The digital age has not only changed the way business functions it has also upturned the principles that underpin digital communications that make it all possible.
Imagine a website without text. It could appear very cutting edge in terms of design and might reflect a cred for a creative organisation. However, would it retain interest long enough to communicate properly with stakeholders or would the readers simply skip off to another page that is more readily communicative?
Probably the latter and with good reason; speed is everything in online communications and words remain the best means to nail meaning.
Images, whether static or moving have been used in fantastic and innovative ways since the early days of the internet. But too much preoccupation with gimmicky visual features for their own sake can lose the message in the technology.
The digital economy demands that business websites grasp the audience fast and convey what the company is about, fast. This involves a fine-tuned balance between creativity and content so you don’t lose your chance at engagement with your audience.
Harmony is required between text and images as you only have seconds to convince the visitor they have come to the right place.
Given Google’s new algorithm Hummingbird which searches on more meaningfully constructed search terms rather than just set keywords, it is even more important to get the words right.
So what makes for good online communications? Other blogs on this site have covered trends in graphic design so let’s concentrate on the value of words.
First things first
The online paradigm means business has to convey its message clearly and quickly. Not only is the physical real estate limited by the size of the screen, but with the advent of digital communications, site visitors have grown impatient and more fickle.
Visitor perceptions have evolved along with the internet to expect compressed meaning and are impatient of waffle or lack of structure.
If you can’t convey what your business does on your website you risk leaving the impression that you don’t know your own business.
So you need to have clear writing combined with clear thinking about the ‘agenda’ of your business and the logic behind what you convey to stakeholders.
Your own sales process can help you at this stage. What do your sales people say to prospects and customers? Over time they have probably graded the level of detail they need to deliver at each point in the process to retain buyers’ interest. That’s the sort of thinking that businesses need to apply to their websites as the website is an important selling tool.
Use that to formulate your thinking about what should go on the website and at what point. For example, top line, must-say content naturally goes to the front page while technical or backgrounding information goes somewhere deeper on the site structure.
Writing right
Resourcing – online content is important so allocate the right resources whether in-house or outsourced. Give it enough management bandwidth and budget. Think about the benefits of good content vs the cost of poor content due to lost opportunities.
Identify business objectives – this helps you to define the content’s purpose. What do you want the site to convey?
Target your content – understand who your audience is and what they want to know.
Filter your content – Reverse engineer your corporate information to fit what visitors want to know. Don’t rely on the content you may have captured in other types of corporate communications like brochures. While they are useful the main thing is to put ALL your content through the online filter. Never simply digitise existing material.
Champion digital content – resist internal pressure regarding writing styles. Appoint a gatekeeper to filter all input. It can’t be written by quorum or it will read like a patchwork quilt. Web writing is a specialised form of communication and needs to be treated differently to other marketing assets such as brochures, print advertisements and tenders.
Measurement – define performance goals for the content written as part of your digital KPIs (key performance indicator) quality processes.
Techniques to know
- Use a concise, Plain English style with personality specific to your business
- Write for scanability
- Use web-specific formatting
- Used the inverted pyramid – based on journalism writing where you write with the assumption that the bottom of the piece may get cut so you have all the good stuff at the top. Same applies with online writing as you need to grab attention early and up front.
- Use headings and subheadings
- Apply the active versus passive voice
Fatpublisher provides website writing services to our clients. If you are interested in finding out about our website writing services, please contact us.