If you own a business, it is likely that you have spent a lot of time and energy making your website look good and providing it with information that you think will be helpful to customers in making a decision.
Is your website as effective as it could be in convincing potential customers to take the desired action?
If your website isn’t persuasive, what is it for?
Here are some tips to make your website more persuasive.
1. Speak in your target audience’s language
If you were creating web content designed to persuade former police or military officers to join an academy, how would you go about it? What kind of language and arguments would you use to appeal to this specific target market?
Does that sound awfully specific? You can see more details in that case study, but in summary:
- One way to build trust with your target audience is to use words, phrases and concepts that are familiar to your audience. This is especially important for audiences with their own slang and shorthand, or if you’re writing for readers in another country.
- The need to sound familiar (therefore unthreatening) is why it’s important to understand who you’re writing for. A 25-year-old and a 65-year-old might want the same product, but you’d talk with them in different ways. A person working in construction might not respond to the same persuasive writing as someone working in advertising. Understanding who your product or service benefits and what they’re looking for is key to writing persuasive web content that draws them in.
2. Personalise your message
The word “you” creates a feeling of closeness. The more you use the word “you”, the more your reader feels like you understand them and are speaking directly to them. This creates a feeling of connection.
This is a fast tip to being more persuasive in your marketing: make sure to use the word “you.” “You” not only builds a connection, but it encourages the reader to picture themselves benefiting from whatever you’re selling. It’s the difference between “People drink cocktails in our hot tub” and “Imagine yourself sipping a cocktail in our luxurious hot tub.”
The people who visit your site are looking for a change in their lives that your product or service can provide. Keep your content focused on how your reader will benefit from using your product or service. This is what they are interested in. Write every word with the goal of demonstrating how your product or service can improve the lives of your visitors.
3. Use simple language in your web content
You might have been taught to write formally in school. However, your teachers were teaching you to impress examiners and not to establish a human connection with a real person with desires.
Now think about the explanations your car mechanic or lawyer friend gave you. How much detail did they go into? How many exceptions and qualifications did they make? Now think about how the explanation made you feel. The last time you spoke to a mechanic or car dealer, how much of the conversation about “aspect ratios” and “E-REVs” would you have understood? If you speak fluent mechanic, how much of a conversation about torts and rules of evidence would you have been able to follow with a lawyer? Most likely, not much. The explanations given by car mechanics and lawyers usually involve a lot of detail with many exceptions and qualifications. When listening to these explanations, people usually feel overwhelmed and confused.
Your web content is no different.
Digital marketers often rely on jargon and complex language because they believe it makes their messages sound more credible. However, using too much jargon can actually turn people away and cause them to not purchase what is being marketed. That is why it is always better to use simple language.
It is not advisable to use industry jargon unless you are certain that your audience is familiar with those terms. It is also important to make sure that those words mean the same thing to everyone who believes they understand them. (However, this is not often the case based on our experiences.)
4. Complement your website content with high quality images and visuals
Although we would like to think that we make decisions based on facts and reason, the reality is that our emotions have a stronger influence on our buying decisions than logic does. We tend to feel first and then rationalize our feelings afterwards.
The saying goes that there is the reason we tell our partner why we bought something, and then there is the real reason. The former is usually a logical explanation that satisfies most people, while the latter is often based on deeper motivations that we’re not always aware of.
Visual images are one way to create an emotional response from web users. Images can help make a text-heavy page more interesting, and can provide context and additional meaning to web content. By illustrating concepts in ways that text alone cannot accomplish, images can help make web content more understandable and engaging. Choose images for your website that reflect the brand and tone of voice you’ve established. Don’t just use the first stock image you find when you search for keywords like “growth” or “sustainability.”
The way you arrange your text can have a visual impact, for example by using subheadings, bullet points and bold text.
5. Create a pathway of low resistance
There are some of us who are not website wizards. That is why it is important that your website content is always accessible to visitors. Your content is not accessible when there are too many links, too many options, or too much clutter.
If you want to persuade people to take action on your site, you should design your website to make it easy for them to take that action. Too much of anything can be irritating, and you don’t want to put up obstacles for your potential visitors.
If your website navigation is complicated or your homepage is cluttered, it will only cause confusion, increase bounce rates, and turn off search engines. This is not good for anyone. If your website visitors can’t find the answers they’re looking for, they will go to someone who does give them what they need.
