08/03/2015
10 Tips for Writing Descriptive Content
You’ve got a website, great! You’ve taken the first step in giving your business the digital angle it needs to progress, the next challenge is keeping customers on your page interested and away from competitors. Here are 10 tips on how to ensure you don’t have them clicking ‘back’…
1. Remain Product and Service Focused
It’s important to remember from the outset why a potential customer has arrived on your site. Be sure to remain focused to your brand and services within the vast majority of the content, highlighting your perks and giving them no reason to search for an alternative. Sure, a few quips might give that friendly feel you want to portray, but that is not what you provide.
2. Keep it Simple
Studies have found that reading from computer screens is tiring for the eyes, with our reading speeds being slower via screens than paper. With this in mind, it’s key to remain concise and use shorter phrases or words where possible. Using ‘begin’ instead of ‘commence’ will enable your description to be read that much faster, and ensure customers aren’t missing any important information by skim-reading.
3. Use the Inverted Pyramid approach
This well-tested method basically means all of the key information about your products and/or services needs to be included within the first few lines of your content. A study found that users like to feel active while on the Web, and are unlikely to read vast amounts of text. However, if all of your key information is included at the start, it ensures the customer can still come away with the main points if they lose interest mid-way through. The Inverted Pyramid also has the added bonus of increasing your SEO as most of your content’s keywords will be used within the first few sentences.
4. Use Descriptive Sub-Headings
Large amounts of text on a webpage don’t just look unattractive on a graphic level – many customers will be put off by the thought of so much reading. A simple way to make sure nothing valuable is omitted is through the use of sub-headings. This simple way to break up text gives readers the opportunity to pick and choose what they want to know about your product or service in a short amount of time. It’s important to keep the Inverted Pyramid in mind here too – ask yourself what is the most important part of your content and select that as your first sub-header.
5. Think of the Search Engine Benefits
Finding your website is the key thing you need potential customers to do. One of the simplest ways to ensure this is to increase your Search Engine Optimisation. To do this, you need to make your content as unique as possible, using keywords that are relevant to your products and services. Make sure that all phrases remain relevant and true to your company.
6. A Picture says a Thousand Words
One aspect where it is important not to skimp on in your website is high-quality images. If taken and chosen correctly, they can help your product to sell itself without any real need for other content. Images can also be the easiest way to get people onto your site via social media, along with opening up a whole new world of SEO benefits and making your pages look better visually.
7. Be Specific
Don’t forget to miss out any key aspects of your product or service. Take a look at your competitors’ websites and consider what they include, or might be missing. Sharing all the key information at the start also gives customers trust as they understand what they are purchasing.
8. Forget the Home Page
You need to forget the idea that people will be viewing your website in the order you would assume. Websites are not like books, and therefore aren’t read front-to-back. People can land on any page depending on what they have searched for, so with this in mind you need to make each and every page clear and brand-focused. Of course this doesn’t mean repeating yourself on each page, if people want more information they will search your website for it, but it is no good having a well-organised front page if the rest don’t match up.
9. Don’t Over Do It
Remember that it is of no interest to your readers how many search engine keywords you fit into your content. People will soon lose interest if phrases are being repeated more than once in a paragraph, so word each topic wisely. It is also important to bear in mind that gone are the days when ‘keyword stuffing’ was seen as an acceptable practise, Google now can remove or lower your site from their searches if you are found to be doing this.
10. Checking it Twice
Make sure before publishing any content that you’ve checked over it more than once. There is nothing worse than a spelling mistake or a typo to quickly lose potential customers trust that you are a professional company. Ideally, this should be viewed by a second pair of eyes, but leaving some time between the checks can also help if this isn’t possible.