How to Write Content for a Website: 9 Essential Rules

Creating an online presence is a process. It's not as simple as throwing up a website and listing your products and services. You must use your website to create an image for your company, build credibility, and establish a respectable SEO ranking.

All this comes down to one thing - content. Content is all encapsulating. It could refer to articles, emails, images, videos, and more.

In this article, we are going to focus on written content. More specifically, we're going to focus on how to write content for a website to put your business on the map and boost your visibility.

How to Write Content for a Website

The content you post on your website says a lot about you as a company.

What message are you sending to the people visiting your site? What reason are you giving them to come back? What reason have you given them to come to your site in the first place?

To maximize your online potential and appeal to your target audience, check out these nine essential rules for website content.

1. Find a Niche

First and foremost, you need to identify your target audience. Who can benefit from your business and how can you appeal to them? What niche can you command in your industry?

Finding a niche is important for several reasons:

It separates you from others in your industry
It gives you a specific audience to direct your marketing efforts
It helps you provide needed products or services that may not be prevalent in the market

2. The Content Must Be Engaging

Learning how to write content for a website means learning how to write engaging material. Engaging can mean very different things, depending on the reader (your audience).

Ask yourself the following questions to help determine what "engaging" means for your readers:

Why are they coming to your website?
Do they seek entertainment?
Are they looking for information?
Are they looking for inspiring ideas?
Are they looking for tutorials?
What are your readers passionate about?

3. The Content Must Be Valuable

Next, you need to figure out how to offer your readers value. As suggested above, this could be information or tutorials based on your niche. For example, if you sell homespun yarn, you could include DIY tutorials on how to perform intricate stitching patterns, make unique articles of clothing, etc.

If you are a contractor looking to gain more clients, you can post helpful information about quality materials and the merits of avoiding certain DIY projects.

The bottom line is that you need to be a problem solver for your readers. As a company or blogger, people don't care about you. What they care about, what will keep them coming back, is what you can do for them.

4. The Content Must Be Easy to Read

We all pride ourselves on being intelligent creatures. However, when it comes to finding information and advice, we want things easy. Your content needs to be easy to scan, read, and understand.

To accomplish this, adhere to the following guidelines:

Use headers throughout the article to highlight the important points
Write in short sentences
Limit paragraphs to three sentences each
Don't use big or overly technical terms or verbiage

5. The Content Must Contain Mulitple Forms of Media

To keep your audience intrigued, learning how to write content for a website also means learning how to break it up with images, videos, photos, infographics, and more. Diversifying your website with multiple forms of media can benefit you in several ways:

Studies show that people process visual information 60,000 times faster
Graphs, charts, and infographics can be easier to understand
Multiple forms of media can be embedded with SEO content.

6. The Content Must Be Grammatically Correct

Establishing yourself as an authority in your field is one of the primary purposes of posting website content. The articles, videos, emails, and tutorials you post are designed bo help you build credibility.

If your written content is riddled with spelling errors and grammatically incorrect sentences, your readers may question your competence. Grammar may have nothing to do with your industry, your expertise, or your abilities, but your website visitors will judge you on it nonetheless.

7. The Content Must Contain SEO Keywords

Learning how to write content for a website also means learning your way around SEO. Search engine optimization is the algorithm used by search engines like Google to find relevant information based on keyword searches. When a consumer types in "best Mexican restaurants near me," SEO is what determines what websites come up, which dramatically influences the consumer's choice.

Think about your niche and readers to determine which keywords will likely lead them to your website. Make sure you think in terms of how a search engine would be used. This includes accounting for the rise of voice-activated technology, such as Alexa and Siri.

8. The Content Must Have Internal and External Links

SEO credibility can also be boosted by adding internal and external links to your articles. Internal links are links to other pages on your website. This could be to other blog articles, your contact page, your products and services page, etc.

External links to other credible websites (ideally non-competing websites) add a level of credibility to SEO algorithms. You can boost your SEO ranking even more if you can get other websites to link to you in return.

9. The Content Must Contain a Call to Action

Finally, learning how to write content for a website means learning how to inspire a reader to take action. This "call to action" can be anything from subscribing to an email, sharing a post, or converting to a paying customer.

Your content should serve to push them in a certain direction. The goal is not to manipulate them, but to educate them about your products and service. You should work to instill a sense of value in your company that could improve their lives.

Looking for More Help With Your Website?

We get it. Writing doesn't come easy to most people. If you find yourself reading this article and still doubting your ability to turn out high-quality content for your website, it's okay.

That's exactly why companies like us exist - to help people like you build a strong online presence, regardless of your digital skills and abilities. Schedule a free consultation today to see how we can help. Or feel free to contact us with any questions about how to write content for a website.

We look forward to hearing from you.

About the Author

Bill J

Bill completed his Bachelors in Engineering and Information Technology in 2008 and since then has been involved in designing and developing a variety of websites and applications. He considers himself a full-stack designer with extensive experience, ranging from creating mock-ups, to design, development and deployment. He has worked with a number of web design companies throughout his career and catered to thousands of clients across the globe. Since 2017, he has been working as a Project Manager here at Optuno, and occasionally churns out a blog post or two to help spread useful information to our valued customers. When he is not busy tinkering with CSS and attending to clients, he is either cooking, on a road trip, or indulging in movies!