How To Write Website Content That Ranks and Converts
Branding, web design and development are important parts of a high performing website, but it’s the website content, specifically the wording, that ranks pages and turns your readers into leads and clients.
In this article, we will walk through how to write website content (whether by AI or by a human or some combination) that does three things for your local business:
- Ranks your pages on search engines,
- Connects with and pre-qualifies readers
- Persuades your prospects to do business with you.
Where Your Website Should Begin
The first step to writing your website content is to know your audience.
It’s like what they say about restaurants…it’s location, location, location.
Your content is the same way.
Know your audience, know your audience, know your audience.
By starting in your reader’s shoes, you can learn how to write content in a way that connects on an emotional level.
Sadly, most content writing is aimed at the wrong audience.
And the wrong audience is usually the business owner. What the business owner wants to hear is irrelevant to the buying prospect.
A good example is the homepage.
Usually, businesses plaster the homepage with content talking about themselves and how awesome they are.
That’s the absolutely wrong way to start a relationship.
Imagine going on a first date and the person across the table won’t stop talking about themselves. That’s how it comes off to a first-time reader.
There is definitely a time and place to talk about your business and its accomplishments and we will get into how to do that as we move along, the most of the homepage is not the place for it.
Once someone learns how to create content, it becomes a powerful skill, not just for website content (blog), but for all other channels both online and offline.
It’s the written word that gets a reader to take action.
Pro Tip: Know your audience. Write to them not for you.
Website Content That Connects
Think back to the last big or important purchase you made.
Did you pop out of bed one day and just buy the thing? Or did you go through a process before finally making the purchase?
It probably started with realizing your current product or service wasn’t keeping you happy. Then you started looking around for other options.
After some research, you may have narrowed it down to two or three companies to buy from.
Then you settled on one solution, but continued to do research until you felt comfortable with your decision.
How many times did you go their store to look at the product?
How many times did you go to their website to learn all you could?
Then, one day, you walked in to their store, visited their website or called their office and made the purchase.
Let’s suppose, it was a new cell phone and you purchased it in person.
After weeks or months of research you walked in and bought the exact model you wanted. You were in and out very quickly.
After you leave, the sales reps thinks to themselves, “Why can’t every sale be that easy?”.
They had no clue that you didn’t invite them into your buying journey until the very end.
Your clients are doing the same thing.
This is what’s known as the “customer journey”.
The customer journey is the path an individual takes to buying something.
The length of time is different for every customer and so are the specific steps taken to get to the purchase.
The idea here is to get invited into your future client’s journey as early as possible and use your website content to guide and educate. Then, when they are ready to buy, they will think of you.
Write To Your Customer’s Buying Journey
1) Problem
Prospect becomes aware that they are unhappy in their current situation.
2) Research
Prospect begins to search for solutions. This includes asking friends, family, business peers, searching online, etc.
3) Awareness
Narrows down their choices to a few options. Continues researching online, social media, and asking friends.
4) Decision
They’ve become comfortable with one solution over the others and makes the mental decision to buy. Most prospects won’t take action at that moment.
5) Action
Makes the purchase after determining their concerns and fears have been resolved.
They say that 95% all searches on Google are for research. In other words, only about 5% of prospects are ready to buy now. They are somewhere else in their journey.
Pro Tip: Your prospects are on their journey. Respect it. Don’t push, guide.
They have a problem that needs solving. It’s your job to use your website content to educate them on how best to do that.
Most people don’t buy something to go from being “happy” to being “happier”.
In fact, about 80% of purchases are made to go from “unhappy” to “happy”.
The purpose of your website copy (and images/videos) is to walk your prospects through your offering so they can see themselves going from “unhappy” to “happy” with your solution.
Help them draw their own conclusions.
Before writing any wording for your website, it’s best to identify and answer the following kinds questions.
- What are my prospects’ problems?
- What are the products/feature/services that we offer solve those problems?
- What are the benefits clients obtain when the problem is solved?
- What are the emotions or feelings from obtaining those benefits?
Example
Let’s say we have a pest control company that specializes in rodent removal. It would look something like this.
After launching your website, make small changes once a month. Then use heat maps, session recordings and analytics to check the results. This will compound your website’s effectiveness over time. This is part of what helped every big business you’ve every heard of grow and grow.With this information in-hand, you’ll have lots of inspiration for powerful content that connects with your audience.
Action Item:
Make an exhaustive list of problems, solutions, benefits and feelings. No item is too small. A minor issue to one person, is a big deal to someone else. Add to the list over time and re-visit for inspiration. This information is the foundation of all the wording everywhere, not just your website.
Organizing Your Website Content
Before you start writing content get things organized. If we know that customers are on a journey, then it makes sense to set up your website pages and content in a way that educates and guides your readers.
This is where the website map comes in handy. Where and how you place your website content matters, to your readers and for rankings.
