Conclusion

The best website content can lead to exponential growth for your small business. When looking for a Content Writer, find a niche-specific scribe who understands your brand and audience. We can deliver high-quality content that includes useful information, answers burning questions and builds trust with your audience. Daily Posts embodies the very best qualities of a copywriting service. Our Content Writers will transform the words on your website and repurpose existing content to fit the needs of your audience accordingly.

Website Content Writing tips for beginners

Start by conducting thorough research

If you don’t have any prior experience, the first step to writing website content is to have a good understanding of who you’re writing for and identifying your audience. Research should include an understanding of the topic, product and benefit to the consumer. Ensure you’re gathering information from credible sources. Where necessary, reference your sources and answer these questions:

What is the purpose of the content?

What tone is ideal for the content?

Who is the intended audience?

Where and when will the content be published?

Plan your content

Planning is a good place to start if you don’t know what to write about. Outline the piece to identify weak areas. It also helps to ensure you cover all the important areas that help convey your message with emphasis.

Punctuation rules to follow

Avoid semicolons.

Try not to use exclamation marks (not more than one per piece).

Put your punctuation inside your quotation marks: If you’re writing a sentence that requires the use of parentheses, punctuation goes on the outside (even when it’s ending the sentence), like this one.

Capitalisation: Resist the urge to capitalise insignificant words. Don’t capitalise keywords to make them stand out. The reader should focus on what you’re saying, not your SEO skills.

A picture can tell an entire story

Humans are visual learners. Before words and scripts, we drew on rock walls. Pictures and videos subsequently make your content easy to digest. Add appealing visuals to your content to make it enjoyable. The images should integrate seamlessly with your brand identity and be relevant to the topic.

How to find professional Content Writers

The first thing to do is ensure they possess the appropriate skills. These include:

The ability to:

• Write in a conversational tone
• Create scannable content
• Solve problems
• Generate traffic to your website
• Be adept at researching

Experience

A good Website Content Writer understands your business and niche. Web content must be organic and the audience should view you as an authority. An individual might be an expert on automobiles, but not do so well when writing about legal services. Readers can tell when someone is writing about a topic they don’t have any knowledge or authority on. Look for a writing service or freelancer that can display and prove their authority on a topic. This should match the reading level of your audience.

A portfolio of work

Most copywriting services have an online portfolio available for potential clients to peruse. They should also be able to meet deadlines. Sometimes, the best writers might get caught up in deadlines. Set a realistic expectation that’s suitable for the writer and your content strategy calendar.

The best places to look

Internal options, such as staff already developing content

Professional networks such as LinkedIn and publishing platforms like Medium

Locate freelancers on freelancer, Fiverr and UpWork

Work with a content marketing or copywriting agency that provides website content writing services, such as Daily Posts.

Write for lazy people

A website reader is looking for easy prey; that is a site which offers quick access to content without too much effort to find key information. The content on your site should include:

• Short sentences, no longer than 12 words on average
• Short paragraphs, no longer than 4-6 lines
• No jargon or complicated words
• No needless repetition
• Content that directly addresses their needs. Use ‘you’ when addressing your readers

Don’t try to be creative

Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox states that website visitors act like wild animals, in that they reach your website, but have already sniffed a scent trail. They are in a hurry to check out several websites, instead of trying to figure out what you want them to do.

So, your best option is to go with a simple statement every time. Clever phrases require careful consideration to process; so much so, asking someone ‘on the hunt’ to think is akin to mission impossible.

The visitor comes first

An idea might make sense for your company, but not for the visitor. Your website is ineffective if you don’t put your visitor first. Ultimately, it’s not about you or your product, but how you can help your audience.

The best websites and brands across the world are customer-centric. They provide information that’s interesting and organised, building trust and loyalty with their visitors and audience. Don’t be afraid to share your failures or success story, as long as it helps the user. Studies show that information-rich websites convert the most prospects.

KISS

Keep it short and simple (KISS). There are over 900 million websites online and over three billion web searches daily. Users have a plethora of options to choose from, so you can’t afford to waste a single second of their time. Avoid distractions and get straight to the point. This might sound difficult if you like to write a lot of jargon, but understand that only 16% of your readers read an entire article, while the rest scan your content for useful information. If you make it hard for them to find what they need, they will hightail it to the next website.

All content needs a strong headline

Strong headlines are the centrepiece of a successful content marketing strategy. According to Julia McCoy, a headline drives interest and is a good place to think of the best way to provide relevant information.

People should glance at your headline and have a general idea of what the content is about, as well as the information they’ll likely find. Blog topics, landing page headlines, guest post titles and any content that requires a headline should be well thought out and carefully planned. Include a keyword, CTA and power words in your headline. Use Buzzsumo to draw inspiration from the top performing headlines that have worked for your competition.

Weighing in on the Great Debate: In-house vs. Freelance writers

As a company looking to grow as quickly as possible, you’ll need a website that does more than just provide basic information. Your site must engage visitors, continuously attract traffic and convert that traffic into leads. Quality content is the obvious answer, but what is the most cost-effective and sustainable method of achieving this goal?

Your entire workforce is focused on production and key aspects of operations, such that staff don’t have time to write content, nor do they have the required skills or expertise. Do you outsource to a third party or hire a team of writers and put them on the payroll with the sole purpose of creating content for your website?

