The Basics – Because, Well, They’re Kinda Important…

I do a lot of website content reviews. 

I offer 5 per week for free and they get snapped up quick! 

In these reviews, I take a good look at the key pages on your website – usually the home, about and one of your service pages – and tell you what’s good, what’s bad and what you can do to improve your copy. (If you haven’t had one yet you can get on the waitlist here…) 

There’s one thing I’ve noticed.

There’s a surprisingly large amount of people who aren’t even getting the basics right! 

Now, copywriting is a craft. It’s a skill.

There’s far more to it than writing some words on a website. 

The best copywriters have spent years learning, practising and honing their talent. 

They’ve spent hours pouring over books, completing courses and studying everything from sales and copywriting to psychology, influence and human behaviour. 

If you want to be able to create the same level of powerful and compelling content that a professional copywriter can, then you’ll need to do the same. 

But, if you’re not looking for a new career and you’re just keen to give your website conversions a boost then these basics will get you off on the right track. 

Here’s what your website content needs… 

A Really, Freaking Amazing Headline

The number one mistake that I see on people’s websites is crappy headlines. 

Your headline is the first thing people will read when they hit upon your site.

If it sucks: if it’s boring, bland, basic – or worse – confusing! Then they won’t keep reading. They’ll bounce off back to Google and probably go check out one of your competitors. 

Every single page needs a killer headline that does the following things: 

• Catches their attention 
• Piques their interest
• Tells them they are in the right place – Eg tells them who it’s for, what you do or that you can solve their problem

A headline does not need to tell them everything – in fact, a good headline will leave a little intrigue so they keep reading to find out more. 

A few of the WORST mistakes that I see frequently include wasting your home page headline with some kind of welcome…

“Welcome to ABC Plumbing” 

Or your company name…

“ABC Plumbing” 

Or just the name of the page…

“Home”

“About Us” 

“Services” 

Don’t do that. Spend a little time thinking about an attention-grabbing headline that will make them want to read more. 

An Equally As Amazing Subheadline

Your headline should be pretty concise, so it can be tricky to get everything you need into it. That’s where the subheadline comes in. 

The headline is the most read part of any copy. As Ogilvy, the Father of Advertising once said, 

“On average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.” 

But the subheadline isn’t far behind. 

Your headline needs to capture attention, but your subheadline should then elaborate and draw them in more. 

Take this blog post as an example; the headline (what to write on your website) catches your attention and tells you that this post is going to show you what to write on your website. 

If you’re looking for website content help, that’s going to pique your interest. 

The subheadline then goes on to provoke you into reading more. Now, the way this subheadline does it is slightly more advanced. 

By telling people that we’re going to cover the basics, it does two things: it tells the newbies that this post is for them – they want to know the basics. And it provokes the “not so newbies” into reading because they want to make sure they do know what the basics are. 

A First Line That Makes Them Keep Reading

So you’ve done the hard work – you’ve caught their attention and convinced them that this page may just be worth their time…

What next? 

Well, most people ruin it at this point. They waste their first line with something vanilla, like “Welcome to ABC Plumbing”. 

This first line is where you suck them in. They won’t hang around for long if you can’t convince them that you’re the answer to their problem, so the first few lines of your website copy need to: 

A: Show them that you understand their problem. 

B: Show them you have the solution. 

If you dive right in with why you’re the best BEFORE you’ve shown them that you can help them, then they’ll lose interest pretty quick. 

And when they lose interest what do they do? They head on over to your competition…

Tell Them Everything They Need To Know In Order To Take The Next Step – And Nothing More

The art of copywriting is getting your points across in the simplest and most concise manner. People are busy. They don’t want to waste minutes of their day reading website content that doesn’t serve any purpose for them. 

The body content on your page needs to: 

• Confirm they are in the right place – Eg you help people like them
• Show them you understand their problem – including their fears and frustrations 
• Show them that you have a REAL solution to their problem 
• Show them that your solution is different from the rest 
• Demonstrate that your biz is THE go-to company for this particular problem – establish authority, show them what makes you the best

8: A Simple CTA

Finally, once you’ve done all the hard work it’s time to tell them what to do next.

It can be tempting to think that they’ll logically know what step they need to take in order to work with you. But that’s a rookie mistake. 

You see, people don’t like to get things wrong.

They like certainty and they like to know that they’re doing the right thing at the right time. 

So, if you want them to phone you for a quote, you need to tell them exactly that. 

“Call us on  01202 348 191 for a free quote today” 

If you want them to fill in an enquiry form then spell it out. 

“Fill in the form here to get a callback now” 

If you want them to read another page on your website tell them to do it. 

“Click here to read more about our bathroom installation services…” 

The simpler you make it to take the next step the more likely people are to do it.

Fancy A Free Website Content Review?

So, there you have it. The basics.

There’s obviously a LOT more to creating compelling content than we’ve discussed here in this post, but these key points are a good place to start. 

If you think you’ve got the basics down but you’re still not seeing results from your web traffic then a website content review can help.

As I said, I offer 5 for free each week – Click this link here to get on the list now…

Free Website Content Checklist.

Not getting the results you want from your website? It could be that your content is the problem.

Click the button below and we’ll send you our website content checklist so you can see how your copy measures up!

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