Web Content Writing 101: How To Write Better

Writing content for the web is a complex process that requires a lot of preparation. You should set a goal, allocate time/budget, and provide your web page writing performer with comprehensive information. 

If the performer is you, you might wonder how to get better at writing. Your imagination and expertise play a crucial role, but you can get decent results even without them. Let’s take a look at web writing best practices and tips for writing better.

What is Content? 

Writing web content is the process of filling site pages with information. This can include blog articles, product cards, page texts, photos, video reviews – everything that carries a semantic load. Obviously, a site without content is non-existent. Writing for the web is a way to convey important information and get feedback. But there is more to it. 

Content influences behavioral factors. The more interesting and useful it is, the more time users spend on your site, improving performance numbers. If you correctly write for websites, as well as link and direct visitors to your other pages, they can spend hours roaming your site. This also gives you a boost with search engines.

Writing for web is also about text relevance. Search engines prefer sites with high-quality content and promote them to the top positions. Ranking depends on well-thought-out headings and meta tags, text uniqueness, and literacy, proper formatting, as well as text optimization by LSI and synonyms. And, of course, the content should correspond to the search query.

Some might think that web content writing is a purely informational activity that does not sell. Content directly affects conversion. First of all, any text can be written to induce a visitor to perform a target action: order a product or service, subscribe to a newsletter, or participate in a contest. Secondly, any text can be saturated with selling tricks: adding links to commercial pages and social networks or creating order forms and lead magnets.

What is Quality Content?

How do you know if your content is good enough for search engine algorithms and end users? Let’s take a look at content marketing writing key points.

Helpfulness

What makes good content good? No impeccable literacy, cool images, or fancy formatting can replace content helpfulness. Before writing website content, ask yourself – how do I want a visitor to think, feel, or act? This is your cornerstone. If your main goal is to inform visitors – make the topic as comprehensive as possible. If it’s to teach something – make it clear and easy.

Uniqueness

Your texts should always be unique. It’s a basic rule of writing. Otherwise, you risk hurting your reputation and losing search-ranking positions. You can check your text for uniqueness using dedicated plagiarism checkers. As a rule, 80-90% uniqueness is more than enough.

Query Relevance

Imagine a visitor googling how to brew tea properly. They enter your site and read about the history of tea and see some neat images, but not how to brew tea. Your content doesn’t answer their specific question, so in terms of how to write content, this would be an issue. Most likely, the visitor won’t trust your site anymore.

Optimization

Some might think that SEO articles imply spammy texts filled to the brim with crooked keywords. This is a pretty outdated approach: modern texts have to be optimized to reach the top results and bring in traffic. Optimized content marketing writing includes:

• elaborate headings and subheadings H1 – H6;
• meta tags Title, Description, Alt;
• keywords, LSI, synonyms;
• clear, understandable structure;
• correct formatting.

Accuracy

The main danger of content writing for websites is that the texts might be adapted without proper fact-checking. The basic writing rule implies checking all the facts, theses, and sources so as not to mislead your visitors.

Literacy

How to get better at writing? Improve your literacy. Content with grammar mistakes will not inspire confidence. It’s just bad form, so it’s worth finding a good proofreader or editor with proofreading skills.

Simplicity

The abundance of complex terms, grandiloquent style, and multi-tiered sentences make it difficult to read the text. Whatever your target audience is, keep in mind: the more digestible the text is, the more likely the visitor will make it to the end and perform the targeted action. This tip for writing is especially relevant due to the modern habit of consuming content at rapid-fire speed. 

Types of Writing for the Web

The Internet is home to billions of articles, and this number just keeps growing. Where do they come from? Well, most of them are copies of each other since the original content is a pricey pleasure. However, humanity got creative in borrowing and adapting content. Want to know the top copywriting tips and tricks? Here are the main types of writing for the web.

Copy-pasting

In this case, you don’t even have to know how to write an article. Copy-pasting is straightforward borrowing content from other sites or platforms. This concerns both texts and images. Many site owners don’t even realize that copy-pasting is a direct violation of copyright and can lead to a damaged reputation or even a lawsuit.

Rewriting

This is formally a unique text, but you don’t create content for the website from scratch. Rewriting is about taking relevant articles from search results and modifying them to avoid plagiarism. Such texts don’t offer anything new – they are all derivative, and so they don’t have much value to potential visitors. However, they are good SEO tools in terms of the price-quality ratio.

Copywriting

How does copywriting differ from rewriting? A copywriter adds their own thoughts, experience, or expertise to content. Copywriting best practices imply that an expert writes your content without looking at competitors. This expert has to master the topic and any possible nuances. They will never copy a potential mistake from the top search results like rewriters might do.

However, experts might not know how to do copywriting. The best-case scenario would be to find an expert with writing skills. Or you can get a rough outline from them and present it to your web content writing performer. That said, both options are way more expensive than the previously mentioned ones.

Repackaging

How to create great content out of nothing? Let’s say you have an excellent customer review in video format. You can then transcribe the recording to get a text review. You can also create pictures based on the review to make the content more visually appealing. Basically, you are only limited by your imagination. You can experiment with different types and formats to make several pieces of high-quality content from a single source.

Website Content Creation Performers

Unlike robots, we humans can’t manage all our tasks simultaneously. Sometimes, hiring an extra workforce is necessary to not lose momentum. Outsourcing web content writing is one of the greatest accelerators of any business. Sure, you risk getting a bad output from a random performer. But when you do find a good one, it lets your budget breathe a little easier. Let’s talk about the most popular options for content creation for website.

In-house

You can write web content yourself or delegate it to your staffers. This option is good because you or your employees are likely to know your stuff, which means you’ll avoid mistakes and inaccuracies.

