Social media is at front and center for most marketing managers. Don’t overlook basics, though: Good writing for websites is still a big part of content marketing.
The folks at MarketingProfs do a magnificent job of conducting webinars and providing material for marketing managers. For a few hundred dollars a year, you can have your fill of content that makes you think and helps you support your business cases with upper management.
They hosted a webinar called “Rewrite Your Website to Engage Customers and Inspire Their Trust” with Erin Anderson of Brain Traffic.
About 20 minutes into the presentation, I realized that I hadn’t heard “social media,” “Twitter,” “Facebook,” “reddit,” or anything related to the category. It was like coming up for air after being underwater for 90 seconds. I’ve become so accustomed to the focus on social media that it actually seemed anomalous not to hear about it in a marketing presentation.
Good writing for websites
When you hire a marketing communications writer, you expect him to know and implement the kinds of things Erin emphasized in her back-to-the-barre presentation.
- Base your content on the right questions.
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- “What do I want to tell you?” becomes “What do you want to know?”
- “What do I want you to understand about me?” becomes “What are you trying to accomplish?”
- “What do I want you to do?” becomes “What do you need to feel comfortable and smart?”
- “How can I make you care?” becomes “What do you care about…really?”
- Top ten tips for good writing for websites include:
- Get out of your readers’ way.
- Give them the information they came for. Quickly.
- Make your pages easy to scan; don’t worry about making them easy to read.
- Read your text aloud.
- Set up a review process, and make sure you’re not your own editor.
- Make your content useful, usable, findable and engaging.
It’s easy to overlook guidelines like those in your headlong rush to dominate the blogosphere, monetize your SEO campaign and out-tweet your competitors.
Make sure your content marketing writer isn’t overlooking them.
