Your website is typically the first impression your potential customers have of you and your company. In those pages, you need to provide all the information your clients need to know before they make the decision to buy your product or service. While it’s important that your website looks good and functions well, you can’t forget about the writing. Without cohesive and strategic copy, you will lose the trust of the client and any potential conversion. In this blog, I have identified three of the most common content mistakes and how to avoid them.
1. Lack of Cohesive Brand Voice
A crucial element of any marketing strategy is brand voice. If yours isn’t evident or consistent, your audience will have a difficult time connecting, and you could lose the client before they get past the home page. According to Qualtrics, “brand voice is your brand’s personality; the unique way you present to the world. It must run consistently through all your communications (social media, website, blog posts, emails, advertisements) no matter which teams are handling which channels, and it mustn’t change.”
So how do you build your brand voice? There are several tactics you can use, but essentially, you can create your brand voice by identifying your values and your audience. Ask yourself questions like:
- What is the most important goal of our company?
- Why do we provide this service?
- What is important to our potential customers?
- Who are our potential customers?
- How would our potential customers like to be spoken to?
You’l want to gather this information, a list of key terms that you have found that match your intentions as a company, and knowledge of your audience. Once you have all of that, you can build your brand voice.
If you still need help determining your unique brand voice, you can check out this blog post (or better yet, contact us to build a brand strategy for you!)
2. Flat Headlines
When you visit a website, you are typically in search of specific information. Your eyes are naturally drawn to the headlines as you search for the answers that you need. One content mistake that we see often is the lack of effective headlines. But what makes an effective headline? Offering solutions to the problems your customers are having is the best way to keep clients on your site and following your prompts to take action. You want your headline to grab attention and lead to action.
It’s common for brands to use kitschy language and cheesy puns in their headlines as a form of attention grabbing. However, this practice can lead to a lack of confidence in the company, especially if the cheesiness doesn’t match the overall brand voice. A good rule to follow is that if you wouldn’t say something in a face-to-face conversation about your service or product, don’t put it in a headline.
Learn how to catch more clicks with your headline.
3. Lack of SEO Optimization
This is perhaps the most fatal content mistake you can make. Without SEO, you are like a boat without a sail in still waters. Nothing you do will matter if you don’t optimize your web copy for SEO. Scribendi explains that “web copy optimization means optimizing your page for better search engine placement. Search engines examine your tags as well as your copy. If the keywords used in your tags aren’t used in your copy, your site won’t be indexed for those keywords. Search engines also consider how often a keyword phrase is used on a page.” Essentially, without the correct, strategic words and phrases, your potential clients will not be able to find you online. Finding those keywords and key phrases is all about knowing your product and being as specific as you can.
For instance, if you sell acting classes in Atlanta and you optimize your website with the focus key phrase as “acting classes”, then you will never show up in a Google search. However, if you focus on “Shakespearean acting classes in Atlanta, Georgia,” you have a much better opportunity to rank higher on Google – which is your goal. You also want to be sure to include your phrases into your metadata.
Finding the right keywords is just one element of effective SEO; to learn more, check out the other SEO-centered blogs on our website.
Does your website copy need a refresh?
KWSM is a full-service marketing agency that will work with you to develop a unique content strategy and help you avoid content mistakes that could keep you from conversions.
Contact Us to build a content strategy for your website.
