Content is a key element of your Website! You need to be expressing, through written text, exactly what your business does, all while conveying a clear voice for your brand.
If your content is not connecting to your audience, then they’ll be jumping ship from your Website as fast as you can say, “Read my content!”
Are you keen to create an experience for your readers without them even realising? That is the key, and we’re going to explain how you can do it.
Follow a Style Guide and Brand Voice
The first step is to ensure when you’re writing any kind of content for your brand, whether it be smack bang on your Website or short-form on Social Media, it should always be in line with your brand’s style guide.
If you don’t possess one, now’s the time to create it! A style guide can be a huge asset to your business, allowing each employee in your business to have a clear understanding of the brand voice to use. This includes the correct grammar, punctuation, language, style, and any other elements used when writing as the business.
Team members come and go, but you can be sure that if they’re given the style guide to peruse and gain an understanding of, they’ll be able to write effectively for your brand. This means your readers are always consuming your content in the same style, allowing them to form more of a connection.
If you’re unsure how to go about creating your own style guide, we’ve got a fantastic Blog with easy step by step instructions. It’s worth looking into for every business.
Connect with Inclusive Writing
Another handy way to get readers to feel more included and comfortable when reading content is through first-person writing.
It is key that you talk directly to them, but how? Here’s a trick, count how many times you say the word ‘I’, ‘we’, ‘us’. If you’re using these words often, it’s time to think about swapping them out for more of ‘you’.
It’s a small change, but if your business is selling a product or service, you have to prove to the audience that you understand them. Tell them using your writing what their pain points are, how they’re going to feel, how their life is going to change thanks to your product/service. You, you, you!
The structure of your writing can influence how the reader connects to it as well. Long blocks of text can be overwhelming, and can deter your audience. Use readability elements like dot points, short paragraphs, headings, scannability, and bolding, just to name a few!
The less overwhelming the content, the better! Leading to more connections to Customers.
Ask Questions
If you think about regular conversations in person, you’ll know that the more questions someone is asking you, the more involved you feel in the conversation.
The same goes for your writing! If you’re posing questions to your readers, rather than just consuming a constant flow of text, they’ll have the opportunity to stop for a second and actually think. So they’re shifting from a passive participant to an active one.
It also encourages the reader to interact with the content, whether it’s a Blog, article, or a Social Media post.
Include Links
Including internal and external links within your content is going to assist with the technical side of things, such as SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), and help boost your content in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Page).
You can add internal links to content you’ve already written that is relevant to the topic, so your audience can stay on your Site longer and continue to learn and interact more. For example, we did this up above with the word ‘SEO’, allowing you to click on that to see our other Blog about SEO and content marketing.
The better your SEO, the more relevant eyes can land on your content, helping you build your audience and attract more Customers to your Site.
How have you found these tips? Difficult? Hopefully not. You can definitely execute these without a big budget, and if you’re continuously following these key aspects when writing your content, your reader and your business will thank you!