When you start an online store, there’s a lot to manage – including the text on your website. It needs to grab customers' attention, inform them about your products, and create demand.
Content creation may seem simple, but there are several things you should think about and consider. In some cases, it might be more worthwhile to have someone else write the content for your website. It really depends on how much effort you want to put into it yourself. Whether it's you or someone else writing your texts, we've gathered some useful tips on how to create great content for your website.
Organize Your Content
Let’s begin with the structure of your writing. Whether you choose to craft a lengthy novel or keep it to a concise description is entirely up to you. Either way, it’s crucial to establish some structure. Readers often lose interest when faced with unstructured text. There could be many reasons for this, but make it easier on yourself by:
- Make your content easy to navigate
- Split the text into smaller sections
- Be specific and get straight to the point
- Make sure you know what you want to say so your message comes through clearly
This can be done, for example, by following the "red thread" in the image below and checking if you’ve included everything you need.
Decide on a Tone of VoiceOnce you’ve mastered the art of creating a structured text, it’s time to decide on the tone you want to use. By tone, I mean the way you speak to your customers and the type of language or jargon you use.
It’s important for your texts to feel consistent. In a way, ensuring a uniform tone across your writing is an extension of maintaining structure. You need to determine how you want to communicate with your customers.
Will you use first person, third person, singular, or plural? How do you want to address them? You must understand your target audience and know how they prefer to be communicated with.
When you know your target audience, you automatically gain a better understanding of what you can get away with. Additionally, through tone, you can convey the identity and personality of both you and your company. Here, you need to decide whether it’s more important to come across as experienced and professional, young and fresh, or something entirely different.
You have the opportunity to show who you are and tell your customers that they are unique individuals, not just one among many. This can be achieved by ensuring a more personal approach, avoiding overly general language.
To keep people engaged online, it's important to remember that they have access to an infinite number of pages. Therefore, it shouldn’t feel too formal, as that could drive them away quickly.
Create a Scenario
Alright, so once you have the structure in place, know your target audience, and understand how you want to communicate with them, it's time to focus on the content. Again, be careful not to make it too formal—avoid creating a product description that only lists appearance and material. Of course, those details are important, but make sure to include what the product can be used for and why it’s a great choice.
By adding all the elements that make your product comparable, you don’t need to explicitly say why it’s better. Consumers have become skilled at using the internet to research the products they’re interested in. They compare products that are similar to each other, so it’s beneficial to provide as much detail as possible.
Another sales technique you can use, which is possible through text, is storytelling. Tell a story that paints a picture for the consumer. They should be able to see themselves in the scenario you’re describing. If you know your target audience, share a situation they can relate to.
For example, if your product is a rug, describe a picnic a mother can take her children on, where the rug is perfect for sitting on. Or tell a story about how the rug is ideal for a cozy night on the couch, watching a movie together as a couple.
Unless your product is truly “one-of-a-kind,” it’s these kinds of stories and scenarios that will encourage consumers to choose your product. They’ll be able to imagine how it fits into their lives. Know your audience and sell them an experience through your product.
Add Plenty of Images
In addition to storytelling and selling your customers a scenario, it’s a great idea to incorporate images. Some of the companies doing this best right now are the new online "clothing stores." Most of these have started on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, etc., where they showcase clothing in a fresh and exciting way.
Rather than displaying the clothes on a hanger with a white background, they wear them. They show the clothes in various combinations, how they can be styled, worn, and who might wear them. Essentially, they create personas that customers can relate to.
This is an idea that everyone should try, as much as possible. No matter what you’re selling, create visual content that aligns with the story you want to tell. Show consumers images that match the scenarios you’ve painted for them, and make it even more vivid.
It doesn’t require expensive photoshoots to create images that enhance a scenario. Professional campaigns that cost thousands of kroner make sense for TV ads, but on your website, aesthetically pleasing and well-crafted images you’ve taken yourself can work just as well. The same goes for video content if it makes sense for your products. It doesn’t need to be professional-grade to work on your website.
4 Things for the Best SEO Content
Copywriting has become an essential element in digital marketing. Having strong text on your website can help increase traffic and even improve your conversion rate. Additionally, you can write your content in a way that boosts your SEO. Search engine optimization can help ensure that your page ranks high in organic search results. You can achieve this by making sure your texts are SEO-friendly, inspiring, and relevant.
For a text to be SEO-friendly, it needs to include the keywords that people most often use when searching for the services or products you offer. The more keywords you can mention, and the more frequently you can mention them, the higher your website will rank in search results.
To ensure your texts are relevant and inspiring, you need to understand your target audience. You must present your company’s values in a way that allows your visitors to see themselves in them. It’s important to remember that people lose focus quickly, so writing in an engaging way is essential.
Make sure to proofread
It’s essential that you convey professionalism. One of the most common reasons a text appears poor is when it hasn’t been proofread. This often leaves behind a sloppy text with grammatical, spelling, or typographical errors. Additionally, proofreading helps create structure and clarity in a text. Both of these elements make the text easier to read, and in turn, more engaging for the reader.
Answer WH-questions
Et rigtig godt råd til, hvordan du bør skrive dine tekster, er at besvare de mulige spørgsmål dine forbrugere har. Dette er både for at indholdet på din hjemmeside er brugbart, men også fordi at din side så vises, når disse spørgsmål bliver søgt på Google. Altså, hvis nogen googler “hvad kan jeg bruge xxxx til?”, så dukker din side op i søgningen.
Viewable on any screen
In today’s society, where consumers use computers, phones, and tablets daily to browse websites, readability is something to consider. This is especially important to ensure that readers can access all the information on the device they’ve chosen to visit your site on. You should make sure that it’s not only readable, but also easy to read.
Outsourcing
You might want to consider whether you should outsource some of your writing. Often, businesses handle their product descriptions and website texts themselves but leave the SEO content, newsletters, and proofreading to others. For instance, we use Ackerman for our newsletter to ensure professionalism and fresh content every week.
Team pensopay
