There are lots of things to consider if you’re planning to develop a website. But one of the most important tasks, and by far the most time consuming task is writing the content.

Research

The best place to start in writing the content for a website is by researching other websites. It is much easier to write your own content by looking at websites that already have an online presence in your industry or field. Just go to your favourite search engine like Google and type in some of the keywords that reflect the essence of your business or message and then take a look at the results.

Use your search engine to visit competitor websites and websites that offer similar product lines or have a similar message to convey. Study these sites to see what looks good and what doesn’t work.

• What stands out?
• What makes a good headline?
• Do their unique selling features stand out?
• How can you say it better?
• How can you compete?
• What unique selling feature can you offer that your competitor doesn’t?

Page Structure

While you’re looking at the content on these sites, also consider how they divide their pages up. What do they call their pages on the menu? In considering your own site, the best way to go about structuring it is to begin with a home, services and contact page and then go from there. What other pages do you need, e.g. testimonials, enquiry form, a survey form, catalogue, documents to download?

On your “Products” or “Services” page you may decide to list all your services on one page or place each product on a separate page. You’ll notice that many sites have a brief description of products and services followed by a more >> button. These are designed to allow your visitors more choice in what they do. Other sites force visitors to scroll down beyond the screen so that they stay on the page. There is no hard and fast rule concerning these issues. It’s whatever works best for your visitors and the content you are presenting.

Writing

With the writing, it’s not a good idea to copy other people’s words from the sites you visit, but you could copy and paste some of the best examples and key points in a word document of your own and then use those points to begin writing your own copy. It's often much quicker and easier to edit words than it is to think of them from scratch. In this way, you can use other people's words to write extensively for your own site, re-wording key points that others have made, elaborating and modifying their thoughts to create your own, original copy.

One of the most important points to remember in writing for a website is the KISS principle, i.e. Keep It Simple. Not only that, keep all your points short and concise. When it comes to the internet, you can’t afford to waffle on. You must make your point quickly.

To give you an analogy, your website, and especially the home page, is a bit like a billboard. When you drive your car past a billboard, you don't have time to read much in the way of detail. The sign flashes past you and has to make an immediate impression. Your web visitors are 'flashing past' as well, so keep your pages 'on message' and get your main points across fast.

And this rule probably applies to all or at least most of your pages. On each page, break your key points up into little 'chunks' for your readers. If possible, keep your paragraphs down to 1 - 3 sentences each.

As you write each page, read through them and see if you can further divide your points into smaller points.

The point of this is to make it easy for your visitors to glance at your page and to take in all the key points. If what they see interests them, they'll stay and keep reading. So be sure to write your headings with care!

Review

Don’t start building a website until you’ve got a first draft of each page. Use one A4 sheet for each web page and put the website page heading at the top of each sheet. Print it, review it, get feedback on it, modify it and then let us put it up on a private website for you to look at. Alternatively, we can help you through this entire process.