6. Don’t try to be clever or creative
It is unusual for someone reading something on the internet to pay attention to every word. Most people do not have the time, and would rather quickly move on to something else then waste time trying to decipher what the text is saying.
Simple statements often work best.
When I visit a website, it should be immediately clear to me what is going on. There should be no confusion or ambiguity.
Asking people to think too much does not work well on the internet because people who are browsing the web are usually looking for something specific and do not have time to extra time to interpret complex language. Therefore, it is best to keep web copy as uncomplicated as possible.
You should avoid using jargon in your writing unless you are writing for an audience that is familiar with the terms. Writing for a 12-year-old audience will help to ensure that your writing is easy to follow. Be careful with jokes unless you are confident that your audience will understand them.
7. Use familiar words
As Web readers, we are hunter-gatherers looking for prey. We look for carewords and when we see them, we click.
If you’re looking for a cheap flight to Bangkok, you might want to search for a cost-effective flight or a low-fare option.
Nobody searches for cost-effective flights. As Google’s Keyword Tool shows cheap is what people are looking for:
Most people search for cheap flights
The words that people are looking for are carewords. We often try to make ourselves sound better than we are by embellishing what we do. We try to sound scientific, fancy or special, but your web visitor is looking for familiar words—carewords—because they’re the scent trail that tells him he’s in the right place.
8. Write for lazy people
Your web visitor doesn’t want to read your text because they would rather have an easy catch for their dinner.
Make your copy easy to read:
- Use short paragraphs—four sentences max
- Use short sentences—twelve on average
- Skip unnecessary words
- Avoid jargon and gobbledygook
- Avoid the passive tense
- Avoid needless repetition
- Address your web visitors directly—use the word you
- Shorten your text
Steve Krug recommends that you cut the number of words in half for each page, and then do the same for what’s left. While this may be a bit too challenging, it’s still worth doing. Set a goal for yourself and make your text as concise as possible.
9. Expect people to arrive anywhere on your website
People usually read a book from the beginning, through the middle, to the end.
Wouldn’t it be strange if people picked up a book and started reading it from a completely random spot? Most people would have little to no understanding of what is going on if they did this.
The web is a collection of interconnected pages that can be accessed from anywhere. Most people will not start on your home page, but may land on any of your pages.
This means that each web page on a website has the potential to be the first page a user sees when they visit that site.
- Each page should be easy to scan
- Each page should clarify to people where they are; and what your site is about
- Each page should have a call to action telling people where to go next—to read another blog post, sign up for your email newsletter, check out a detailed product description or testimonial, request a quote or add a product to a shopping cart
You shouldn’t just rely on your navigation bar to tell people what to do next, you should also include a button or link on each page to guide people to take the next step.
10. Make it easy for hunters to find you
Potential customers are hunting for information or products.
How can you help them find you?
Lure potential customers to your website by providing useful information. That’s how writing for SEO (Search Engine Optimization) basically works:
- Answer the questions potential customers are asking
- Discuss one key topic for each page
- Include links to relevant pages on your own website or to other websites
- Use phrases and words your potential customers are looking for
Above all: Be helpful.
11. Make a visual impression
Web copy and web design should work together.
You can’t write your words or compose your sentences without considering how your web page will look.
The way your website looks affects how easy your text is to read, and how well visitors to your site can understand your purpose.
How to increase the visual appeal of your web copy:
- Replace text by photographs or videos
- Consider different font sizes – think about people scanning large text first
- Emphasize quotes of customers (or experts) to add credibility
- Play around with highlights, bold text, CAPS, or italics
- Break a long headline into a headline with a sub headline
- Change paragraphs into bullet points
The most important thing you can do to make your website more readable and trustworthy is to reduce the amount of clutter and add more white space.
The truth about writing persuasive web copy
It would be great if I could tell you that writing effective web copy is simple. But I can’t because it’s not.
The truth is that it is difficult to write simple and useful copy.
As a general rule, don’t make your web content too dense or difficult to understand. Keep your language simple and avoid being overly technical or showy.
Instead make your text as simple as possible.
Do not try to be everything to everyone. Be aware of who you are and what you do.
If you are clear about your positioning, it will be easier to make your website stand out and be found. If you have a clear message, it will be easier to write persuasive web copy.
Be clear. Be specific. Be bold.
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