Ginny Reddish, author of Letting Go Of The Words: Writing Web Content That Works, spoke at the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA) event this morning on website content. While I’m a copywriter specializing in writing copy and content for websites, I picked up some great pointers from her. She also reinforced a lot of my “beliefs” about copy and content on websites.

Ginny Redish is definitely a content ”evangelist.” which works for me because so am I. But enough blah, blah. Let’s take a look at her major points:

• The first question to ask is “what is the user’s goal” not “what is our goal.” Because if you don’t satisfy the user’s goal first, they won’t stick around to satisfy your goal.
• “Findability is critical.” Visitors only stay on your website if they feel it’s worth the time and effort to get what they want. Make it too dificult, they’re gone.
• Visitors only read enough on the web to satisfy their goal. Don’t hit them with a wall of text. Give them a headline that establishes they’ve reached the right page. Break up the text with subheads to make it easy to scan. Use short sentences in short paragraphs to get your point across. And bullet points are golden (if not used excessively – my point.)
• Put your links in the text, not off to the side. Again, you’re forcing your visitor to go hunting for what they want. If they are reading that bit of text, that’s a signal to guide them deeper into the site.
• Never put your marketing message first. On the web, you market best after you satisfy your visitor’s needs. In other words, if you try to sell them before they’ve found the information they want, they’ll leave. Once they’ve found the information they want, then you have a golden “marketing moment.”

Book selling sites are the best at this. For example Amazon’s first goal is to help you find what you want. Once that is accomplished, then they start cross-selling and upselling you with 2fers and free shipping or 2 day shipping.

Lastly, remember that your website is not a brochure. It is a “conversation” with your visitor. Use plain, straightforward statements and questions and don’t hog the conversation with massive blocks of text.

Other resources:

• Jakob Nielsen’s website: UseIt.com. Jakob is a highly respected usability expert Ginny sited.
• Book: Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug This is a great companion book because it’s about website architecture. Read this and then read Ginny’s book. between the two, you’ll be a website content expert.
• Book: Web Copy That Sells by Maria Veloso This book is all about writing copy for a website that really engages the visitor and gets them to sell themselves. I highly recommend it. I use it all the time.

Originally posted 2008-11-12 10:35:50. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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