A Guide to Website Content Development - Writing

Many companies find it difficult to write content for their websites. If that's you, watch this video on how to write your website content for successful customer interactions.

Hi, my name is Lina Calin, and I’m the Account Manager at Whittington Consulting. Welcome to the second installment in our content writing series!

In this series we’re discussing how to plan, write, and edit effective website content to ensure that your website content provides informative answers to the questions your target markets are asking.

In the first installment, we outlined how to plan our website copy. Now let’s get into the second part of our content writing process… the writing stage.

Establish a Writing Style

The first thing we want to do is establish your writing style. Since you’re going to be the one tackling this project, we want to make sure that you’re writing content in a way that feels natural for you.

Think about the last time you wrote a report or created a detailed presentation. How did you create the content? Are you the kind of writer that likes to make a blueprint first and then write according to that framework? Do you prefer to dump all the thoughts in your brain and then organize them later? Or maybe you write best by loosely sketching out your ideas with keywords and partially formed sentences, returning later to turn them into complete thoughts?

Whatever writing style you’ve found works best for you, write that way. If you try to write in a style that is not your own, it will undoubtedly make the process more difficult!

Get Writing

Now that we’ve established your writing style, it’s time to actually put words on paper. For each page on your website sitemap, take the following steps to write the content for that page.

1. Identify the purpose of the page you’re writing.
2. Draft a working title. This will likely change as you write the page’s content, but starting with a title will help you keep in mind what the page is supposed to be about, and,
3. Put your writing style to work! Draft your blueprint, begin brain dumping, or start sketching out your ideas. And don’t forget while you’re writing: we need to write about what is important to your potential clients and customers, not what is important to you.

Having Trouble?

Now let’s troubleshoot content writing. Are you having trouble thinking of what you should write on a certain page?

Interview experts within your organization to get the information to make your web pages detailed and accurate.

Take a look at your competitors’ websites. Notice what information they present to their website viewers, and brainstorm how you can do it better. Is there is a webpage that you feel you don’t have enough information to write about? Don’t settle for what you know. Interview experts or stakeholders within your organization to get the information you need to make those pages detailed and accurate.

Use the Right Words

The last thing to keep in mind while writing your site content is to be intentional with your words. Where it’s reasonable, try to use keywords that your potential customers search for within your industry. For example, if you have a product that you call sodium hypochlorite, but your customers mostly refer to it as bleach, use the word bleach when talking about the product in your website content.

And don’t forget your online dictionary and thesaurus. If you find yourself using the same word or phrase over and over, or if you can’t find the right word for what you’re trying to say, pull these out. They are great tools to make sure that your writing is interesting, varied, and concise.

Now we’ve finished drafting content for your website. Stay tuned for our final installment where we’ll talk about reviewing and editing your website content.

If you have any questions about content creation, or would like to partner with us to create content for your website, contact us.

Thanks for joining us today, and stay tuned for the next and final installment- Reviewing your website content.