8 Golden Rules to Follow When Creating Website Content 

“Good content is not storytelling, it’s telling your story well” - Ann Handley

With the digital revolution in full swing, content is now the latest focal point for businesses when it comes to promoting their brands. Business owners, leaders, and marketers now understand that content marketing goes a long way in bringing stardom to any website. 

I don't need to know much about you, your business, or the objectives of your website content. Knowing that you want to create better website content is enough. And by following the golden rules when creating website content below, you will be able to:

• Reduce bounce rates by catching your readers' attention and holding on until the content achieves its objective.
• Increase leads and conversion rates by showing the reader you have got the solution to their unique problems.
• Improve your search rankings.

That's what you are looking for, isn't it? Well, let's get to it.

Here are eight golden rules to follow when creating website content to help you achieve the above.

But before that, how about you check the anatomy of outstanding website content? 

1. Know Your Audience and Your Place in that Audience

Like almost all other aspects of life, preparatory work is necessary when creating good website content. So, before coming up with your topic, draft, or keywords, you need to prepare through audience research. Who are you writing to?

Audience research is vital because it influences the entire content from the title to the CTA and how you write, share, and market it. It also determines your search ranking because the keywords you use in your content answer the question: "what exactly is my target audience likely to key in and search for in search engines?"

For instance, let's assume you are writing about the best memory foam shoes. If you target people, say, over 50 years or with foot problems, your title could be something along the lines of Memory Foam Shoes with the Best Arch Support. 

If you target high school teachers, your title could be something like Best Memory Foam Shoes for Standing All Day. Like the title, the rest of the content depends on your target audience.

Knowing your target allows you to come up with personal content that speaks to their needs. And when you speak to them about their exact needs, they will relate and increase the likelihood of achieving the objective of your content. 

In the above example, when the high school teacher sees the topic of your content, they will click on it, thinking, "This is exactly what I need."

It also allows you to use strategies such as the skyscraper technique because once you know what your target audience is reading, you can create something better and share it with them.

2. Use the Inverted Pyramid Model

You came up with a good title that can get several clicks from your target audience. How do you ensure they stay long enough for the content to achieve its objective?

This is of utmost importance because, more often than not, the call to action doesn't appear in the intro or first sentence. And even when it does, you sometimes have to show them you are, or have, the best solution to their problem so they can take action.

When readers arrive on your website, they take very few seconds to decide whether your content has the information they need. That is why the basic formular for news writing – the inverted pyramid model – where the most critical information (or what you may consider the conclusion) is presented first. It has been in use for over a century due to its effectiveness.

When using the inverted pyramid model, you start presenting the who, what, when, where and why at the start, and get to details and background information as you write on. This style is perfect for all types of readers. Those looking for complete information will know the content has the information they need and can keep on reading for further details.

Those with the time or inclination to read only one paragraph will get the information they are looking for and can even start using you as a go-to for instant information.

This model also helps you because if you want to cut your content at a certain length to fit a publication, you can cut out the less important information at the bottom.

3. Write in Short, Simple Sentences

It would be best if you wrote in short, simple sentences to make your content readable and hold on to readers' attention long enough to achieve your content's objectives. It's also one of the reasons why you should hire a copywriter to write your website content--because let's face it, not everyone has the knack for creating short, snappy, Google-worthy sentences.

Content with complex jargon and long, complex sentences remind me how in movies, the smart IT guru says something like, "I've already bypassed their firewall and uploaded a malware disable protocol into the AES server", and has the listener saying:

And then the IT guy simplifies it to "I make bad guys' computers sad". (As a side note, check out this hilarious "in English please" scene from Chris and Jack).

You don't have to illustrate your expansive knowledge in the subject using words like "equanimity" or "obfuscate" when words like "calm" or "confuse" exist. Even if your primary audience consists of people with the same knowledge and expertise as you, your secondary audience doesn't, and it's unlikely that they will understand every word. 

If they have to look up each word from the dictionary, they won't read the whole thing due to other distractions or boredom.
 

And that is assuming you are knowledgeable in the subject and understand what each word means. Imagine how ineffective your content would be if you used a complicated word to appeal to a knowledgeable audience, only to use it in the wrong place or context.

Short sentences make your content clearer and emphasize what is being said. They also display a form of urgency or haste. If you aren't sure how readable your content is, several online tools such as Grammarly and The Readability Test Tool can give you a readability score.

4. Stick to Active Voice

It would be best to always use active instead of passive voice when creating content. There are many differences between content written in active voice and content written in passive voice.

