You’ve spent weeks designing your website and creating your products. You’re eager to launch and start getting eyeballs and sales. But before you hit publish, have you put the same amount of care and effort into your website copy? The text on your site is just as important as the visuals.
What is website copy?
Website copy is the text that appears throughout your website — in pages, headlines, buttons, menus, and more. It's what prospects read to determine if your business or product is right for them. Well-crafted copy that clearly explains what you offer and how you can help readers achieves the following:
- Attracts the right audience and builds trust
- Establishes your credibility and expertise
- Frames user experience and guides them through the sales funnel
- Increases conversion rates and leads to more sales
Why good website copy is important?
Good website copy is important because it has the power to captivate your audience, engage them, and ultimately convert them into loyal customers. When visitors land on your website, they are looking for information that is valuable, relevant, and compelling. Your website copy is what communicates that information to them, so it needs to be persuasive and impactful.
Why is website copy important for businesses to understand and optimize?
Website copy is important for businesses to understand and optimize because it directly impacts their online presence and success. When businesses invest time and effort into creating compelling website copy, they can reap numerous benefits.
Businesses should prioritize understanding and optimizing their website copy. By doing so, they can attract the right audience, establish credibility, guide users through the sales funnel, and ultimately increase conversion rates and sales. Learn how Hypotenuse AI helped a Fortune 500 brand create stellar product copy.
Compelling copy that engages your readers and makes an emotional connection is what will turn those eyeballs into conversions. And guess what? You don’t need to be a professional writer to craft website copy that sells. Here are 5 simple ways you can write copy that will have your readers clicking the buy button.
1. Know Your Audience
To write compelling website copy, you need to know your audience inside and out. Who are they? What do they care about? What problems are they trying to solve? The more you understand your readers, the more you can tailor your content to their needs.
Identify your buyer personas
Create detailed profiles of your ideal customers. Give them names, backgrounds, goals, challenges, and habits. The more specific you can get, the better. These personas will guide all your content creation.
Focus on their pain points
Your readers come to your site with problems they want to solve or questions they need answered. Focus your content on those needs by highlighting the most common pain points and providing solutions or answers. Offer a helpful, empathetic tone.
Keep it conversational
Write like you're talking to a friend. Use a casual, friendly style with simple language and short sentences. Contractions are great, too. Your readers will appreciate the natural, engaging feel.
Solve a problem in the headline
Your headlines should immediately speak to the reader's needs or problems. Promise a solution or benefit right up front. Some examples: "3 Ways to Overcome Writer's Block" or "How to Get Your Toddler to Sleep Through the Night".
Use visual content
Break up your copy with images, graphics, photos, and videos. Not only will it make your content more engaging and skimmable, but it also helps get your message across to readers who prefer visuals over text.
Review and revise
Go back over your draft and make sure every word is as compelling as possible. Replace any boring or generic terms with something more specific. Vary your sentence structure. Read it aloud to identify any awkward phrasing.
Polish and perfect — your readers will thank you.
2. Focus on Benefits, Not Features
If you want visitors to take action on your website, focus on how your product or service benefits them, not just what it does or its features. People buy based on emotions and how something will improve their lives, not technical specs.
Speak to your audience's needs and desires
Put yourself in your customers' shoes. What are their biggest hopes, dreams or frustrations? How will your offering help them achieve or overcome these? Focus your messaging around that. For example, a lawn mowing service isn't just about mowing lawns, it's about giving busy homeowners more free time to do what they enjoy.
Highlight specific benefits
Don't just say you'll provide "awesome service". Give concrete examples of the benefits, like:
- Save time by not having to mow and edge your lawn every weekend.
- Have a perfectly manicured lawn without lifting a finger.
- Support a local business in your community.
Back up your benefits
Explain how you will deliver these benefits. For the lawn mowing service, you could say: "Our professional teams are trained to provide high-quality service and ensure your lawn always looks its best. We use top-of-the-line commercial equipment and mow on the same day each week for consistency. You'll have the nicest lawn on the block without having to do any work."
Use emotive language
Tap into emotions with words like enjoy, happy, best, favorite, love, convenient, safe, secure, trust, reliable, affordable, or sustainable. But only use emotive language if the benefit claim is substantiated. Otherwise, it may come across as manipulative.
With a compelling benefits-focused message, you'll turn more website visitors into customers and have them choose you over the competition. Focus on what matters most to them, clearly state how you meet those needs, and you'll be well on your way to making more sales.
3. Use Conversational Tone and Language
One of the most effective ways to connect with your readers and keep them engaged is by using a conversational and casual tone in your website copy. People tend to respond better when content feels more personal and relatable. Some tips for developing a friendly voice:
- Use contractions like “don’t” instead of “do not”. Contractions make the copy flow more naturally, like normal speech.
- Write in the second person “you” and “your”. Directly addressing the reader helps them feel included in the conversation. For example, say “When you sign up, you’ll get instant access to...” rather than “Customers will get instant access...”
