- Intro
- Stats
- Marketing Versus Sales
- Scannability
- Comprehension
- Prioritization
- Brevity
- Audience
- Jargon
Content will make or break your conversion rates and should be as strategic as - if not more than - your architecture, design, forms and other site aspects.
Visitors form opinions very, very quickly.
It takes about 50 milliseconds (that’s 0.05 seconds) for users to form an opinion about your website that determines whether they like your site or not, whether they’ll stay or leave.
They scan text way more than they read.
Visitors spend an average of 5.59 seconds looking at a website’s written copy
…and on average only read 20% of a page’s content!
And often only visit only a few pages on a site.
More than 4 pages viewed per visit would put you in the best 20% of sites, and more than 5.3 would put you in the best 10%.
If you want even more proof of how important content strategy and layout is, then we have a slew of stats just for you…
Separate Marketing From Sales Language
A website is to entice and convert, not close the deal.
Your goal is just to move someone to the next step in the process.
When writing, do not try to provide every detail. Often when companies write their own content, their drive is to want to explain everything and not miss any detail.
Most website writing is about marketing – short and sweet to entice people to take action.
Stop trying to say everything.
We repeat. Stop trying to say everything.
TYPICAL PARAGRAPH STYLE
My Main Headline Here
In this side we use a lot more text to talk about our points as paragraphs. Usually we try to get several main points across here and then will talk about more later.
What we need to remember is that people do not read and probably stopped doing so in the paragraph above.
Most likely they are trying to scan this text right now, but have to do so by picking out random words and stopping if they seem important to them.
The majority of the world will never even read this last paragraph because they were only scanning the page or if they started to read this chunk of text only made it through the first few sentences. Hope you didn’t have an important point here.
“F-PATTERN” STYLE
My Main Headline Here
A QUICK ONE SENTENCE SUMMARY OF THE TEXT BELOW.
People get overwhelmed by chunks of text, but like scannable structures.
- The first point of my scannable list.
- This is a second point of my scannable list.
- Or bold important words to increase scanning.
- A brief summary. And then add more than one line of text to your point.
- The last point of my scannable list.
A final summary and closing statement.
CREATIVE, BUT UNCLEAR
Redefine success through unparalleled strategic insight.
COMPREHENSION-FIRST ( HOW > WHY > WHAT )
Strategic consulting for unparalleled insight to redefine success.
COMPREHENSION EYEBROW WITH CREATIVE HEADLINE
Strategic Consulting
Redefine success through unparalleled insight.
FIRST 20 – 30 CHARACTERS – DOESN’T SEEM WORTH MY TIME
We are noticeably different because our team is comprised of top experts.
OOOO – YOU CAUGHT MY ATTENTION
No Comparison. Our industry-leading expert team always delivers.
Write For Your Audience, Not You!
I repeat, you are not your audience.
Even the most experienced members of your team do not not know exactly what prospects are thinking.
Add in changing economics, competitors, industry shifts, culture shifts and prospect generation changes you may be way out of your element.
As you write, it is important to try and think in the shoes of a person who doesn’t know your company and in many cases may not know your industry or competitors.
This is almost the most important tip, because it is easy to use our knowledge and daily industry obsession as a crutch to think we are creating great content.
Use Jargon Only When You Know Your Audience Will Respect It
As dope as it may be, be careful about UANOU.
You know what you are talking about, but that doesn’t mean that your visitors do – using too much industry jargon or acronyms just confuses interested prospects.
Slang may fit your culture and brand voice, but also has the possibility of dating your company or coming of disingenuous if it does not match your brand – so be careful.
In some cases Jargon and acronyms can prove your knowledge, but be cautious with its over use.