I see you… tense behind your screen and facing this blank page that is supposed to be… the content of your website! You want to stand out while staying true to yourself. You want to present your offerings in the best way to your audience and make them want to buy your products or services. But if your last writing experience dates back to your college years, it can seem intimidating!
Don’t worry! I’ve selected my best tips for you to help you write unique content that will captivate your audience!
1. What to keep in mind before getting started
To begin with, let me give you an essential checklist to keep in mind as you embark on writing your website content. Feel free to consult this checklist regularly to ensure your writing is heading in the right direction:
Keep it simple: for your content to be understandable to everyone, it must remain simple and concise. Avoid complex vocabulary and don’t delve into long paragraphs: get straight to the point. If you have a lot of information to communicate, consider using video format to make the experience more enjoyable for your visitors!
Provide value to your audience: demonstrate your expertise by providing informative and relevant content that will make people want to explore your products or services.
Speak directly to your audience, and use formulations that show you understand their needs and concerns.
Capture attention by revealing your personality: when visiting your website, your audience enters your universe. It’s like stepping into your home! So, be yourself: use a tone of voice that suits you, think about the lexical field that best represents your company and values. For example, if you work in the field of spirituality, don’t hesitate to give your offerings evocative names that will immediately immerse your visitors in the atmosphere.
Use as many Calls to Action (CTAs) as possible: you know, those buttons you have to click to access your offerings? They should be visible in every section of your website, without the person needing to scroll to find them.
Now that you have these initial elements in mind, let me give you some tips for organizing your content writing effectively.
2. Adopt an efficient organization
This advice applies even to writing professionals, but it’s even more important if you’re just starting out: adopting an efficient organization will help you achieve your goals more quickly.
Dedicate one (or several) morning(s) or full day(s) to writing the content for your website: from experience, I know that doing your daily tasks and dedicating an hour here and there to writing your content isn’t productive. Personally, I recommend the batching technique, which involves focusing on one activity at a time, over a defined period. This improves your productivity and allows you to be more focused on the task at hand.
Cut out all distractions: it has been proven that with each interruption, even the most benign (a text message, a notification on your phone), your brain takes about 64 seconds (more than a minute) to regain its train of thought and be productive again on its task. If 64 seconds may seem short to you, imagine that in an hour of work, you receive 2 calls, 3 text messages, and 4 notifications on your phone: you actually lose more than 9 minutes to refocus, not counting the time taken to answer calls and check all your notifications! That’s a lot of wasted time, isn’t it?
Don’t try to write the best version on the first try! Initially, write as you speak, to lay out all your ideas. Then, reduce the information and rephrase where necessary. At this stage, if writing your website content still feels like climbing Mount Everest, I suggest creating a draft in the form of questions/answers. Then, set up ChatGPT by giving it information about you, your business, your tone of voice, your audience, and ask it to create your content! This will give you a huge boost: you’ll only need to rephrase to make your content more authentic, more YOU!
Review your content and ask yourself if this information is useful to your audience. You can also submit it to your circle for a fresh perspective (provided they understand something about your products/services!)
Now that you know how to organize yourself, here are some questions to ask yourself to write impactful content and stand out:
3. How did you get here?
I can already see you typing the famous phrase “Welcome to my website”… Stop! Do you think that will captivate your audience?
Rather than cliché phrases that have been seen and heard a thousand times, explaining how and why you started your business on your homepage can be an excellent way to connect with your audience and stand out from your competitors. It brings your business to life and reinforces your visitors’ sense of trust.
Before writing this part that presents your journey and the story of your business, take the time to ask yourself these three key questions:
What was your situation before starting your business? How has it evolved since then?
What information do you want your audience to discover about you and your business when they access your website?
What were the highlights of your journey, those that led to the creation of your business?
Feel free to share anecdotes that illustrate your passion, or photos or videos that visually tell your story.
By sharing your journey sincerely, you create an emotional connection with your audience and strengthen your credibility.
4. What do you offer to your customers?
On your website, it’s important to clearly explain how you can directly address the needs of your customers and why they should trust you. To do this, ask yourself the following questions:
What problems do you help solve?
My favorite question: what do you dislike about your industry or your competitors, and what do you do differently?
How does your service/product help your target audience achieve their goals, desires, or dreams? In other words, how will it change their lives? This could include benefits such as:
- Financial: more money for travel, investment, etc.
- Emotional: a sense of serenity about their professional future, a reduction in daily stress, etc.
- Physical: more time to focus on the essentials in their business, more time to dedicate to personal projects, etc.
- Spiritual: feeling aligned with their values, connected to their life mission, making an impact on the world, etc.
What feelings do they experience after using your product or service?
Once you’ve identified all these aspects, you’ll have a clear understanding of your customers’ desires and needs, allowing you to create website sections that address their aspirations.
5. Express your personality while adapting to your audience
It’s crucial to know your audience in order to meet their expectations and adapt your tone. For example, if you’re targeting large corporations, it’s more likely (depending on the type of business, of course) that a formal and assertive tone would be more suitable. On the other hand, if your audience consists of female entrepreneurs in the wellness industry, for example, then a casual, optimistic, and gentle tone would be more coherent.
By focusing on your ideal customers, you show that you understand them, which will help you establish a connection with them.
However, I want to emphasize that it’s important to be YOURSELF. Personally, I’m not a fan of preconceived marketing rules or strategies (maybe because I’m an Aries!) that give the impression that success is impossible without following them. NO! I believe you need to find the right balance between asserting your personality and adapting to the person in front of you! It’s a bit like a job interview, after all.
In conclusion, keep in mind that your website should remain simple and clean. Nowadays, people want to get to the point and are increasingly accustomed to short formats, especially since the emergence of social media. So, as they say: LESS IS MORE!
Remember that you’re not writing a book and nothing is set in stone! Everything can be modified at any time, so let go of the pressure of the “blank page” and write as it comes to you! You can then improve the writing as you go along!
Go ahead, to your keyboard!
I’m sure you can do it!
