Designing an effective website is one thing; generating effective web content is another. Both of these elements are crucial to the long-term success of your site. But different site owners may have different ideas about who should take ownership of those roles.
While some people are content to employ web designers to simply build the framework for a site, it’s easy to be over-confident about your ability to create effective web content. Whether or not you avail yourself of the service, it’s a good idea to look for a web design company that has a dedicated writing staff, and a demonstrated ability to fill out a website with text that really helps clients sell themselves.
Effective web content should boast several key elements, some of which might seem contradictory to beginners. The content should be highly efficient, but it should also be written with search engine optimization in mind. These two elements are potentially at odds because SEO requires rich use of key phrases, but effective web content generally needs to convey information to readers in as few words as possible.
Site owners often assume it will be easy for them to talk up their products or services. And they may be right about that. But if “talking up” involves a lot of talking, there a danger of driving away new visitors who are looking for a quick, streamlined introduction to the site. It may take more experience and more revision than you realize to generate this sort of effective web content.
When writing copy for your landing pages, you ought to put yourself in the place of someone who has little familiarity with your industry and no pre-existing relationship with your business. For how long can you expect that sort of person to read before they draw a conclusion about whether your site is worth their time? Realistically, not more than a few seconds.
But while succinct communication is needed in order to keep new visitors’ attention, too much brevity means you might not draw their attention in the first place. A lack of relevant text could poison your search optimization efforts, and this goes to show that human visitors and algorithms sometimes have different ideas about what constitutes effective web content.
Fortunately, this isn’t usually the case. And wherever there is tension, it can be reconciled. When it comes to the tension between optimization and efficiency, the basic goal is to choose your words very carefully. Use the right phrases for targeting your audience, and keep the rest tight. It’s a task you can accomplish on your own if you want to. But when you need a second opinion or maybe a little editing, it’s helpful to be able to rely on your local web design company.