#BGB Tutorial- 14 Tips for Effective Website Content Writing

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This is a guest post courtesy of Ken with some very good tips for writing effective web content. 

Please make him feel welcome by offering some of your own tips in the comments below. 

The content of your website is more than sharing information with your visitors. The structure could impact how search engines react to the site and also affect your page ranking.

However, there are many ways you to improve the content of your website and meet the needs of your visitors and search engines alike.

Keep reading for 14 of my own top tips.

Avoid Keyword Stuffing

There are a lot of SEO professionals who make their living by stuffing keywords into content pages for search engines. Creating content where every 20 words is a specific keyword reads horribly to visitors.

Besides, stuffing keywords is becoming irrelevant to popular search engines as they gear the algorithms for relevant content.

Keyword Relevance

Adding keywords to the content is still a primary goal. However, the flow should feel natural for the content.

Some of the best results have been developed by a one to three percent ratio. Anything more than that and the quality will begin to fade.

When describing an item, using its name other than “it” in places could increase the keyword count without degrading the readability. (Just don’t go overboard here either.)

Proofreading

Always proofread your content. Sometimes, there are grammatical errors that can slip past your eyes. Nobody’s perfect, but there’s no harm in aspiring to it anyway.

Knowledge

The best blog and article content come from those who know the subject matter. If you are learning a new subject, research the facts of the matter. Not only will it make you look more professional, but your website will begin earning a good reputation.

Brush Up

It doesn’t hurt to freshen your memory on sentence structure and writing styles. While some mistakes can go unnoticed by the average reader, errors can be nit-picked by avid ones. This could cause the reader to question your knowledge of the subject matter, even if what you write is factual.

Originality

Always write unique content for your blogs and/or article sites. While the facts of the subject matter may have no other way to write them, sentence structure of the content will differentiate it. Never copy and paste someone’s content from another website – it looks tacky and moreover it is plagarism.

Less is More

When writing content for the average reader, you want to keep the sentence structure simple and to the point. Unless your goal is to create college level essays to show off your extensive vocabulary, your readers will move on.

Use “You”

Blogs are meant to be written in first person. They can be effective otherwise, but the purpose surrounding a blog is to feel like a journal of sorts. Depending on the purpose of the content, “You” is one of the most powerful words you can use throughout your blog, for it empowers the reader.

Short Paragraphs

Most visitors to a website are looking for specifics. They like to skim the content and find the most pertinent information they need. Short three to five sentence paragraphs are easier to skim for relevant content.

Avoid Lengthiness

Unless you are writing a review, an in-depth article on a multifaceted subject, or a story, try to stay away from writing more than 1200 words per page.

Skimmers will feel over-whelmed and could move on to a competitor’s website for information. Breaking up content into several pages reduces the feeling of dread to a skimmer.

If your website features a search function, then it doesn’t matter what page the information is on, it’s easily found.

Fluffy Content

Again, readers like to get to the point as soon as possible. Adding too much fluff could frustrate the visitor causing them to move on. Sometimes, adding fluff is unavoidable, especially if the subject matter is a bit weak. Just don’t overdo it.

PG Rated

You don’t want to alienate your readers by straying too far from a PG rating. Vulgarities are a sign of weakness to many readers and could damage the point of your content.

You’ll attract far more readers by keeping the content family-friendly. If your goal is to provide content with the spice of the vulgar or obscene, then that is your prerogative, just know that you could alienate a large portion of your visitors.

Audience

Know your target audience by researching content types. This greatly depends on the blog or website’s niche. While second or third person writing is ideal for product descriptions, instructional content is best written in first person.

Rest

A lack of sleep can have detrimental effects on many aspects of your life including focus, creativity, and your thought processes when writing. Getting a good night’s sleep can be greatly beneficial to your mental and physical health.

Final Thoughts

Writing content for blogs and/or websites can be an enjoyable process.

For those who love creating content for others to read, it can be therapeutic and relaxing.

Don’t try to stuff contextual keywords into your articles and posts to try and score better in the search engines.

And try to keep to the point to avoid losing your reader’s attention.

Ultimately though, just be sensible when writing your content and the visitors will come.

Over to You

OK BGB’ers… got your own tips on writing great website content? Please share them in the comments below and share this post if you found it useful. Gracias!

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Tagged as: audience, content, effective website copy, keywords, originality, readers, writing