Finally, after much sweat and tears, you have your website exactly how you wanted it to be.

The web designer has done a great job. The look is sharp and your branding is bright and modern, and sending out the right messages.

Altogether, it’s a job well done. But what about the content?

Back to basics

As we all should remember, words matter. But writing them can be deceptively difficult and can take up far more of your valuable time and resources than you thought.

Let’s get back to basics. Like the design, the content for your website needs to be concise and uncluttered, with no opportunity for confusion or misunderstanding.

Correct spelling and punctuation are essential and sentences and paragraphs should flow logically.

I’m sounding a bit old school here but I’ve worked with words throughout my three decades in journalism and PR, so stay with me.

Visitors to your website will expect to be informed and they may want to be persuaded that if you have a product or service to sell, then it is worth buying.

But if the content is hard to read then you will drive them away; if it is full of jargon and over-elaborate, you will confuse them.

And if it contains errors in spelling, grammar and punctuation, then they may decide that if you can’t write, then your product or service is probably not up to much either.

Using a professional writer

Writing effective content is a challenge but it’s worth tackling head-on because the benefits to you, your website and your business could be significant.

On an emotional level, a professional content writer can get to the heart of understanding the value and importance of what you want to say, and to whom.

On a practical level, they know how to write, spell correctly and put full stops in the right places. They know about pace and flow and structure of words and sentences.

They know about key words to help search engine optimisation (SEO).

Effective well-written content means visitors may stay on your website longer because it’s interesting and they may share the content with others, and that’s good for SEO too.

Content or copy

By the way, it’s worth knowing that the words on your website are sometimes called content and sometimes they’re called copy. There is a difference.

Basically, copy tends to be about a product or service and is written with the aim of persuading the reader to do something, usually to make a purchase.

Content can also do that but is also about being informative, educational or entertaining and is more of an opportunity to tell a longer story.

It’s a bit like the difference in style and structure of the wording for a website for walking boots and a website about the Yorkshire Dales.

Believe me it’s a whole other subject in itself and not for discussion right now.

Making decisions

What is for discussion right now is that there’s a decision to be made when it comes to the production of the words for your website.

You can do it yourself but if you are not confident with writing then you have a problem. As the work takes up valuable time and resource, you run the risk of it being a false economy.

So get a professional writer to do the work. Writers love writing and are passionate about it, and that’s worth the investment.

If you too can see how content gets to the heart of your business if it is done well then you’ll understand you need to make the right choices, and bringing in a writer is the right choice.

And of course, the content will flow, be easy to read and inform and persuade the visitor. You’ll love it and so will search engines.

If you’d like to chat to me about words and writing, then email me, Gideon Fireman, the word scientist, at gjfireman@hotmail.co.uk or call 07866 375 094.