Google algorithm has been on the march again! This time to crawl the acres of endless illegal links and spammed content clogging up the furrows of a potential green and pleasant online land. Content is getting a shakedown, and not before time too!
Undoubtedly, writing content for websites, blogs, articles, Twitter, Facebook, PPC ads and for every other type of online reading is coming of age. It’s time businesses start to face the realities of the specific and various writing skills really required for today’s multi channel and platform environment.
Creating web copy is not just for the purpose of inserting SEO keywords to pagerank. Nor is it about creating long paragraphs of industry insider jargon to impress other industry competitors or potential customers – because they won’t even bother to read beyond the first line if it looks a dull slog!
Most site owners are now beginning to understand the difference between today’s skim reading from a PC screen and yesterday’s lingering over every sentence in the glossy print company brochure. But the process has become more complex because of the different, niche audiences on different channels and platforms, each requiring different approaches. A blog is not a web page, a PPC ad is not a tweet, yet they all need to be optimised for both human and algorithm.
Creating a web presence is about link building a cross-channel / platform brand identity and web presence in an organic, social media network of ongoing and integrated online marketing engagement. It’s about creating the interactive space where you offer valuable content, to be quickly and easily accessed, responded to and shared if liked.
It’s not about focusing on putting all the budget into designing a wizzy looking website – y’know lots of Flash animation – and thinking you can save money by trawling through other websites and cobbling together your own copy by simply changing the company name, inserting your products or service, dropping in a few URLs as they used to do in 1995!
The online landscape is changing in ways that are not necessarily obvious to eCommerce owners in a hurry to rank for their widget keywords and cut costs on writing content. The way we read from a PC screen is not only different from a mobile or tablet screen, our search behaviour alters according to intent. Not everyone reads in the same way all of the time.
According to research studies, around 80 per cent of screen search is most likely to be simply skim reading from standard website pages but a significant 16 per cent will spend time to read more closely and attentively, if reading a blog or small article. This means that copy content needs to be created in specific instances for both possible types of readers who can absorb the information on multiple levels.
Content has always required to be tailored to specific market niches, demographic segments, interests with a corresponding call to action. But now, emergent technologies are allowing interaction to be played out across different screen formats for different purposes and, therefore, demands consistent brand positioning, tone and content technique adapted to destination and fit for purpose.
The key to successful web marketing strategies is to encourage interaction and positive response, which leads to conversion. They can only do this, if they can read what you say, understand and agree and be encouraged and confident to act by return.