keywords in page titles Keywords in headings Keywords throughout the content of every page Every page has keyword-rich internal hyperlinks Images selected to complement the message of each page Congratulations on writing the content for your website it takes time but it will be well worth it when it starts getting great results for your business. The next step is to send the content through to your Internet Consultant so they can populate your website and get it ready to go live. Please don't hesitate to give us a call if you have any questions we're here to help! Page 9 of 9