Writing for the Web (part 1 of 2)

Specialize in website design? Nod your head if you have ever found yourself in this situation…

Your client has written the copy – your task is to structure it into a cohesive and attractive website. You’ve learned a thing or two about the user-experience, and you use this knowledge to inform the general layout of the site.

But soon you realize the copy doesn’t fit into the format you envisage. The result: a nice looking site, but a site that doesn’t maximize on potential.

Maybe, just maybe, you could have provided your client with a more effective website had you re-written the copy yourself.

Websites are interactive. Website visitors navigate around via a series of split-second click decisions – they scour the pages, muddle through the link sections, hurry through the copy… They are constantly looking out for their next path.

That’s why website copy is often inter-dependent on the website layout. And because the two are uniquely unified, the traditional copywriter-designer dynamic isn’t always an effective partnership, especially if the copywriter is inexperienced in writing for the web.

Over the next two weeks we’ll look at some of the things web-designers can do to make their client’s website copy work more effectively.

To sell or not to sell?
If you are designing a website that requires copy input, your first task is to decide on the function of the copy. Is it to improve the navigation of the site? Or is it to sell the company’s products or services?

If the copy is a signpost to content located elsewhere on the site, it should be stripped down to short descriptions and links, summarizing the essence of what’s on offer and allowing visitors to access what they require fast.

If the copy aims to sell, it should ‘talk’ to the individual visitor, and motivate the visitor to click through to the next stage of the buying process—be it a direct sale, enquiry, consultation, or free trial.

The art of selling online
Persuasive, benefit-driven copy is essential when selling any product or service, offline and online. But the traditional direct approach to advertising (“here’s the product, this is why you should buy it”) is not geared to online selling. Website visitors expect to choose their own route to the information most relevant to them when evaluating a product.

That’s why product-selling websites work best when they marry sales-inducing copy with an element of choice. www.37signals.com is a good examples of this in action—a hard-sell approach, disguised by relinquishing control to the visitor, allowing the individual to select their own features of interest.

But even if the sales intentions of the site are softened, persuasive copy is essential for holding the visitor’s interest in the product, eliciting desire to buy the product, and encouraging the visitor to take some kind of action. In my next entry I’ll offer pointers for writing and structuring copy that enables you to do this.

[Source: Shaun Crowley - graphicdesignforum.com - November 2007]