Website Copywriting Tips

In On Writing Well, William Zinsser also says, Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it's because it is hard.

A content management system can't make the craft of writing any easier. It can remove the barriers from the process so that good writing can occur. Without it bad writing is almost assured. Perhaps this is why so many websites have such bad writing, and consequently why so many people "don't read website copy."

Writing well is hard, yet it must be done if a website is going to be compelling. Here are a few brief tips and encouragements for those non-professional writers like me who often find themselves responsible for replacing "Lorem ipsum dolar" with words from a more modern tongue...

Unless you can sequester yourself, don't fight against the tide by trying to write during normal business hours. For example, when I write these monthly newsletters I bite the bullet and set aside one evening after work or a Saturday morning. It's amazing how productive you can be when the phone isn't ringing and when there are no knocks on the door.

2. Read well written books. Not just for their content (oops there's that abstract work again), but with an eye toward their style and craft. If you've been reading these newsletters for a while, you know I always recommend Harry Beckwith's book, Selling the Invisible. William Zinssers's book, mentioned twice already, is certainly very helpful. Another one of my recent favorites is Malcom Gladwell's The Tipping Point.

3. Say what you mean, mean what you say. Second phrase first--"mean what you say." In Selling the Invisible, Harry Beckwith talks about the first rule of service marketing as "getting better reality." If you work diligently at your business so that you have a truly valuable service to offer, you should be passionate about it. If you like what you do and you believe in your product or service, you should have adequate motivation for plugging away at crafting the words that will represent your business on the web. First phrase--"say what you mean." Strive for clarity. Use as few words as possible. Ask yourself this as you write: "If the reader of this paragraph knew nothing about my product or service, would these words be understandable and informative?"

4. Eliminate hyperbole and abstraction. Sometime abstract words like "content" are necessary, but use them sparingly. If a concrete word or illustration is available, use it. Ruthlessly eliminate throw-away words like "unlimited," "best," "incomparable" and the like.

5. Say one thing. Don't confuse a reader by saying too much. One particularly strange episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation had a holodeck character who proclaimed loudly, "The Higher, The Fewer." I have no idea why, but this phrase stuck in my head. It's actually a great metric for website copywriting. If you think of a home page as the highest page, it should say the fewest things--or at least it should only try to say one thing loudly. As you descend to sub pages, you can say more and provide as much detail as you want. Another character in that Star Trek episode warned: "If you ever have a world--plan ahead, don't eat it!" I have no idea how that relates to copywriting, except that perhaps it serves as an example of how easy it is to say too much.

And so, it would be best to stop right now.