Imagine you make a quick trip to your local grocery store to pick up some eggs, but you end up walking out with $50 worth of unplanned purchases!
If you ever wondered why the eggs and milk are way back in the corner of the store, now you know.
The folks running the grocery store know that their customers are on a journey so they organize the aisles and products strategically. They want to grab your attention on every aisle we walk through and every corner we turn. They purposely make it a little difficult to get to your favorite things, but not too difficult. They have it down to a science.
How does that relate to your website?
Since most readers are on your website for a matter of seconds (before deciding to stay or leave) you need to grab their attention right away.
The best way to do that is to tell them what they need to know first.
It’s the exact opposite strategy of a grocery store. Readers don’t have to get in their cars and drive to your website. It was one click to get there and it’s one click to leave.
Oddly, may businesses make it difficult to find information.
Your site must do three things quickly
- Make all information easily accessible (1-2 clicks away).
- Front-load the benefits at the top of every page.
- Make your call-to-action super clear.
Action Item: Organize your website and pages.
- Pick one purpose/service/product for each page.
- Name of page so there’s no guesswork.
- Identify one call to action per page.
Here’s an example from the rodent removal company.
How to Write Website Content That Works For Your Business 24/7 on the Web
I’d recommend writing out the Service or Product pages before writing out website content for the Home Page. The main reason here, is it will give you plenty of content to pull from and add to the homepage.
Do the pages in this order.
- About Page: Why do you exist?
- Services and/or Product Pages: How do you help your market?
- Home Page: Incite curiosity by highlighting key services with a headline and a few sentences or bullet-points.
- Contact Page: Make it easy for prospects to take the first step.
The Benefits & Features Ratio
These are not hard rules but this content mix will get you positioned wonderfully.
- About Page: About 50% benefits and 50% company info.
- Services/ Products pages: About 50% benefits and 50% features.
- Home Page: About 80% benefits and 20% features.
Eight Fundamental SEO Settings
Want to rank on Google?
Google is long-term channel, but once ranking, it can pay off for years.
To get started in the right direction, do this on each page (both sales and blog).
- Add the keyword to the page url.
- Add the keyword to the page title.
- Add the keyword to the meta description.
- Add the keyword to the H1 tag.
- Add the keyword at least twice into the body.
- Write the content so it matches the subject of the keyword.
- Look at the top three ranking pages for the keyword and come up with a similar amount of text.
- Rename the image files with the keyword or variations of it.
Three Bonus Tips
As mentioned above, about 95% of all searches on search engines are for research.
Only about 5% of prospects are ready to buy now.
Because most customers are not ready to buy, even with an excellent website and content, the vast majority of your readers will leave without doing business with you.
That’s normal and probably never going to change.
The key is for you to become their guide, leader, valued advisor, etc. as early as you can.
Like every other part of a business, your website content is a work in progress. Doing these two things will continue to help your business grow.
1. Get Invited To Guide Your Prospects
Since your audience is on journey and almost all of them are not ready to buy today, doesn’t it make sense to help them along? Of course it does!
The easiest way to do this is to offer free and valuable content that they are looking for.
Besides website content in the form of blogs posts, you can also offer your audience
- Checklists
- Guides
- Video Series
- Books (physical and digital)
- Webinars
- Live Video Trainings
- Pre-Recorded Videos
- Exclusive “Insider” Content
The medium and platform you use isn’t really what matters, it’s the quality of the content you’re providing.
The more value your audience sees in your content, the more likely they will view you as an authority on the subject. In turn they will allow you to guide them. It’s a trust thing. Build trust early and often.
Pro Tip: Get invited to your prospect’s journey as early as possible with valuable content. Then, stay in front of them often.
Action Item:
Make a list of every step in your customer’s buying journey including the steps in buying and using your product.
Example
2. Keep Writing To Improve Your Content Marketing Skills
One of the best ways to grow your traffic over time is with regular website content writing. Use the Customer Journey as inspiration for new pages on your website. The easiest way to come up with content ideas is to create articles that answer the questions for you customers have asked in the past. Make it a goal to createe new web content every week or at least monthly.
3. Test, Tweak, Repeat Each Page
Continually tweaking and testing your messaging, text and website content will reveal what works and what doesn’t. Let your visitors tell you what they care about and give them more of that.
Conclusion
Learning how to create powerful content is a skill that you can use in all campaigns and it can help catapult your sales
To recap:
- Identify your audience.
- List every feature and benefit.
- Organize every page and its content.
- Set the content for each page.
- Test and tweak for incremental improvements.
Whether you’re using an AI-based writing tool or 100% human-written content or combination of both, if you follow this process, over time you’ll get great at turning more of your readers into your favorite customers.
What’s that?
You want us to do the heaving lifting?
Check our our done-for-you-services and prices here: