Website rules to follow

If you’re writing for the web, rather than for print, it’s a whole different ballgame.

If someone picks up a book, you know they want to read it, and they’ll most likely start at chapter one and work their way in order to the end.

Writing for the web is not like that. Here are 8 rules to follow to get your content right:

1. It starts with keyword research

First of all, you need to get found in order for anyone to read anything you’ve written, so before you write a word, you need to do some thorough keyword research to see what keywords in your niche are popular and what your audience is searching for. While you’re there, take a look at your competitors and the keywords they are using.

Then you can create a content strategy around the keywords you want to rank for so that your target audience can discover your site and read all that epic content you’ve created for them.

2. Write for your audience first

Having said all that about keywords, while you must include them in your copy if you want to be visible on Google, don’t stuff your keywords in there like you’re being paid thousands for every single one you include.

Write naturally to please your audience and include your keywords in the natural flow of your article, and you’ll not only please your audience, you’ll please the search engines too.

3. Keep it simple

Don’t use complicated language, multi-syllabic words and tons of jargon. Write to suit your audience and how they think.

By all means, if you’re writing about quantum physics for scientists with a PhD, then include the terms that they’d use and all the maths and jargon they’d like. But otherwise, keep it simple.

Use short sentences of no more than twenty words and paragraphs that are no bigger than four or five sentences at the most. And use plain English that your audience can easily get through.

Why? Because unlike when reading a print book, readers on the internet tend to scan rather than read every word, and you need to get your message across quickly or they’ll click away and go elsewhere.

If you’re using self-hosted WordPress for your website, Yoast has a fantastic plugin that will not only check how you’re doing with your SEO but will also check the readability of your content. Check it out here.

4. Put your most important information first

When you were writing an essay in school, they no doubt told you to start with an introduction where you tell the reader what you’re going to say, then actually say it in the body of your essay, and write a conclusion where you tell them what you’ve said.

That advice works brilliantly for essays at school, but not so much when you’re writing for the web.

If you’ve ever written a press release, on the other hand, you’ll know that you should include the most important information first, then add in the less important information and include background only at the bottom. It’s called the ‘inverted pyramid’ model, and it’s perfect for web writing as it’s all to do with getting attention.

Newspaper editors don’t have time to read your 400-page epic on why your business is the greatest ever and why they should totally feature it. Like your web audience, they want to know what’s in it for them. Quickly and up front! Why is it news? Why should they print it? Why should they care? That’s what they’re thinking.

And your audience is very similar in wanting to know why they should read on when there are so many other websites out there.

5. Talk directly to your audience

If you’ve ever read any ‘corporate speak’ sites where they drone on about themselves and use ‘we’ and ‘our’, you’ll know it can be very distancing.

When someone’s talking only about themselves, you don’t feel included in that. You don’t feel listened to and understood. You feel like you aren’t really a part of things.

When someone writes chatty copy that’s aimed right at you, on the other hand – Yes, you. Hello there! – you feel engaged, heard, and understood.

So instead of using ‘we’ and ‘our’ in your copy and pushing your readers away, use ‘you’ and ‘yours’ to get them to feel like you’re really talking to them.

Some examples of great websites are

Fbsm