How to Write Content in Websites

Writing website content has to juggle various responsibilities as well, from search engine optimization to informing the reader engagingly and to also be useful for the casual browser. A website is used for various purposes of delivering information or entertainment, browsing a catalogue, buying a product or subscribing to a service. The content written for each needs to be customised for each purpose, but the underlying principles of good content writing remain the same.

Know the audience

Knowing your audience will help determine the primary constraints of your text quality, tone and length. A technical or highly proficient reader will find a verbose language easy or even preferable, while a less formal audience will be comfortable only with simple and accessible English. The tone of the writing should reflect the attitude with which the audience will approach the product. For example, technical articles may require a serious and formal tone while a lifestyle article needs flavourful writing. Finally, the length of the article will depend on the potential reader’s patience - a specialist reader can sit through long, detailed articles while a casual reader will prefer a short summary or overview.

Present content in layers of decreasing importance

The information in the content should be presented in a decreasing order of importance. The most vital aspects of the overview should be readily accessible to the reader. This helps him in quickly assessing the article’s relevance and thus doesn’t cause the annoyance of finding it irrelevant after reading. On the positive side, a well designed overview will cause a relevant reader eager to read the actual content, or a casual browser to have at least some takeaway.

But it is not always practical to write everything at the top of the website, because some information only becomes important after a certain context has been established. So it’s more practical to layer the information through creative use of contrast. Contrast can seamlessly highlight important text by using Typography and Colour Psychology techniques. Well, designed use of headers, bullet points and bold texts are easy ways to achieve this as well.

Write originally

Writing originally goes without saying for several reasons. Firstly, it’s unethical to plagiarise and secondly, Google will surely detect it and give your site a low ranking and quality score. But a more useful point is to use original concepts, instead of using those already available on the internet. Your creative novelty will reward you with user loyalty when they return to your site looking for unique perspectives.

Set a Narrative

Efficient content writing should also fulfill the desired user experience (UX) requirements. The UX guidelines should imply an ideal order in which the reader parses the content. To achieve that while ensuring a good reader experience requires setting up a narrative to order the text. This narrative can guide the reader and set up a framework for the reader to accumulate the content purposefully. Even if disparate topics are brought up, each should have a logical thread connecting it to its adjacent topics to reduce the burden of the reader in arranging new information in his head meaningfully.

A good UX design should also recommend an overall tension and pacing of any displayed content. This should be followed in every respect of the design and writing. The pacing of the writing can be controlled by introducing easily understandable information between difficult concepts. For example, to ease in a reader, easy concepts should be presented first, buffered by reiterative explanations. Once the reader has caught momentum you can then introduce the difficult and multi-faceted concepts. The pacing should also excite the user with new information at regular intervals to reduce the chances of him getting bored. Thus long blocks of reiterative descriptions should be avoided except when used as a literary device to evoke desired emotions in the reader.

These considerations apply to all kinds of content and should be reflected in not only the writing but also other aspects of decorative and functional design. In sync, they can provide a comprehensively good user experience which can cater dynamically to a wide audience.