Writing Content

This is the third follow up article in the series Better Websites for Writing. Two of the key components mentioned in that first piece were "goal-directed content" and "highly targeted copy". Both fall under the rubric of Content Strategy as recently delineated by Kristina Halvorson in "The Discipline of Content Strategy", an article at A List Apart, one of the best websites on websites.

For Halvorson, writing for the web is one of the elements of content strategy:

Web writing is the practice of writing useful, usable content specifically intended for online publication. This is a whole lot more than smart copywriting. An effective web writer must understand the basics of user experience design, be able to translate information architecture documentation, write effective metadata, and manage an ever-changing content inventory.

If all that is too esoteric and complicated, just try to keep your site's viewers in mind. They all want to know WIFM? "What's in it for me?" You must dangle a little somethin' to keep them reading.

Visitors come to your site with a purpose in mind. It could be to learn more about your work or you, to find more information about the subject of your writing, or maybe to buy something. A few will come for the entertainment value, or to check out your web designer's skills--but those are a minority of viewers.

At the same time, and this is like juggling, you must also direct the content toward your targets: hire you, buy your book, love you madly, whatever it is that you hope to accomplish by having a website. Incidentally, "having a presence on the web" is too vague a reason. Personal websites are so yesterday.

The content spans the gap between viewers' needs and yours. Halvorson thinks web designers have ignored content way too long. She asks, "Do you think it’s a coincidence, then, that web content is, for the most part, crap?"

Don't fill your site with mealy-mouthed weasel words--more crap--make every word count, just like you do with your non-content writing. It's the content that fulfills the promise of a pretty design, just as the book must measure up to its lovely cover. Otherwise, they won't come back again, and that's one of the three overarching goals for your site: to attract and retain visitors and to induce them to return.

This article is an extension of Better Websites for Writing.
Previous articles in the series:
Writing Websites: Critical Listings
Writing Websites: Current Practices