Why we need to invest in good web-copywriting

Summary

I have less than 15 seconds before I lose your attention. So, here it goes: Most people learn about our organisation through our website. We wouldn’t dream of coding the website ourselves; we would hire specialists. So why do we not apply the same logic to writing for our website?

I want to convince you that we need experts to write web-copy. Web-copy are words that guide our web visitors by matching their searches, and prompt action. To quote Paul Boag, a user experience expert: “Writing for the web has many unique challenges. Just because you can write well, does not mean you can write good web copy”.

Investing in web-copywriting will benefit our audience and organisation. Attention is the most valuable currency online. Information overload and distractions conflict with people’s focus and availability. Online, complexity creates distrust.

Also, screens challenge people physically and psychologically. We should accept that “people don’t read online”. Web-copy needs to be different from print. People construct their own online experience. They scan for keywords. They piece together content from many sources in ruthless search to complete their task.

So, web-copy must get to the point. It needs to be optimised for search and readability. Copy ensures that everybody finds, understands and remembers more of what we have written. This increases our impact. The result: a happier audience and organisation. If we don’t invest in web-copywriters, we will lose our audience’s attention. They will go elsewhere and never return.

Full article

Why we need to invest in good web-copywriting

I have less than 15 seconds before I lose your attention. So, here it goes: Most people learn about our organisation through our website. We wouldn’t dream of coding the website ourselves; we would hire specialists. So why do we not apply the same logic to writing for our website?

I want to convince you that we need experts to write web-copy. Web-copy are words that guide our web visitors by matching their searches, and prompt action. To quote Paul Boag, a user experience expert: “Writing for the web has many unique challenges. Just because you can write well, does not mean you can write good web copy”.

Investing in web-copywriting will benefit our audience and organisation. Attention is the most valuable currency online. Information overload and distractions conflict with people’s focus and availability. Online, complexity creates distrust.

Also, screens challenge people physically and psychologically. We should accept that “people don’t read online”. Web-copy needs to be different from print. People construct their own online experience. They scan for keywords. They piece together content from many sources in ruthless search to complete their task.

Hence, web-copy must get to the point. It needs to be optimised for search and readability. Copy ensures that everybody finds, understands and remembers more of what we have written. This increases our impact. The result: a happier audience and organisation. If we don’t invest in web-copywriters, we will lose our audience’s attention. They will go elsewhere and never return.

What actually is web-copywriting?

To be fair, the definition is open to some interpretation. Web-copywriting is to design words to guide web visitors. Those words need to match their searches. And they need to prompt action (Jacob McMillen). “The aim of the copy is to persuade the viewer, listener or reader to act, i.e., to buy a product or adopt a different viewpoint” (writersbureau.com).

Information and distraction are everywhere

We are competing for the time and attention of our website visitors. Our website is one among over 1.5 billion. Millions of new pieces of content are published online every day. They call for attention on our phones and computers. Working online, people switch activities every 3 to 10 minutes (Singer & Alexander).

Think about Google and Amazon. There, people expect things to be fast and easy. Check your own browsing: you visit fifteen different websites in seconds. Don’t see what you need? You’ll move to another search result.

Google is the most popular website in 2022 with over 3.5 billion searches daily. It holds 83 to 92 percent of the global search engine market. It’s therefore highly likely that our website visitors come through Google.

Google rewards websites that give high-quality information to their visitors. Two principles are important for online content: readability, and optimisation for search engines.

People with tasks have no time to spare

Over 80% of people visit our website for work. They are not browsing; they want to complete a task. They don’t have time; they have deadlines.

Research shows that website visitors often skim webpages and leave in 10–20 seconds (Nielsen Norman Group). Our own web analytics support this; 72-82 percent of visitors come to our website and go without any action.

So, unless we immediately get our visitors’ attention they will see and use little of what we write on our website. This makes it critical to offer extraordinarily clear, concise and consistent web-copy. Well-structured and formatted, such copy helps visitors to fulfil their task fast. 

Complexity creates distrust

With Google and Amazon people expect things to be fast and easy. Just because we understand our website doesn’t mean our audience does. Quoting Gerry McGovern, a digital experience expert, “In a fast-changing, complex world, meeting complexity with complexity undermines public trust and confidence”.

Complex text and jargon, constant problem solving (where to click next?), time pressure, and distractions lead to “cognitive overload”. The result? People can no longer process information.

And with increasing cognitive load comes decreasing trust. In other words, people stop trusting your site when your content makes them think too hard (Paul Boag).

Screens hurt our brains and eyes

Screens present psychological and physical challenges. They hurt our brains. When studying reading comprehension, researchers found “that frequent scrolling increases the cognitive demands on readers and, thus, may negatively affect recall” (Singer & Alexander).

Cognitive overload causes people to lose the ability to think and reason. “Try reading a book while doing a crossword puzzle; that’s the intellectual environment of the Internet”, writes Nicholas Carr in 'The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brain’.

Screens also hurt our eyes. The LED screens’ constant flickering glow creates more work for our eyes. They cause visual and mental fatigue.

In general, people process text on screens 25% slower.

People search but don’t read online

PARC, a research company, found that 96% of people go online to complete a task. People search. They follow the first link that promises a result. Only 25% scroll beyond the second screen. They cherry-pick information and concentrate narrowly on what they want.

This focus on search combined with time pressure and cognitive load means people rarely read an entire webpage. People pay little attention, read less and remember less unless the content is clear, the words and sentences are simple, and the information is easy to understand.

People scan web pages using patterns

People use scanning patterns on webpages. Common is the “F-shape” pattern where visitors start by scanning the first sentences of the first paragraph. Then they switch to only scanning the first words of following lines. The F-pattern is usually not very effective to extract information.

Guided by descriptive headings, people can use a more effective pattern called “layer-cake”. Once people identify a section of interest, they pay more attention.

So, well-structured copy with descriptive headings helps web visitors’ to quickly identify the content most relevant to their task.

Web-copywriting vs print - nonlinear vs linear

Important distinctions exist between web-copywriting and print. Print is linear, author-driven. In linear media, people are willing to follow the author's lead. The web is nonlinear, driven by web visitors. Online, people want to construct their own experience. They piece together content from many sources. They make quick decisions. People arrive at a website in ruthless pursuit of their own interest and actionable content. They reject whatever the website is trying to push.

Print is easier to comprehend than digital text. Scientists found scanning headings for main ideas is possible. Longer, complex texts are best read in print, especially to remember details (Kerry Benson). This means you need to write in a completely different style for the web.

Content that is easy to read and understand benefits everyone.

Everyone benefits from good web-copy, written by specialists - our audience and our organisation. It ranks better in Google (and other search engines). It helps people to understand and remember more of what we have written. The result? Our web visitors can find our content, take action and solve their problem. This makes people happier, and brings greater impact. And in turn, this makes a happier organisation. 

We need professional web-copywriters. Without them, people will leave our web pages in less than 15 seconds, find their information elsewhere, and never return.

Disclaimer

This piece was written for and submitted to The Economist (Economist Education) online course "Professional Communication: Business Writing and Storytelling". It was then in an adapted form used on an intranet.

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