To begin with, passive voice often uses more words than active voice. Passive voice uses additional words such as be, was, and by. For example, saying My daughter took out the trash uses fewer words than The trash was taken out by my daughter. Active voice goes to the point immediately.

Active voice makes the content more concise and reader-friendly, allowing you to hook the reader. For example, Mike read five books last summer is much easier to read and understand than Last summer, there were five books read by Mike.

Active voice also makes you seem more knowledgeable and authoritative, which is very important if you are trying to appear as an authority in the field or subject. It sounds more direct. Additionally, in your bid to keep the reader engaged throughout the content, an active voice helps keep them engaged, increasing your conversion rate.

5. Incorporate Visual Content

We are highly visual beings and are more attracted to images than text. So, when creating your content, you should incorporate visual elements to add life to it. Using images, data, tables, charts, and infographics benefits your content in several different ways.

Breaking up the text by incorporating visual content can help retain your readers' attention. Remember when your grade school teacher used flashcards and other visuals to help you learn? That was because images are easier to remember than text, so your content will remain on your readers' minds for longer.

Also, it is easier to understand graphs, tables, images, and infographics than it is to understand text alone.

According to a survey by Searchengineland, 60% of consumers are more likely to contact or choose companies with visual content in their local search results. And if you label and describe each element correctly, search engines can easily find your website because of the extra indexable content.

A BaseCamp A/B test to measure the correlation between visual elements and conversion rates had interesting results. It compared the number of signups before and after the researchers added human images to the signup page. The number of signups more than doubled.

However, you should only use quality, professionally taken photos when incorporating images. Low-quality images can ruin your brand and lessen your sales. 

6. Make the Text Scannable

When using the inverted pyramid technique, it can be hard to pass all the information at the top. So, you have to use another way to pass the information as fast as possible to the people that stay on your page for a few seconds or minutes.

When they can't find what they are looking for in the intro, they scan the text to find it. The most crucial information should stand out from the rest of your content to ensure they can easily find it in the few seconds they spend on the page.

If they can't find it, they'll exit the page and look for it elsewhere.

Everybody does this, including you. Don't believe me? Open any of the links in this post and note how you will read it. Instead of going over the whole thing, your eyes will dart around, trying to find the information you need.

You can make the text scannable by breaking it up using various subheadings and lists. You can use the rule of three to achieve this: no more than three paragraphs per sub-head and no more than three sentences per paragraph. 

The sub-headings should be descriptive. "How Climate Change Affects You" is better for the scanning reader than "How It Affects You".

It would be best to use lots of white space around your text and visual elements. It makes the text more legible and the content more scannable, allowing you to deliver the points even to the fastest of scanners.

7. Layer Website Content

Every piece of content you publish on your website should be a door to the rest of your content. It should direct your readers from one page to another, increasing their time on your site. You can do this by hyperlinking keywords and phrases to content on your website that gives more information or tackles the topic in depth.

If you have written well, and your content resonates well with the reader, they are subconsciously open to reading more from you. It would be a shame if you don't optimize your website content in a way that points them the right direction. 

Internal links don't just help keep readers on your website for long: they also help with SEO. Search engines find your posts and pages better when they are linked to from somewhere else on the web. So, when you include them in all your content, search engines can get an idea of the structure of your website by connecting your content. They also use links to find which pages on your website cover a similar subject.

Internal links also show the value of each page. The more the links to a page, the more valuable the page's content.

8. Use a Call to Action (CTA)

This is your content without a CTA.

Each piece of content you publish on your website should have a call to action. You have held on to your readers' attention from the start to the end; what would you like them to do? Would you like them to sign up? Contact you? Learn more?

A CTA is the only way to measure your conversion rate and, according to a Hubspot study, including one can increase your conversion rate by a whopping 121%. That is why it should be in all your content. 

Don't forget to include a link to allow the reader to take action without leaving the page.

Can’t Keep Up With All The Rules? Let Professional Content Writers Do the Work

Some of these golden rules are repetitive when creating website content, and others are not. For example, you only need to research your audience once (although you'll have to review it from time to time), but you have to use visual elements consistently and include a CTA in every piece of content.

And that is what makes writing website content hard work, especially since you must consistently come up with quality content while effectively running your business and handling your personal life.

If you can't afford to spend the time needed to create compelling content, don't fret because Zoey Writers can help you. We know these golden rules like the back of our hand and we can't wait to put our website content writing services to work for you.

Get in touch with us today to learn how we can be of help.

Image by Succo from Pixabay. Thanks, Succo.