Developing web copy

Writing content for a website is very different than writing for any other medium. There are many factors to keep in mind; most importantly that content is the primary reason for the website.

A common inclination for website owners and copywriters is to want to share all the information about the university/school at once. But the key to writing persuasive and compelling web content is selectiveness.

Selling your benefits to website visitors is not the same as selling to them face-to-face or over the phone. On the web, being direct about your goods and services has a greater impact than being warm and endearing. There is a time and a place to be endearing – the last thing we want to do is scare our visitors away, however we need to ensure that they are aware of the benefits of whatever it is they are looking at.

You just can’t afford to be long-winded with your online communication. The University is competing with hundreds of similar organisations just a click away. You have a very short time in which to grab the attention of your website visitors, convey your school/service message, offerings, differentiating factors, and compel them to act.

Why is it different?

People read information differently on the web from on the printed page. Research* shows that they read 25% slower from a screen than from print copy and that approximately 80% of readers scan text instead of reading word by word. There are two main reasons for this:

• the computer is tiring for the eyes due to screen glare;
• it is more difficult to track from the end of one line to the beginning of another.

Keywords/phrases

Keyword/phrase research should underpin any web copy work. By identifying the keywords and phrases that are relevant to the content you are writing, you help the search engine ‘spider’ to work out what it is you are writing about. It then gives a rank to the page based on the search term and the occurrence of those search terms within the page.

Find out more about keyword/phrase research

*Study conducted by Nielsen Norman group