Tag Archives: web content

Your Website Content Should Help Its Audiences

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audience

Are you writing for your audience? Image credit: Pexels

You are probably thinking that title is so obvious. “Of course, our content should help our readers.” Yes, but does it? Are you writing what your organization wants your audiences to know or what your audiences want to know? Do you know the difference?

Those can be tricky questions and vital to ask if you want your website to meet the goals you have set for it. When developing website content for your organization or company, your goal is not to describe your organization’s accomplishments. Your goal is to tell your audiences what your organization can do for them and how it does that.

Beginning the Content Development Process

Start by getting to know your audiences. If you don’t already know the categories of people who come to your website, make a list. A nonprofit, for example, might include donors, clients, and volunteers. For a business, the intended audiences are likely to be customers and potential customers. A healthcare organization is likely to target patients, their families, researchers, and healthcare professionals.

Next, find out what their needs are using these steps:

  • Ask when you talk to them face to face, on the phone, or in meetings.
  • Depending on the size of your organization, ask your staff to talk to their contacts. Media department staff can talk to the press about what they would like to see and use on the site. Salespeople can reach out to their best customers.
  • Ask a group of people to take a look at your site to see if they can find what they would want/need from you. What’s there? How does what is there work for them? What is missing?
  • Use focus groups.
  • Survey your audiences.

Then, create personas for the people who come to your website. Include their relationship to your organization/company, why they come to your website, the ways in which you can help them, what you hope they will do on your website, etc. Then write your content talking directly to those people.

Before you start writing, browse websites that you use/need. Can you find what you are looking for? Is it explained in ways that are useful for you? How is the content written? Is it written for you or does it seem to be more focused on telling you what the organization does?

When you are ready to start writing, make sure that the people doing the writing are able to write the content from the perspective of your audience. Freelance writers can be a good choice for this work because they are outsiders to your organization and specialize in writing from the audience point of view. It’s part of the job description.

Organizational Perspective Versus Audience Perspective

What This Hospital Wants Its Patients to Know

Our doctors have studied at the best medical schools and trained at the most demanding and best-ranked hospitals in the country. With years of experience in their fields, they provide exceptional health care.

Versus

What Patients Want to Know

When you come to us for care, you can count on medical experience and expertise that ensures you get the best treatment. In our cardiac care department, for example, our physicians have more than 100 years of combined experience. They consult with each other about their patients for a more comprehensive understanding of the patient’s diagnosis and treatment needs.

What This Nonprofit Wants Its Audiences to Know

Our coordinators work directly with families to find out what kind of services they need. Once they understand the family’s need, the coordinators connect them to our network for therapy and counseling services, social services, food banks, academic assistance, including school choice, and a range of additional supports.

Versus

What Its Audiences Want to Know

We empower the families we serve to find a path to independence and success through a range of services and support that enable them to strengthen their families, get immediate help like free groceries and medical care, find jobs or training, and place their children in good schools.

In fact, over the past 10 years, we have found jobs for 75 of our parents, helped 40 find training programs that will lead to good-paying jobs. We have placed 85 percent of our clients’ children in highly ranked public schools and another 5 percent in private schools.

For more information about content strategy, email Sherri Alms.

 

How to Make Your Content Captivating

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colored marble in front of clear marbles

Pixabay

One marble on the sidewalk is one you will likely notice. But if there are 10 or 20, it will be more difficult to pick out one. Fifty and none will likely stand out. Unless there is something about that marble that catches your attention. And that, folks, is what web writing is like. Content is everywhere on the web. Not that I have to tell you that. “Read this.” “You will be a better person if you read this.” “This will make you laugh.” “This will make you cry.”

If you are writing any kind of web content—a blog post or newsletter article, a website section, or almost anything else—you need to make sure your writing stands out. How do you do that?

Write for your audience. Do you know who they are and what they want? Are you engaging in conversations so you are current on what interests them and what their needs are? This is probably the single most important component of making your writing matter. Someone who needs something is going to look and find it. Make sure you are writing what your audience needs. 

Make sure your writing is the best it can be. I like the three Cs: clear, concise, and correct. Need a fourth C? Make it creative. Creative enough to attract readers and keep them. If their attention wanders before they get to the second paragraph, the writing isn’t doing its job.

Find your metaphorical panda bear. Let’s leave our metaphorical marble for a moment to consider the cute and cuddly panda bear. People love panda bears so they look at them. You need a panda bear. Or as professional writers call it: a hook to engage your audience. Is there a news angle to what you are writing about? What is your intended audience reading about? Talking about? Use that. The better you know your audience, the easier it will be to figure out how to catch their attention and focus them on your content. If you do that reliably, they will come back to you for more.

Write an inviting headline. Like the old-fashioned carnival barker, your headline should call the audience to step right up and read. To make sure they are engaged enough to continue to the content, make your headline specific, focused on audience needs, and clear about the content’s topic. Creative is great but only if the headline is also clear. Above all, you want the audience to know what the article is about and why they need to read it.

Use photos, graphics, and video that relate to your content. It’s best, if possible, to use photos and graphics that specifically relate to your organization. If not, you can find free images on websites like Pixabay and Pexels. Be careful not to simply grab any photo or graphic from the web. You must have permission to use someone else’s work, whether it’s an infographic, photo, or graphic. There are a number of websites that allow you to easily create professional graphics and use them, including infographics. Two of my favorites are Canva and Piktochart. I created this simple graphic with Canva in about five minutes:

Content writer says- What you want to say is not as important as what your audience needs to hear.1

Use social media channels to promote your writing. It is best at this point to make sure you know what social media channels your audiences use and then use those to promote your content.

Now go forth and make those marbles and panda bears proud to be yours.

Sherri Alms has been writing content designed to appeal to her clients’ audiences for more than 20 years. Email her to discuss your organization’s writing needs.