e-skills UK Guide

Writing good websites

Your website is your shop window

Websites are a shop front for many small businesses.

In fact for a lot of virtual companies a website is the only representation of their business as they don’t have offices or buildings to work from.

As well as looking good a website needs to be well written in clear, concise and bright English. This guide will look at how you can create a well written website and some of the pitfalls to avoid.

By writing good copy you will attract more people to your business and make more money. You will also be able to save money by writing some content yourself, rather than employ external consultants.

Writing good website copy

It’s important to separate the content of a website from its presentation. There are many very good graphic designers that cannot write content and vice versa. Our Designing a website guide talks about web site design in more detail.

Good copy should be able to articulate clearly and efficiently your story or proposition. If you have a lot of waffle full of typos then the impression given of your business is not particularly good. On the other hand well written, compelling content will give people a good impression of your business.

What is your objective?

Your website copy should be based on your key business objectives. What are you trying to achieve by creating the website and what do you want from the copy? Are you selling or are you trying to raise awareness? What impression do you want to create?

Most potential clients would appreciate an informative website as opposed to one that overtly sells on every page. Quite often by educating a reader you are quietly selling by proving your skills up front.

You may also want to consider your customer demographics. Taking a slightly “wacky” approach to a young audience might work well, but would fail terribly if you were pitching for business in a multinational bank.

Think Style

Are you writing for the general public or for a technical audience? For the general public you need to assume little previous knowledge and spend more time explaining your products and services. For the specialised buyer then you can assume a certain level of knowledge but never over do this – always allow for the uninformed buyer. You can often achieve this by having an FAQ or frequently asked questions area. Here you would write all of the obvious (to you!) questions and appropriate answers. Remember – the more jargon you use the less people around that can understand your products.

Take a look at this example from a car parts supplier website:

“Part Number : ANRxxxx POWER STEERING PUMP RRC 87-94. DISCO 1 V8 TO JA34313 & 90/110 NOVEMBER 1986/93.”

To anyone other than a vehicle enthusiast looking to repair the power steering on their Land Rover Discovery this would be gibberish. But then who else would be searching through this parts supplier’s site other than an expert?

Good Grammar

It is very important that you avoid typos and other grammatical mistakes. With today’s word processors it is becoming less easy to make inadvertent mistakes but you always need to be careful. Check the default spelling settings on your word processor and make sure that you use UK English rather than US English. Mixing different spellings and grammar looks terrible and comes across as sloppy. Just because your word processor vendor believes you have written good English it doesn’t necessarily mean your customers do as well.

Take a look at these examples. Which do you prefer?

“Our organization is the bestest in the neighborhood for auto repairs. Cum to our garrrage for the best price repairs low $$$$!!!”

“We believe our business is the best in the area for car repairs. Pop in and see us for a competitive quote.”

OK, these might be extreme examples but would you trust your car to the first garage or the second?

Search Engines

Although we cover search engine optimisation elsewhere it is worth mentioning here. The title of your web pages is important as these will be picked up by search engines, as will your phrasing and language in your text.

For example if a reference to a product is written in short hand it may not be picked up as well by the search engine;

“Click here for a picture of the car”

“Click here for a picture of our Homer Mobile x500 super car”

The second example will be more likely to increase your site ratings in a search engine. Take a look at our Search engine optimisation guide for more details.

Further details

Writing good copy is a skill that not everyone has, but most people can do a reasonable job by following some pointers. Here are some links which may help you with your website design as well as your copy writing:

Article on writing good web copy

Writing for the Web Training Course

Web copywriting agency

Related Guides:

Buying a website

Choosing someone to build your website