To generate leads, your visitors must become readers.

Visitors —> Readers—-> Leads —-> Customers

Website visitors skim the pages they visit. That is, they quickly run their eyes down a page looking for something that applies to what they need or want (keywords, for example). I know. I know. You put painstaking hours into each and every article and every detail deserves to be seen!

Again. People skim. The goal of your format is to create a page where your visitors will easily find the valuable information they want as their eyes pass across your beautiful page.

Effective titles and headlines are your front-line effort at persuading visitors to read your content. People tend to read differently on a screen than on printed media such as books and magazines so effective headlines are even more important online.

Now that your great title has induced your visitor to read it is important that the body of your content is tailored to online reading. Write informative and concise paragraphs. If a paragraph flows into more than one thought, you run the risk of losing your visitor’s attention. Also remember you are writing for search engines as well as for visitors and the requirements of each are very similar - visitors have short attention spans and search engines do not like fluff so be informative and concise and you should keep them both coming.

Use bold letters for the main points in your paragraphs. When your content is clearly focused on the needs of your targeted visitors, your main points will be your keywords. Bold keywords are also helpful in use on landing pages and will catch your visitors’ eyes as they skim down the pages of your site.

Use clear and direct language. Fluff and jargon are not welcomed by most visitors or search engines. Say what you mean clearly using terminology people and search engines understand. Avoid acronyms, industry jargon, and “salesy” marketing phrases. Be informative.

Be personal with your visitor. This goes against what I have written above, right? Don’t get so caught up in writing concisely that you forget you are writing to people. Let your visitors know who you are and allow them to experience the culture of your company through your copy. You have to find the balance between being concise and approachable. After all, you want your visitors to feel comfortable contacting you.

Speaking of contacting… contact me about including your article to the Lead Optimize! blog carnival or about using your site as a case study.

Finally, use bullet points for short lists or if you have a few main points to cover or reinforce. Bullets are great for summaries of what you are about to tell or what you just told. For example, here is an overview of techniques you can use on your website to keep your content format simple and user-friendly:

• Effective titles and headlines

• Informative and concise paragraphs

• Bold letter on main points and/or keywords

• Clear and direct language

• Be personal

• Bullets point

Writing content for web pages requires a different writing style than what is typically used for magazines, journals, or books - especially where paragraph length is concerned. If you are not a natural, you will improve with practice.

Edit, re-edit, cut, clip, and revise until you have content that is searchable, clear, concise, and friendly. When writing for the internet, I edit and revise every article I write with the goal of cutting 50% of the fluff or until I am left with only what is required.

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