Are the words on your website working? Have you found a voice that encourages the right people to read them?
Do they attract new visitors, reinforce relationships and create new sales opportunities?
If the answer’s no, it’s time for an audit.
But if that sounds like too big a task, there are some simple, and relatively quick ways to Febreze it, rather than put it through the full wash cycle. It will take a lot of the dirt out in a fraction of the time.
1. Prioritise the pages to work on
You’ll probably be squeezing your audit in among other tasks, so you’ll want to use your time wisely. The first step is to have a general look over the whole site and see if anything’s missing. You should have pages and articles that reinforce each of the following objectives.
Awareness - do you have enough content that talks about your business and what you do, without being about what you sell? This is the important stuff that makes you human, such as your ‘about us’ page.
Excitement - you need content that flicks a switch in your visitors from just knowing your product or service to actually wanting to buy it. This might include blog posts or case studies that show how your product helps people solve a unique problem, or a portfolio of your best work.
Going deeper - you’ll also need sufficient content to satisfy visitors who want to look more deeply into your business before they decide whether to buy. An FAQ section is effective, so that answers to common questions can be easily found. Blog posts that give a broader view of the market you operate in, or offer opinions on new trends or technology, are a great way to show your expertise and leadership.
Consideration - your site should provide useful, persuasive content that helps you win the argument when a customer weighs up your product against competitors’. Reviews, testimonials and blog posts that explain why you’re the best at what you do - without being too selly - are great for this.
Conversion - this is the content that helps people buy your product. It might be as simple as the message that encourages people to get in touch. Or, if you’re selling a product, it will involve every piece of content between hitting ‘add to basket’ and confirming a purchase.
These terms are helpful for making sure your content is balanced and there’s a business case for it.
But you should also add to your audit mix anything you simply feel needs improving. It might be your headlines, or the need to develop a more consistent tone of voice.
2. Spring cleaning your content
With your priorities in place, you can now take it page by page and clean up your content. Although we are focusing on a fairly quick fix here, it’s important you apply the same standards to every page so your judgements and improvements are consistent.
Either set up a spreadsheet and note your comments to address later. Or dive in and make the changes as you go. Ask yourself…
- Does the page or post have a sound business reason for existing? Where does it fit into the feeling you’re trying to create for visitors and your overall content strategy? Does it represent your brand and values adequately and fit into one of the areas we listed above?
- Are the words awkward and over-optimised? Maybe you worked with an SEO company in the past which advised you to pack in keywords tighter than a tin of sardines. Those days are long gone and both search engines and customers are turned off by artificial content. If you find examples like this, rewrite the section to sound more conversational and natural. Once you’ve finished, if you feel it’s short of the keywords that represent your business, you can carefully drop a few back in without disturbing the flow.
- Are the headline and first paragraph strong? Ask yourself honestly if they would make you read on. Do they offer a benefit to the reader? If not, rewrite them so they do.
- Look at the page as a whole. As you read it, you’ll probably trip over the odd word, turn of phrase or sentence. Rewrite anything clumsy, fluffy or unnecessary. You’re looking for useful, lean content. There needs to be a reason for everything that’s there.
- Exterminate jargon. I’m a journalist, so jargon upsets me. It upsets your customers too. If they don’t understand something in your content, they won’t give you a chance to explain. Make sure every sentence is written in plain English. Words like utilise (use), visualisation (chart) and curation (picked) all make me shiver, and they’ll turn your potential customers off too. If they don’t understand you, how are they supposed to understand what you’re selling?
- Keep it short. An easy way to make your words more readable - without much work - is to make your pages easy to skim. One or two-line paragraphs, along with lots of subheads keeps life simple for your readers.
- If, during your audit, you find a piece of content that’s really strong, think about other ways you could use it. Add more links to it from other pages, promote it on social media or consider beefing it up into a free ebook for visitors to download. Free and useful content is a proven way to build trust in your brand and encourage more interest and sales.
- Calls to action. We all browse websites. And we’re all looking for excuses not to buy what’s in front of us. Work out what action you want people to take on each page - and spell it out simply. You want to stir their emotions and get them excited. Depending on your product, you might try something clever or go with a simple message with a strong verb, such as ‘buy now’, ‘download now’, ‘apply now’. Don’t underestimate the effect a good call to action can have. When the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund changed theirs from ‘Submit’ to ‘Support Haiti’ they increased the amount donated per visitor by 15.75pc.
Big picture
Go through this simple process and the bad odours in your content will be gone for good. Another benefit is that, by taking an overview of your site, you’ll have a better sense of how the content is balanced and where the gaps are that you need to fill.
Some content attracts new visitors, some strengthens your relationships, and some smooths the path to a sale. By doing a simple audit, you’ll be sure that yours is just as fresh as any competitor’s.