Key Considerations for Website Writing

Website writing has different goals depending on its context. While there are relevant best practices to keep in mind for all types of writing, with web content, you’ll need to consider your online audience, medium, and the nature of your message.

Here’s a closer look at website writing and a few insights from Tyler Sorg, MA, faculty member in the Department of Communication at Purdue Global.

Website Writing: Elements to Keep in Mind

Professional website writing is online writing that often overlaps with digital marketing to shape how businesses communicate and connect with their audiences. Sorg defines it as “contextualizing a message with the right channel to get it to the intended audience with the most receptive responses.”

According to Sorg, when engaged in website writing, there are four important elements to consider, which we’ll expand on below:

1. Message

In written communication, message can mean a text, its content, or its meaning. In website writing specifically, Sorg explains you’re often “telling a story about who you are, your organization, [or] your product in a concise way.”

According to Sorg, the ability to construct a strategic message that resonates is crucial. “I could be the best [writer] in the world, but if you don’t get the message, it’s irrelevant,” he explains.

Sorg also says that part of crafting an ideal message is ensuring it “matches the correct channel.”

2. Channel

According to Sorg, other types of writing generally have one channel of communication, such as “putting a pen to paper or typing in a Word document.” However, in web writing, he says you’re “faced with a multitude of channels and outlets.” Each has its own expectations and limitations. Sorg uses word count restrictions on some social media platforms as an example.

“Your writing style will change [based on] this context,” Sorg says. “You must format and use the correct language for each channel; it requires a difference in thought.”

However, as your communication channel changes, so does your audience.

3. Audience

Your audience is all of the web visitors who find your content online. As Sorg points out, this can include a wide range of readers. “Everyone, from our little cousins to our grandparents, has access to a computer, apps, and any kind of website,” he says. “You have to know your audience and whom you’re [writing] to.”

Sorg feels the most effective, strategic writing is “contextualized and focused on the audience.” This helps lay the groundwork for another element of web writing: responses.

4. Response

The goal of website writing differs depending on your message, channel, and intended audience. However, you generally want site visitors to take a specific action, from reading your next blog post to making a purchase. This is often accomplished using a call to action, or CTA.

According to Sorg, you’ll need to understand how the audience received your writing. “You have to ask your consumers, ‘What are your thoughts on this? Did you get [the] message?’”

Sorg also notes that building a lasting relationship with audiences through consistent online writing can have broader benefits. “That [might] increase your market share [and] help you find a more committed consumer,” he says.

The Value of Web Content Writing

Website writing is a valuable asset for businesses. Digital marketing platform Semrush highlights some ways to measure web content success. They include:

• Organic search traffic: How many readers found your site through unpaid search engine results
• Page views: How many times a page was viewed in a specific time period
• Keyword rankings: Where your page is ranked on a search engine results page (SERP)
• Backlinks: The number of times other websites have used links to your site in their own content
• Average engagement time: The average time a user spends on your page
• Click-through rate: How many of your total visitors clicked a specific link in your content

These are considered quantitative metrics, according to Semrush. They explain the numbers behind how people interact with your content and the resulting actions.

A professional content writer or marketer may track multiple metrics over time to get a broad view of their work. The Content Marketing Institute says this can involve a three-step content measurement process. It includes choosing the most relevant metrics, gathering data, and extracting insights.

However, Sorg points out you can also measure how well your audience understands your product and services. “If you fail to do that, eventually you will fail to increase your sales,” he says. Readability is a pivotal qualitative metric to consider when evaluating online writing. It’s a subjective assessment of quality, tone, and structure that make the content easy to understand and respond to. In a world of endless distractions, clear language and sentence structure can focus a reader’s attention.

Examples of Website Writing

A web content writer generally works on projects with their own goals, focus, and considerations.

Examples include:

Blog Posts

A blog post is a regularly published or updated piece of content on a website. It can encompass articles, news, think pieces, or guides that are usually found in a website’s blog section. Blogs may also include hyperlinks and other types of media. They can be personal, educational, professional, or promotional in nature, and they generally range from 600 to 2,000+ words.

Landing Pages

A landing page is a website page with a specific purpose. Its goal is to get readers to take one action, such as purchasing products or signing up for a newsletter.

Whitepapers and E-books

Whitepapers and e-books are typically in-depth and more technical than other types of web content. They may focus on proprietary research or statistics, and typically the content is "gated." The goal is to entice the reader to provide some information (e.g., email, place of employment, role within a company, etc.) in exchange for accessing the content.

Social Media Posts

Social media posts may include everything from single-sentence image captions to bulleted summaries of original reports. Features like hashtags, mentions, and emojis on social media can boost a post’s visibility and reach, categorize content, express emotions, engage target audiences, and more.

Specialized Copy

Some website writing is short but important for search engine optimization (SEO). Examples include:

• Title tag: Title tags are the text search engines use when displaying your page on the SERP.
• Meta description: Meta descriptions are short summaries of a page’s content.
• Alt text: Alt text describes what’s shown in an image.

Tips for Connecting With Online Readers

Variables such as message, channel, audience, and response can make website writing seem complex. Sorg recommends focusing on a few areas to improve your writing skills and potentially connect better with online readers. His recommendations include:

Goal-Oriented Messaging

Sorg says you should consider your goals in any piece of website writing: “Do you want [readers] to become more aware of your product? Increase sales? Create trust and rapport?” He adds that you must “know what you want to get out of that messaging before you go into it.”

SEO

“Optimizing your search engine keywords is a whole science,” says Sorg. While he notes that this involves algorithms, he points out that it’s also related to your language choices and expert knowledge.

“How can you ensure your page is searched more than someone else’s? That goes back to knowing the audience searching for your product,” he explains.

Uniqueness

According to Sorg, “Standing out in your own unique, personal, creative way is also a big factor in ensuring your audience wants to read your content.”

Sorg says this is also related to SEO because many competing websites try to rank for the same keywords. "If we’re all doing the same thing, nobody’s standing out.” He adds that being an “expressive, unique writer” helps you avoid “the same cookie-cutter style we see a thousand times a day.”

Correctness and Credibility

Sorg says that “to communicate effectively, you must write correctly.” He believes good grammar and punctuation skills are a big part of this. “If you’re using incorrect forms of words or your punctuation is off, that isn’t a good writer to me.”

“Credibility in a writer is a must,” Sorg says. He uses typos as an example: “[If] you want to preach about your product, but you fail to double-check your writing, [...] you’ve already lost me. If you can’t take the time to proofread your work, how can I trust you?”

Time Awareness

As Sorg explains, another crucial consideration is time. “People are flooded with 100 different messages in a matter of seconds. How much time do you have to get someone’s attention?” He points out that this is another reason to focus on creating “a message specific to the channel and context.”

Becoming an Online Content Writer

There are many ways to enter the world of professional content creation. However, according to Sorg, a solid foundation is a good start.

“Have a strong base of writing first,” Sorg recommends. He uses sentence structure, punctuation, and spelling as examples. “Strong grammar skills stand out. It’s a lost art."

Sorg says the next step should be to “make it more contextualized to the online sector.” He notes you should “learn the rules for blogs, emails, and other digital communication platforms.”

His final piece of advice is to work on your education. This can start with an online bachelor’s degree in communication. “You get to take classes on the skills necessary to be effective in web writing,” he says.

Master Writing Skills at Purdue Global

At Purdue Global, you’ll learn communication fundamentals that help build the skills needed for professional online writing.

Request information today to learn more about our communication degree program.

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