If I was on a rooftop, or like a mountain somewhere and I could yell some friendly advice to every small business owner out there, this is what it'd be:
You probably have too many words on your website.
If you've DIYed your website copy (and there's no shame in that), I'm sorry to say, there might be too much of it.
Even experienced content writers are guilty of this:
- Using 5 sentences, when it could be said in 3
- Repeating themselves paragraph after paragraph, but just in a slightly different way
- Overloading website visitors with all the information they don't really need
If there is one thing I've learnt as a content writer that became a website designer, it's that less is more.
When SEO first became a thing we were told that long blogs were where it's at. The longer the better, because this is what tells Google that you're an authority on a subject.
Blog post only 300 words long? Absolutely not my friend; go repeat yourself 3 and a half more times until it's got at least another 1000 words on that bad boy.
And at some point, that kinda spilled over into 1000 word home pages and university level essays for About Me pages.
It doesn't work. People don't read it. People get overwhelmed, and they leave.
My advice? Every paragraph you write for a static page, remove one sentence from it. Hell, do it for blog posts too.
I used to be a waffler. Some may say I still am. Learning to say what I needed to say in as few words as possible, was biiiiig for me. I like words. I like big words. I like words that are uncommon and some might need a dictionary for. In another life, I probably should have become a linguist.
But I can't do that here (the internet).
People on the internet have an extremely short attention span and you can't afford to lose their attention by giving them too much to look at. Give them the information they need in short, simple paragraphs that get right to the point. Lean heavily on dot points if you need to!
Tell it to 'em straight!
Until next time, be kind to yourself!
Laura x
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