14 Top Tips for Writing Content for a Small Business Website
Smaller businesses might have smaller marketing budgets, but that doesn’t mean they can’t compete with larger brands. In fact, a lot of small businesses succeed by focusing on what they do best. Whether your company is an independent hair salon or a local bakery, creating unique content will help you stand out from the competition.
If someone offered you a low cost (or even free) way to generate more revenue for your small business website, wouldn’t you want to know more? Can content writing do that?
It takes time and effort, but yes, that’s exactly what good content can do for your small business website.
Whether you’re just starting out with writing your content, or you’re not happy with how your current content is performing, good content is a proven and cost-effective way to increase engagement, reach, and revenue.
It really is that simple.
But, as with most things in life, simple doesn’t necessarily mean easy. Writing content for a small business website can be a challenge, especially if you want it to be compelling and professional. Do you know how to write for your audience? Do you know about keywords, or the psychology of selling?
If you want to improve your website content, we’ve got some helpful tips that can get you started, no matter what business or audience you’re writing for.
In this blog post, we’ll outline the 14 tips you’ll need to start writing content for a small business website — and how you can do it well.
1. Know your audience
The first thing you need to do is get familiar with your audience. This is an important step in the content journey, as you need to know who you’re talking to, what they want, and why.
Audiences react a lot better if they feel heard and understood. Writing as though you understand them and their pain points goes a long way towards building trust in your brand and business, which can increase conversions.
You might not know your audience demographics yet, but you can definitely work it out. If you have existing content, spend some time going through the analytics; who are the main groups of people consuming your content and purchasing your products?
Think about what your product or service does, and then create profiles of the types of customers who would need it.
2. Assess your current content
Once you know who your content needs to reach, you need to analyse what you have to see if you’re already doing it.
Does your current content add value to your intended audience? Does it answer their questions and give them the information they need?
No? Then it’s time for a refresh.
3. Optimise for SEO
SEO is an important part of content creation. Search engine optimisation primarily involves making your content more favoured by Google for certain keywords.
A lot of your website traffic will likely come from people searching for something, and being shown your website as a result. Do some keyword research to find the most effective keywords to optimise for, and remember to add them into your content as naturally as you can. Include the most important keyword within your title and within the first paragraph.
Google loves quality content, so you’ll need to write for the audience over writing for the search engine. Add value with every sentence, give accurate information, and make sure that your website reads well, with no grammar or spelling errors and no repetition. When you’re writing content for a small business website, every word matters — not just to customers, but to search engines, too.
4. Add a CTA
A call to action is vital; it doesn’t matter what you say to your audience if you don’t tell them what you want them to do.
Your content is leading up to something — an action you want the reader to take. What is that action?
Whatever it is, find a creative way to prompt them to do it, both at the end and throughout your website content.
You can have more than one CTA on each page, but make sure they’re not too close together, and that each one stands out. Buttons that link to other pages are usually the best option.
5. Proofread
Like we’ve mentioned, Google loves quality, and so do your readers. Poorly-written, error-heavy content just looks unprofessional, and it certainly won’t lead to your audience having faith in your abilities.
If you can’t even use a comma correctly or spell a word right, how can you be trusted to give them what they need?
Professional proofreading is recommended. Professional proofreaders are masters of their language and can spot mistakes a mile away.
6. Review and update
The thing about writing great content is that you never do it just once.
You need to keep a constant eye on your analytics data to make sure your content is performing as it should be. Are people staying to read the content? Are they taking the actions your CTAs are telling them to? Are they contacting you and/or making purchases?
Your content will likely need frequent updates to ensure consistent performance. This includes rewriting website content to account for Google algorithm tweaks (Panda and Penguin), creating constant new content in the form of blog posts, and tweaking existing content to improve metrics.
7. Engage your audience, tell a story
Storytelling is a commonly-used and effective form of copywriting, but it’s not quite as literal as you’d think.
Any good story has a beginning, a middle, a twist, and an end. Good copywriting follows a similar structure: an introduction, explaining the importance of something and outlining pain points, addressing those pain points with benefits, and a conclusion and call to action.
Storytelling also refers to how you relate to your audience, using everyday examples to explain benefits or pain points with mini anecdotes or simple stories.
8. Keep it simple
Simple, concise copy that gets the message across without any waffling is the most effective way to ensure good copywriting.
You need to get across the benefits of your product without shrouding them in unnecessary words or sentiments.
Hold the reader’s attention to make sure they understand your message and remain engaged until the end.
9. Speak directly to your audience
People like to feel special. They like to feel as though they are being addressed directly by a company. When writing content for a small business website, you need to think about more than just the product itself.
This includes using pronouns such as ‘you’ or ‘we’, but also involves making sure the tone and language you use are suited to your audience. You don’t want to use a stiff, professional tone with advanced vocabulary if your audience is younger, for example.
10. Ask questions
Asking questions is a great way to engage your audience — and keep them engaged. It makes them actively use their brains, rather than just passively soaking up the words.
You can ask and then answer a question to give the illusion of conversation. You ask a question, they think of the answer, and then you acknowledge that answer and use it to relate to them or lead into your message.
“Do you like coffee? Of course you do! So do we.”
“Are you interested in staying healthy? If you aren’t, then you should be, and here’s why…”
11. Stay active, not passive
Content that is written in the active voice performs better. There’s no debate or exceptions, it just does. Write in the active voice and your audience will respond.
Writing in the active voice is, thankfully, quite simple and easy.
The active voice is when the subject of a sentence does something. The passive voice is when the subject is affected by the action of the verb. A simple way to identify whether a sentence is active or passive is to look at where the ‘actor’ is in the sentence. If the thing or person performing an action comes before that action, you have an active sentence. If it comes after, it’s passive.
‘The dog chased the cat’ is active.
‘The cat was chased by the dog’ is passive.
Got it? Let’s try a more relevant example.
‘Our services add value’ is active.
‘Value is added by our services’ is passive.
12. Add value for your readers
Value is important. Every sentence of your content needs to add something, to have a purpose — your readers don’t want fluff or waffle, and they don’t want things they already know.
If you’re writing content for a small business website, then you need to pay extra attention to how your words engage, and even benefit, your readers. Give new information; explain how something helps them or how it works. Make them think, ‘oh, I didn’t know that’ or ‘oh, that’s interesting’.
13. Talk about the benefits
We can’t stress this enough: if you want your content to stand a chance, it needs to outline what the benefits of your product are, and why your reader should care about them.
‘Our revolutionary product saves you time, so you have more time for the things you love’ is a great, although admittedly unpolished, example.
Answer the questions of ‘what is the direct benefit?’ and ‘how does that benefit improve the reader’s life?’, and you’re a lot more likely to sell.
14. Writing content for a small business website: our final tip
We’re glad you could come on this journey with us and discover the best ways to ensure good content for your website. You’ve learnt the importance of discussing benefits, which voice to use, and how to identify your audience so you can relate to them. If nothing else, you now know the ins and outs of writing content for a small business website.
It’s been a blast. But there’s one final tip before we let you get back to work.
Whilst it’s possible to write your own content (especially now, thanks to our top tips), that doesn’t mean it’s the best choice. Writing good content takes a lot of time, a lot of trial and error, and a lot of effort. Some people just aren’t cut out for it — and that’s okay!
Professional copywriting is a much better choice for any business, big or small. We have a team of professional copywriters at ZippyLingo, and we can promise that they know what they’re doing; they’ve been doing it for years, and they’ve been doing it exceptionally well.
Get in touch with ZippyLingo today, and we can take the stress out of writing content for a small business website.
