When you look at your website, do you love love love how it looks?
That’s awesome. Having an attractive website matters.
But it’s got a job to do, you’ve paid money for it to do those jobs, and looking good is only part of it.
- The job of your website is to tell people how you can help them in a simple, clear way and give them a sense of who you are (your brand flavor).
- Its job is to make it easy for them to know what you offer (in clear, simple words) and do something (the call to action), or to buy something (the e-commerce part).
- Its job is to communicate about your brand in a way that’s easy to read and understand.
YOUR job is to organize the content (including the images, menus and navigation) in a way that makes it easy for people to find what they’re looking for so it’s easy to contact and hire you.
Is your core message clear?
I’ll just say it: I’m a web editorial expert (the words) and tech nerd (the machinery) with a lot of real-world experience at big websites including NPR, the Campaign for Tobacco-free Kids, and Radio Free Asia.
I can look at your website and know exactly where the landmines are buried for the people who visit it and why you thought it was a good idea to bury them (it wasn’t).
Before you put lipstick and high heels on your website (colors! pictures! animations!) do these things first:
1. Choose your audience
Who’s your reader? Who are you speaking to? If you don’t know that, you’re just tossing out words and hoping they’ll stick like spaghetti to the wall.
2. Define your niche
Your niche is the specific problem you solve for a specific target audience. Specificity rules. When you know the problem you solve for the people you want to serve,
3. Use clear words
When you know who you’re speaking to and how you help those people, creating website content becomes fun. Yes, fun.
All your marketing content will be more effective when you use words that have meaning for the people reading them.
Need help with your message?
Want to be sure your website communicates your core message? Let’s talk.