- Use simple words and short sentences. Keep your language informal and easy to understand. The reading level should be around 8th to 12th grade. Long, complex sentences can seem stiff and dull.
- Share your enthusiasm! Let your passion for the topic shine through. Say “We’re thrilled to offer...” or “You’re going to love...” rather than just describing features and benefits in a detached manner.
- Use rhetorical questions. Questions are a great way to engage readers, just avoid overusing them. For example, ask “Are you ready to take your business to the next level?”
- Explain benefits in a relatable way. Rather than just listing specs, help the reader understand how a product or service will improve their life. For example, say “You’ll sleep better at night knowing your family is protected.”
- Use inclusive language. Say “we” and “our” to give readers a sense of personal connection and shared interests or values. But don’t overdo it — you need to strike a balance between inclusiveness and sounding disingenuous.
- Share examples and stories. Bring your points to life with concrete examples and short stories or anecdotes. Help readers visualize how they will benefit or experience using your product or service. Stories are very persuasive and help build trust.
- End with a call to action. After connecting with readers, tell them clearly what you want them to do next. Say something like “See what we mean? Join today and start enjoying all the benefits.” Give them a reason to take the next step.
4. Craft Compelling Headlines
To grab attention and draw readers in, you need compelling headlines. Here are some tips for crafting catchy headlines:
Keep it short and sweet
Aim for 8 words or less. Short headlines are more eye-catching and easier to read. For example, “5 Ways to Double Your Sales in 30 Days”.
Use numbers
Numbers attract attention and imply practical value or a list. For example, “10 Mistakes You're Making on Social Media”.
Invoke curiosity
Ask a provocative question or make a bold statement to spark interest. For example, “What Your Customers Wish You Knew (But Will Never Tell You)” or “The Biggest Myth About Content Marketing Debunked”.
Focus on benefits
Headlines that highlight the key benefits or solutions for readers tend to be the most compelling. For example, “How to Get 50% More Traffic from Google in Under 30 Minutes a Day”.
Use power words
Words like secrets, tricks, tips, boost, double, and destroy are attention-grabbing. For example, “The Secrets of Building Trust and Credibility Online”.
Make an audience-focused promise
Headlines with "you" and "your" resonate most with readers. For example, “How You Can Improve Your Memory in Just 10 Minutes a Day”.
Keep headlines consistent
For the best results, make sure your headlines match the content or solutions covered in the copy. Don't mislead readers or overpromise. Provide value that aligns with what you're promising in the headline.
Following these tips will help you write headlines that grab attention, draw readers in, and compel them to want to know more. Powerful headlines, especially when combined with persuasive and engaging copy, are key to more traffic, leads, and conversions on your website. Keep testing different options to see what resonates most with your target audience.
5. Use Strategic Keyword Placement
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Carefully placing your target keywords throughout your website copy is key to improving your search rankings. As you write content for your site, keep these keyword placement strategies in mind:
Include keywords in your page titles and subheadings
The page title, or title tag, is one of the most important areas for keyword placement. Make sure your target keyword appears in the title, ideally at the beginning. Subheadings, or H2 and H3 tags, are also weighted heavily by search engines. Include your keyword in one subheading per page. Hypotenuse AI meta title generator allows you to optimize your website's title tag and meta description, which are displayed when your page shows up in search engine results. Optimizing these elements helps improve click-through rate and search rankings by making your result stand out and clearly describing what page visitors will find.
Use keywords in the first and last sentences of paragraphs
The first and last sentences of a paragraph are second in importance only to the title and subheadings. Start or end 1-2 sentences in each paragraph with your keyword or a related term.
Repeat keywords 3-5 times per 100 words
As a general rule of thumb, aim to include your keyword an average of 3 to 5 times for every 100 words of copy. Don't overdo it, or your writing may sound unnatural. But multiple mentions of your keyword throughout the page reinforces its importance and relevance to search engines.
Include keyword synonyms and related phrases
Use synonyms, variants, and related phrases for your main keyword throughout the page copy. For example, if your keyword is “content marketing,” you might include “content creation,” “content strategy,” “blogging,” “social media marketing,” and so on. This helps expand your page's keyword footprint.
Link to internal pages with the keyword anchor text
When you link to other pages on your site, include your keyword or a related term as the anchor text for that link. The anchor text helps search engines determine the topic and relevance of the page you're linking to. Internal links also pass authority from one page to another.
Using these strategic e-commerce keyword techniques in your website copy will boost your rankings in search results and drive more organic traffic to your site. Focus on writing naturally while keeping keywords and search best practices in mind.
Write Compelling Copy with AI
So there you have it, 5 proven ways to write website copy that truly resonates with your readers. By following the best practices outlined in this document, you can optimize your content for search engines, attract more organic traffic, and ultimately convert visitors into loyal customers. So go ahead, start utilizing Hypotenuse AI writer and craft website copy that is irresistible. Success awaits you just around the corner.
