Is dodgy content spoiling your website?
The 1990s called. They want their website back
It's not just static pages with animated gifs that can make your website look out of date - the words are just as important.
Here are our top tips on what to avoid. And please, please, avoid them!
1 - Keyword crazy
Avoid pages filled with keywords, making them almost unreadable and giving next to no information. Something like this:
Keyword stuffing
"This information about keyword stuffing will show you how you can use keywod stuffing in your website copywriting. Improve your ranking with keyword stuffing by researching your keywords. Stuffing keywords into website copywriting can help you in the search engine rankings, so read our keyword stuffing articles now."
This looks like it was written by a sinister robot - a rubbish, sinister robot!
Keywords are an important part of optimising your site for search engines, but people don't have the patience for such obvious keyword spam any more. Use keywords, but use them sparingly.
2 - Introduction from the boss, with smiley photo and signature
Even if the boss is Sir Alan Sugar or Richard Branson, noone cares what they've got to say. They might think people care and that people trust them, but they're wrong. Honestly!
Think what the site is trying to achieve. If it's to keep your narcissistic boss happy then that's fine. But wouldn't more traffic, higher conversion rates and a better website make them happier?
The homepage is prime real estate for us copywriters. If you can't persuade them not to have one of these awful introductions, then please try and hide it somewhere in the "about us" pages and not on the homepage.
3 - "Welcome to our website"
The internet used to be a scary place, full of scammers, porn and IT people. An encouraging "welcome" greeting would give you confidence you were looking at a nice friendly website - a safe island in a sea of web-mystery.
Nowadays everyone is used to the dodgier elements of the web, and we just want to get around websites as easily as possible - A welcome doesn't tell you anything, it's wasted space and doesn't change anyone's attitude to your site.
The first line of text is the most important to get people hooked and keep them reading on. A bit of politeness is nice, but don't waste your most important space on it. Why not make people feel welcome without saying "welcome?
4 - Too much text
It's hard to read off a screen and there's plenty of research to prove it (if you can bothered to read it off a screen, you can find out more from Jakob Nielsen.)
Text should be written and formatted specifically for the web. That's why we don't like ebooks compared to proper books - because your eyes get tired.
5 - Web Site, Internet and World Wide Web
How do you write these words? Techies will argue that internet should have a capital I. They will tell you there is only one internet, just like there is only one Italy, so the internet is a proper noun and must have a capital I.
We tell techies that words change over time, and even if it did have a capital a few years ago, it doesn't anymore. It also makes you look unfamiliar with the internet. It's the same with "website" if you separate it into two words or use a capital W.
When words become more familiar they tend to lose some of their formatting.
- Words connected by a hyphen become a single word
- Words with capitals lose them
- That sort of thing
You're familiar with the internet and websites, so that's how you should write them. And it's the same with "World Wide Web" if anyone still calls it that anymore. It's one step up from the "Information Superhighway". Limit it to "the web" and you'll be ok.
6 - Over-excited punctuation
Adding an exclamation marks can make things seem a bit more interesting, like this:
"Read about a not-very-exciting thing now!"
Adding lots of exclamation marks and capitals just makes it look, well, erm, frantic, or like an advert for a builder in a local paper in 1985.
AND WHO WANTS THEIR WEBSITE TO LOOK LIKE THAT????!!!!!!!
7 - Too many instructions
Everyone knows now how the internet works and how to navigate a website. They didn't 10 years ago but they do now, so instructions like "click on the links to the right to go to the required page" are now redundant.
Besides, where do you stop if you're giving information? "Click on the links to the right" - why stop there? What about "read these words on the screen and follow the information they give" or "operate the mouse by using your mind to control the muscles your hand to move it around" or something.
If the navigation on your website is so complicated that you need to explain how to use it, try getting some different navigation. (By the way, putting "click here" in your links is still effective, for now.)
8 - Following too many rules like these.
Nothing will make your website look more outdated than stilted, ineffective copy.
Remember to show a bit of personality. Just because it's on a computer doesn't mean it's not like real writing. It's not all about rules, just use information like this for guidance and write what you're thinking, not what you think you should write.