Four Tips for Writing Persuasive Content

Crafting good content for websites can take a lot of practice. Follow these four tips to improve your content quickly. Doing so could help improve your website’s popularity and authority.

1. Find a Creative Concept

Creativity should play a role in every piece of content. Even posts about technical subjects should include some level of creativity, whether that means finding a way to re-conceptualize common points or slipping in a few jokes. No one wants to read boring content, so do anything you can to keep readers interested.

2. Check Your Facts

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Image via Flickr by paurian

Even one inaccurate fact could make your website look untrustworthy, so double-check every sentence to make sure your content makes you look like an authority. This can get difficult when you need to write posts about subjects you don’t know much about. That difficulty makes it even more important for you to check everything.

If you know an expert, have him or her read your content to find common mistakes. You may also want to compare your writing to the information on sites like:

  • Wikipedia
  • WhoWhatWhen
  • Snopes

When in doubt, use Google to find similar content on trustworthy sites.

3. Avoid Logical Fallacies

People often use logical fallacies without realizing their mistakes. Many people will not notice. They may even agree with your content despite its flaws. Discerning readers, however, will find these fallacies troubling enough that they never return to your site. Some of the most common fallacies include:

  • Straw Man—Attacking a seemingly related argument instead of the statement at hand (example: Mr. Smith says that global warming is real, but he doesn’t have an explanation for why we got so much snow last winter.)
  • Appeal to Authority—Relying on a person’s authority to make statements seem true regardless of their merits (example: Sarah says to eat 15 tacos a day. She’s a popular fitness trainer, so she must be right.)
  • Bandwagon—Saying something is true just because a lot of people believe it (example: Nine out of 10 people believe George Washington had wooden teeth, so it must be true.)

It’s important to learn more about fallacies, so you can avoid statements that weaken your content.

4. Get Help When Proofreading

Typos, misspellings, and convoluted sentence structures can make your writing look amateurish. When careful readers see numerous mistakes, they may wonder why they should take your writing seriously. This makes proofreading an important part of content creation. Always proofread your writing at least twice. Reading it out loud will help you find confusing sentences and improve flow.

Don’t rely on your word processing software to find all of your mistakes. If possible, have another person read your content before you publish. If you don’t have someone to read your content, consider using an online service like Grammarly.

What common mistakes do you find while browsing web pages? Do these mistakes make sites seem unreliable to you? Follow the four tips mentioned above so your site doesn’t push away potential readers and customers.

Web Design, SEO and Copywriting: The Complete Package

You may have just been presented with a stunning, well-branded new website from your web designer, but is this enough to bring you online success. There are numerous important factors which have implications on the performance of your website, and we will outline the three core areas in this article.

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Web Design

The expected standards for web design have risen substantially in recent years. No longer is it acceptable to simply churn out a mediocre (and forgettable) website. The only impact this will have is leaving a sour taste in the mouths of your visitors, who will certainly not be coming back for more. When getting your website designed, make sure that it follows modern web design principles, including the provision of clear concise information and increasingly minimalist layout styles.

Search Engine Optimisation

Once you have a beautiful new website which perfectly represents your brand, the next step is to drive some traffic to it. Time permitting, many SMEs opt to perform these tasks themselves. However, given that there is an ocean of ever-evolving knowledge in the SEO field, many opt to employ SEO consultants instead. The time spent researching and improving your website in line with the latest optimal SEO principles can easy be avoided by consulting an expert within the field.

If you decide that you are going to make the investment of hiring SEO professionals, it is essential that you vet each and every one accordingly. You will no doubt have heard of the terms ‘white hat’ and ‘black hat’ SEO. Many SEO ‘experts’ will claim to be able to guarantee that you will reach the number one spot in Google, even though it is impossible to do ethically in today’s world. Make sure you select an SEO consultant who will provide you with ethical and lasting results, and you can be assured your site will maintain its high rank for the duration.

Copywriting

The written content on your homepage and throughout the rest of your site is one of the most influential factors on how a potential customer perceives your brand. A lot of the time, your website visitors will make their mind up within seconds of landing on your site about whether they are interested or not. Ensure that the copy introducing your site is concise, thought-provoking and compelling. Use this opportunity to portray your brand characteristics, helping you to resonate with like-minded consumers.

Writing impressive copy does not stop at the homepage. The content throughout your site is a constant representation of your site. There is absolutely no excuse for spelling mistakes or incorrect use of grammar and you must focus on making your content as digestible as possible. Without this crucial element, visitors will quickly turn off, click the back button and you can wave goodbye to the chance of getting any new business from them.

Other Factors

There are obviously numerous other factors which play a part in ensuring the success of your website. However, these three are the most influential of the bunch, and must be taken seriously from the outset.

Essential Ingredients of SEO

The world of SEO is ever changing and it becomes increasingly complex every day. As Google continues to update their search algorithm, SEOs and webmasters around the world are trying to figuring out the next best way to build and maintain rank. There is a plethora of information available on this topic, so much that it can be difficult to assess what to really believe. Here are a few recommendation of what we think you need to consider when optimising your site. There are some basics, as well as some more out of the box ideas.

On-Site Optimisation

You’ll most likely already be aware of what this entails. Make sure that the design of your site is conducive to high search engine rankings. This is quite a broad category and includesthings such as meta information, keyword use, site load time and site structure.

SEO-Optimised Copywriting

Getting your website designed is one thing, but it is never really complete until you have populated it with impressive, optimised content. Taking all of the relevant keywords and seamlessly integrating it into your content to create an amazingly compelling page takes a level of skill, and if you are unable to do it yourself, we recommend that you seek the help of professional copywriting services.

Copywriting

Strong Backlink Profile

One of the most heavily weighted factors that Google uses to gauge the importance of a site is its backlink profile. ‘Backlink profile’ refers to the information about the sites which link to a domain. Building high rank backlinks on relevant sites will significantly help you move up the rankings. However, backlinks on unrelated blogs have a much lower backlink value. The best way to achieve a strong backlink profile is to provide useful content which other sites will want to share. You can do this by writing articles or posting images or infographics. If what you are providing is valuable enough, sites will simply want to link to it.

In-Depth Articles

One of the more recent additions to Google was the addition of the ‘In-Depth’ articles section. Google values articles which are longer and provide more in-depth information, so has added this feature to give these longer articles more exposure. The internet is absolutely filled with short. 300-word articles and the reason for this is that it is much simpler to write a short article.

Rich Snippets

You will no doubt already have noticed all of the extra information which gets presented alongside search results in Google. Sometimes these rich snippets will provide you with information about ratings, addresses, opening hours, Google+ pages and more. By linking your site with your social accounts such as Google+, you can give searchers the chance to quickly connect to your page. As well as this, you can set up an author account for your website, which will display an image of the author next to the search result. Whatever extra information is on offer, it is likely to improve your chance of grabbing the attention of searchers.

Take all of these factors into account when formulating an SEO strategy and you’ll set a good foundation for your business.