But there is a drawback – this process is quite time-consuming. Creating content for a website implies complete dedication. In the case of making images or videos, it’s also about extra costs.

Besides, you might lack expertise in a particular topic. In this case, hiring a writer and editor or contacting an agency is preferable.

Freelancer

Usually, freelancers can save you a few bucks. But keep in mind that not all freelancers are equally good, or they might be in a position where they have to write web content for several projects at a time. This entails a lack of total dedication to any single project. 

Before sending TOR to a freelancer, make sure to discuss the main points of web content writing. You should give the freelancer some core information that they might need. Provide them with the necessary details about your business, products, target audience, and competitors. It ensures that the content hits your goals and reaches your target audience.

Agency

This is the safest way to go. Agencies are sure to know how to write website content and have enough experience to solve any potential tasks. A full package can include a team of professionals: text writer, SEO manager, designer, and content manager. Thus, the end result will be rich and optimized high-quality content. Naturally, such agencies work strictly on a contract basis and make sure to provide you with regular updates. 

Tips for SEO Content Writing

Worry less about how to start writing and more about how to create great content. Website content is more than just the basics of copywriting – it’s also infographics and visual accompaniment that solve specific tasks and appeal to a certain audience. Therefore, creating website content is a multi-layered process.

Make a Target Audience Portrait

Selling everything to everyone is a strategy back from the Middle Ages. Nowadays, a successful business implies understanding who you sell to and why they should go with you. Consumer behavior is determined by many criteria, including:

• Sex;
• Age;
• Social status;
• Earnings;
• Marital status;
• Children or lack thereof;
• Field of activity;
• Education;
• Cultural nuances;
• Geography.

Create a portrait of your target audience or its subgroups if needed. This copywriting tip is all about accurately segmenting your target audience so your web content writing hits the right goal.

For example, if your target audience is PC gamers, you will promote your PC hardware as the best gaming solution. But what if your target audience is comprised of professional editors or designers? In that case, you should promote the same hardware as professional tools for improving workflow.

Set Web Content Writing Goals

How to write better? Establish your site’s purpose. It will determine not only structure and functionality but also what kind of content it should contain. If you run a web store, your primary content is product cards and articles related to these products. For a small enterprise with few services, a landing page with a consultation order form will be enough. Also, each site page has its own mission. For example, your home page should answer questions that might arise after a first-time visit:

• What does the company deal with?
• How long has the company been in the business?
• Where can I check the goods?
• Why should I trust this company?
• How does this company differ from the rest?
• How can I buy the goods?
• What do other customers think about this company?

The main web content writing goals:

• Creating a virtual company business card. It means all the necessary information about your company that end users should know. Make sure to add feedback options.
• Growing, retaining, and keeping the audience engaged with your representatives. Blogs, news, online chats, or chatbots might solve this task.
• Expanding the client base. You place a lead magnet that visitors get for subscribing to an email newsletter. 
• Increasing your reputation. A blog with high-quality feature articles doesn’t just capture attention but boosts your reputation. 
• Optimizing the search engine. Visitors that came from search results are already interested in your offers. To make this happen, consider including keywords in your content so that your site is higher in SERP.

Study Your Competitors

You can find your main competitors via search engine result pages. Simply put, you google your niche and analyze rival offers. First of all, take into account sites whose owners pay for contextual advertising. You can also leverage dedicated analyzing tools and services like Serpstat.

Check competitors to note copywriting best practices and unique features that competitors have to offer. This data will help you learn how to write better, increase your content output, and keep your content up-to-date overall. This also lets you avoid mistakes that your competitors made. After all, not everyone knows how to make good content.

Decide On Content Format

Your content format affects your site’s functionality. This means your IT staffers should know in advance whether you want to add charts and graphics, GIF tips, or video materials in addition to the text.

How to create good content? Infographics make complex data like statistics simple. Information that’s enriched with infographics is easier to remember. Short videos are good for a brief introduction to a product or person. Video reviews are usually better perceived than text ones.

Content types matter as well. Web content writing can be educational, entertainment, informational, or commercial. A diversified content presentation can untap your entire campaign’s potential. Of all the countless articles out there, you want yours to be as attractive as possible.

Web Content Writing Ideas

People can get bored with the same content format. Here are some web content writing ideas on how to make your content diversified.

• Article-question – “How do you choose the best graphics card”
• Test – “Do you properly use your graphics card”
• Article-review – “There are two main graphics card manufacturers. Let’s find out which one’s the best”
• Article-personal experience – “I’ve bought the most expensive graphics card and regret it”
• Article-answer – “The best budget graphics card”
• Announcement-gift – “The latest graphics card is in stock! First-time buyers get 10% off and free delivery”
• Life hack – “How to overclock your graphics card with no struggles”
• Case – “We were told to overclock 100 graphics cards within a day. This is how we did it”
• Check-list – “Check if your graphics card works as intended”
• Top – “Top 3 graphics cards for 1440p gaming”
• Guide – “10 steps on how to overclock your graphics card properly”
• Contest – “Photos of the most creative PC builds from our buyers. The best one gets a free 2TB SSD”
• Video – “Unboxing the latest graphics card”
• Interview – “Graphics card manufacturer’s representative speaks about business expansion for our region”
• Photo report – “This is how we upgraded our test benches to ensure your ready-made PCs work as intended”

Wrap-up

Creating website content is a multi-vectored task that requires a complex approach. To know how to write for websites, you should first ask yourself, “Who and why will consume my content?” Clear functionality is crucial for any high-quality content.

Content marketing writing is the embodiment of your digital image. Thus, it must meet all the requirements listed above. Otherwise, your content will get lost among a billion other articles.

Web writing best practices include various types of content formats and goals. Your target audience, long-term planning, and budget will guide you to help you achieve the best result.