Want to elevate the results of your web content? It can be hard to produce enough high quality content and in the process of creating all those blog posts, emails, website pages, and guides, sometimes key best practices fall from the wayside.
If you want to write web content that produces real, measurable results – content that people will look forward to reading – you’ve come to the right place. Check out my five tips below.
1. Know Your Audience
The first step in writing effective content is knowing your audience; for your content to be successful, it needs to resonate with them. Have a deep understanding of your audience’s likes, dislikes, pain points, and so forth. What type of content are they craving? What questions are they looking for answers on? What hasn’t been written about much before that would help them? These are questions you should know the answers to.
2. Keep it Simple
Your audience wants to be able to easily read your content (sometimes just scan it) and get the information they’re looking for. Don’t make them work hard to understand what you’re telling them. This means you have to be direct and to-the-point. Avoid long and complex words, keep your sentences short, and get rid of jargon, fluff, and filler words. Here are two great articles that will help with this:
3. Pay Attention to Formatting
A lot of people scan content as opposed to reading it word-for-word, so in addition to the tips discussed above for keeping it simple, make sure to break up your content into multiple short paragraphs of no more than three or four sentences each. Long paragraphs are hard to read on a computer monitor and even worse on a tablet or smartphone screen.
As well, use headings, bullet points, and numbered lists whenever possible, which also enhances readability and “scanability.” Lastly, when appropriate include an image to draw people in (to intrigue) and to illustrate your points. This is especially important considering a lot of your audience may be visual learners.
Think about it; would you be more likely to read a one page long article where the text is stuffed onto the page and broken up into two paragraphs, or a two or three page article where the text is divided into multiple, easy-to-read short paragraphs with headings, bullet points, and lists?
4. Spend Time Thinking About Your Headline
Don’t underestimate the importance of a headline. The headline should accurately convey what the content is about. If it doesn’t, not only could you be attracting the wrong types of readers, you’ll be increasing the likelihood that your target audience won’t spend time reading your content again.
And while best practices for headlines differ depending on the type of content (for example website copy versus blog post copy), keep in mind that for blog posts, e-books, white papers, guides, and infographics, the headline should have the “Curiosity Factor,” have a number in it, and be tested. Learn more in my post, “The 3 Ingredients That Make a Killer Headline.”
5. Use Links Strategically
I recommend hyperlinking your content, but doing so strategically. Only hyperlink if you think it will help the reader and add value to their experience. Plus, make sure your links take the reader to the right place; if you’re referring to a Nike blog post for example, don’t take them to the Nike homepage, take them to directly to the blog post itself.
Also, while hyperlinking to your website and blog posts are beneficial from an SEO perspective, your primary goal should be to hyperlink to the most relevant, helpful content, whether that happens to be owned by you or not. Linking to other’s content helps you too in the long run because a) you’re providing additional value to the reader and b) people often reciprocate and may link to your content in the future.
Lastly, don’t use bad anchor text when hyperlinking, such as “here” or “article.” Instead, be descriptive and creative.
Keep these five best practices in mind to ensure you’re making the most of your web content. Before publishing, review the content carefully to make sure the best practices have been taken into consideration.