Imagine that you spent thousands of dollars to design a website. Thousands more to develop it. And still thousands more to promote it. Then imagine that when people visited, one-third left because the writing was so bad.
Most web writing fails
That’s the effect most web writing has on visitors. Studies show, for example, that 29% of people abandon online transactions because of “insufficient, incorrect, or confusing information” (Harris Interactive, 2007). That’s the equivalent of one in every three people abandoning their purchase at the checkout counter because of an incoherent clerk. No store manager would stand for that. Yet many webmasters do.
You can learn to create better online copy
It doesn’t have to be this way. On this website, you will learn how to write for websites, and discover proven elements of effective online writing backed by more than 10 years of research and experience. No matter why you need better writing—be it to educate, entertain or sell—simply applying these elements will dramatically improve your online communication. In some cases, applying a single element can increase your writing’s impact by up to 60%. Spend some time here and learn to:
- Write concise for web readers with a short attention span
- Write to scan so web readers can pick out information they’re after
- Write objectively to avoid having people see your site as spam
- Write with personality in a way that engages readers and builds a relationship
- Write persuasively to drive readers to take the action you want
- Search optimize to raise your search rank (without annoying your readers)
- Update content so people don’t think you’ve gone out of business
- Organize content in a logical, usable way that enhances usability
- Link content to make it more interactive (and further improve SEO)
Gain from over a decade’s research and experience
My name is Simon Smith. Since the late 1990s, I’ve struggled to find the secrets of effective online content. After graduating from journalism school, I could write well enough. But what I learned applied to magazines, not websites.
When I moved into online editorial and, eventually, interactive marketing, people would read a few sentences of my long prose online, then click away. I just couldn’t hold their attention—or get them to take action.
You can probably imagine how, as a writer, I found that depressing. And how, as a marketer, I found it financially devastating. So I dedicated myself to figuring it all out, studying and applying research in such areas as usability, linguistics, social psychology, copywriting, journalism, direct response advertising and internet marketing. Along the way, I created online content for a wide range of companies, including many Fortune 500 leaders—and finally started to see results.
Now, almost a decade later, I deliver those results through my company, Commune Media—where we create content that’s optimized for search engines, readability and persuasion. This website consolidates our knowledge and experience of web writing. We use it to train new hires. You can use it to immediately boost the performance of your online copy.
So, ready to get started?
Looking forward to your results,
Simon Smith
Chief Strategist, Commune Media
Editor, Write for Websites