If you have a nagging feeling your website needs rewriting, then the chances are it probably does. Whatever the reason for the rewrite, you should know that it’s incredibly beneficial to rewrite your website content.
So even if it seems like a lot of effort – it’s worth it.
Look at a rewrite as an opportunity
Switched on businesses will proactively identify the business and service changes that justify updating their content because they know fresh, relevant website content is not only good for SEO, but informs their customers and audience.
Relevant content can improve metrics like the time a browser spends on a page and the click-through-rate (CTR). Plus, the perception that regular site visitors will have of you stays positive as you are taking the care and time to keep them informed, or help and assist them.
Reasons you might need to rewrite your website
- To refresh old, out-of-date content that doesn’t represent your current offer
- Changes to the business that might be of interest to your audience and customers
- Changes to your products and services, perhaps your range has extended, or you’ve moved into a new product/service area
- You’re having a visual rebrand and need new content to support the new look and feel
- You ‘made do’ with content that wasn’t professionally written, and now want to invest in professional words
Rewriting content – what to keep in mind
Clarity over cleverness
Remember, we only skim read online content, so your words need to pack a punch quickly and tell your browsers exactly what you’re about. While creative content is all well and good, don’t overdo the creativity at the risk of not being as clear as possible.
What? When? Where? Who? Why?
Keep the five Ws in mind to focus your words and make sure they’re relevant to your browsers by answering the ‘W’ questions clearly.
Be consistent
If you have a style, or ‘tone of voice’ for your content, keep it consistent across all your pages and sections. Consistency should apply to your formatting too. If you’re using bullets, don’t have some of them ending with a full stop and some not. And don’t use a mix of US and UK spelling – choose one or the other.
Talk about your audience, not you
Talk to your customers’ issues, problems, concerns and desires, rather than stating a lot of facts about you. Remember, browsers are reading your content because they want to fix something, or buy something to make their lives better – let them know they’re in the right place, rather than just stating what a great business you are.
Mistake-free and professional
There’s no excuse for spelling and grammar mistakes. If you’ve used a professional content writer, you should be able to expect mistake-free content, but if you haven’t you should get your words proofread. While spelling and grammar isn’t everything, if your words are littered with mistakes, you undermine your professional image, and to an extent, the trust a prospective customer has in you to do a good job.
Short and sweet
No life stories and no oversharing. Use your blogs for the comments you want to make on the industry and thoughts on relevant topics. But keep the information pages of your website to the point, engaging and enticing.
Change the meta
If you’re rewriting, then make sure you change the meta-descriptions for your website pages too. SEO is important to your success and the meta data allows the search engines to index your content and return you in the correct searches.
< Read more articles on our Web Academy
The changing role of social media in marketing
Social media isn’t what it used to be. User-behaviour has evolved, and businesses are under increasing pressure to adopt different posting habits to make it worth their while.
Providing digital help and support – what to consider
Do you want to offer your customers digital help and support they can access online? It’s not as simple as just removing the phoneline. Here’s what to consider.