“55% [or readers] spent fewer than 15 seconds actively on a page” (Time) 

Here is why you need killer content on your website:

• Your website bounce rate will decrease as users are finding more relevant content.
• Using great content will increasing users time on your site.
• User will go deeper into your content and site.
• Great content will be shared by your users.
• Users will click on CTAs ultimately completing your website goals improving CRO (Conversion Rate Optimisation - click article).
• Users will return for additional sales and information because of your great content offerings (think of a recipe site).

Read our "Ultimate Guide To Creating Your ECommerce website".

Here are our tips on how to write great content that grabs your readers attention. 

1. Know your user

It's been said before but it's worth repeating. You MUST know your reader. If you've done the hard work already of defining your primary and secondary target audience then you know what voice and tone you will need to use for your content. Take into consideration:

• Demographics will help you define your tone and language.
• Motivation or buying cycles will help you distinguish issues, questions and answers.
• Pathways and sources to your website content will help you define content that users will are looking for.
• Keywords and search terms will help your content be found, help you better understand what users are looking for, and help you build out content according to search intent.

2. Using an inverted pyramid for content

People are busy, so you need to be able to get your message to them fast.

Your content should mirror an inverted pyramid. Most important information at the top and more detailed toward the bottom or broken down further to child pages. 

This will support readers who like to skim, provides structure to your content, and it can engage the reader further down the page. 

**Hot Tips - Map out your key content and structure before you start writing. 

3. Consider writing a communication brand guide before you get started

An editorial brand style guidelines will help with consistency across your writing and communications from web to marketing, PR and socials. It will provide references grammar, tone (casual - formal), tense(past, present, future), word usage (It is vs. It’s and jargon), point of view (First, Second, Third), platform (website vs socials), and Active vs Passive voice. 

It is the ultimate determinant of your brand's voice so that your company sounds the same no matter who is writing your copy.

4. Organise Your Content

Organising your content into approachable tasks with deadlines is the best way to ensure success whether you are writing it yourself, managing content for a project, or planning scheduled content creation blogs.

Spend your time ideating and organising content into pages (IA), sections, themes, pillar content, blog topics.

When you are considering your sitemap, you need to be able to justify every page that you are building and the depth (child pages) that content will go. Generally, your website should go no further than 2 levels deep, and if so, you need good justification as to why. The deeper your pages go, the more difficult and longer indexation takes the less likely they are to be read by users, and the negative impact on your site ranking. Consider collating similar content onto one page and using design elements to help visually organise your page better using anchors, accordions, and tabs. This makes it easier for the user to see and access content immediately.

5. Use standard web writing principles

"50% of American adults are unable to read a book written at an 8th-grade level." (The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development)

• Keep it clear and simple. Take into account your average users reading ability and use tools like the Flesch-Kincaid reading ease score to make sure your content is hitting the mark.
• Use an Active voice. Use “Dynotech makes the best widgets on the market” vs “The best widgets are made by Dynotech”. Passive voices can be vague and appear non-authoritative.
• Eliminate jargon. It can be unnecessarily complicated, it pushes readers away and there are always better options.
• Use CTA’s (Call-To-Action). Sprinkle these into your content so your user knows absolutely what their next step should be. Use imperatives, and be as concise as possible “Sign Up”, “Shop”, “Book Today”.