‘What’s in it For Me?’ The Most Important Question to Ask in Website Content Writing

The most important thing to do when writing persuasive website content is to convince your visitors that your product or service will improve their lives. People want to be happy and they believe that by achieving certain goals such as to be thinner, richer, prettier or smarter, they will achieve this happiness.

Website copywriting follows the same rules as all advertising copywriting in that the content has to appeal to your visitors' emotions. When you read back over your writing you need to ask yourself if it answers the question 'what's in it for me?'

It's all about your visitors

Your website may well be about your products or services but it shouldn't be about you. Your visitors won't care that you set the business up with £5 and a prayer back in 1995 and they won't care about what you think of your products, service, business or anything else. Your website should focus on how what you offer can improve your visitors' lives. You should picture your visitors as they scan across your website pages and think about how much your content actually focuses on them and their needs. An easy way to do this is to count how many times you say 'we' in your content. Think about the following example...

"Established for 14 years, our company is a trusted supplier of product x. We specialise in providing product x to our customers at the lowest prices possible. Our friendly customer service team works hard so we can rectify any issues..."

In these three sentences there are 5 mentions of either 'our' or 'we' and the copy certainly doesn't focus on the visitors' needs. Although this may seem like an extreme example, the internet is full of websites with content just like this. If this copy looks similar to your own website then consider investing in some website content writing to flip the focus of your copy onto your visitors.

Hook them with the benefits

Concentrating on the benefits or a product or service rather than the features is a golden rule of website content writing (or indeed any writing in advertising). The benefits are what sell your product or service to your visitors by allowing them to visualise how it will enhance their lives. Examples of benefit driven copy could be...

"Slap-on lipstick comes in 12 delicious shades which means there's a colour to suit your style so you can complete your look, no matter what outfit you choose."

"Vitashake contains muscle building vitamins which will help to sculpt your muscles so you can have the confidence to show them off on the beach and impress the ladies."

Think about what the true benefits of your product or service are...

- Will it make people richer?

- Will it help people find the perfect partner?

- Will it save people time?

- Will it make people thinner?

You're likely to have a whole list of benefits so make sure you include every one of them in your website content writing to really sell your product or service to your visitors.

For more advice on website content writing, contact the website copywriters at Pure Ink Creative and discover how your website copy can bring you more visitors and make you more sales.