Ideally, in-house writers are only an option for large corporations and well-funded startups with deep pockets. They are salaried staffwho’ll require insurance, adequate training and healthcare. The major benefit is the consistency of the content produced. These individuals grow with your company and have a better idea of your audience, product and brand voice.  They know how to target your message and tailor it to the right audience. They are available for changes, edits and re-strategising where necessary.

However, this is an avoidable expense. What’s more, the additional overheads such as taxes, retirement plan matches, sick days, vacation allowance and health insurance contributions might not be worth it when you consider the financial implications, running up to 1.4x the base salary.

For new companies that are just starting out (or older ones that like to focus on what they know best), outsourcing might be the best option. By doing so, you’ll pay for them on an ‘as needed’ basis, without worrying about the fixed cost of retaining a full-time employee. Subsequently, they won’t have to be ‘on-site’ to do the job. They are qualified and possess the necessary skills to turn your website content into a compelling narrative. Best of all, they work remotely and do not take up office space or use precious resources.

A freelancer saves money on maternity leave, sick pay, holidays and bonuses. If you don’t have time to train someone immediately or wait for them to learn the ropes, an experienced copywriting firm is the all-in-one solution. Here, you’ll be paying for expertise, knowledge of your audience and great quality.

When making a choice, consider the following:

Availability of resources

The quality derived from these resources

The ability of your chosen option to meet deadlines

Choosing quantity over quality

While it’s important to produce regular content for your readers, it’s more important that the content you create is of the highest quality possible. Today’s reader is regularly exposed to excellent content, thanks to strong competition in every niche. You’ll lose face with Google and your audience if you choose to repost other people’s work or hire cheap content writers to create low-quality content for your website.

Writing without an SEO keyword strategy

Searchers use relevant terms to find answers to a burning question. For example, ‘Cinemas near me’ or ‘Car repair shop in Chelsea’. Google then brings up the most relevant answers pertinent to the searcher’s intent.

You’ll have a generic idea of what people in your niche are looking for in relation to your product or services. A keyword strategy ensures you take full advantage of the user’s search intent to create content that includes these related terms and keywords. If you don’t have a keyword strategy, it’s harder for people to find your website, as it is for you to generate new business.

Writing content that sells the product, not the benefit

One of the major goals of website content is to build and maintain a relationship of trust between the brand and buyer. Many content writers forget this rule. A web content writer who doesn’t understand the audience can’t give them what they want, which is life-changing, meaningful value that convinces them that the product in question will deliver.
This example from MailChimp shows the target market the powerful benefits of the new production recommendation technology and includes a ‘how-to’ guide in the post.

Using jargon

A golden rule never to ignore when writing for the web is communicating in simple English. Some of the phrases you might use when speaking with your more learned friends won’t work on the web.  If you’re using industry-specific acronyms or terminology, include an accompanying definition. Complex words make it harder for people to grasp the message and they could subsequently feel alienated. This is not something you want readers to feel when they visit your website. Eliminate all words or phrases that look like jargon and find a simpler term that sufficiently conveys the meaning to your readers.

You’ve never spoken to your audience on the phone or in person

The best way to get inside your reader’s mind is to have a genuine conversation with them. You can learn a lot about your readers in just an hour. They will subsequently teach you more about communication and the pain points that keep them up at night. It’s important you get in touch with your customers and readers at least once or twice per month.

Maintain a high readability score

Readability is one of the simplest and most important factors of great online content. Many visitors scan content within just a minute. An able content writer produces content that is reader-friendly and easy to decipher. They avoid complicated jargon, phrases or sentences that might confuse the reader.

Proof-reading and editing

A writer needs to be disciplined, patient and has a good eye for detail. They have laser-sharp focus and can find errors in a seemingly infallible sentence. They also know how to correct phrases, make jumbled words coherent and keep the content concise. So much so, editing sometimes takes more time than writing.

Strong research skills

Good content writers are curious explorers that leave no stone unturned when searching for vital data or statistics that add credibility or support a statement. Whatever the topic, they can find a unique angle that’s specific to your location and important to your readers for an all-around interesting read.

Adaptability

Many website contents fall flat because the tone and style don’t merge the brand’s culture with the purpose of the piece. For example, a blog post for a company that sells agricultural equipment will be different from a post for a ketogenic restaurant that targets health-conscious consumers.

An able writer should be adept at writing a range of articles covering complex issues in any given niche. The first skill of a content writer is a high level of language proficiency. Language not only separates the wheat from the chaff, but ensures your website doesn’t lose credibility because of spelling or grammatical errors.

What is a Website Content Writer?

In its most basic form, content is information. On the web, this takes different forms such as videos, social media posts, podcasts, web pages and blog posts. In light of this description, a Website Content Writer produces high-quality work, geared towards your target audience.

For a Digital Copywriter to perform their job effectively, they must know your target audience and any burning questions they might pose, as well as problems which they’ll be required to solve. This ensures content is well-researched and effectively optimised.

The types of content such a writer might work on include sales copy and text for graphics, infographics, e-books, video interviews, social media, white papers, guides, and more. They produce content for all sorts of industries and could also be tasked with ensuring the website pages and content gel.

Content Writers highlight the best features of your brand; it is not a skill you learn in the classroom. Our Copywriters gain more organic traffic for your website, boost SEO and generate leads for your sales team. Our written content is 100% original. We help search engines give your site more exposure, whilst increasing the popularity of your website.