In addition to a great design and programming, a successful website also needs to have good content. Unfortunately, there are some mistakes you can make with your content that can potentially ruin your whole website and company. The main issue is recognizing these errors so you can easily avoid them in the future. Check out these seven copywriting mistakes that you can avoid to build a great website for your brand.

Mistake 1: Focusing your writing on yourself

It can be really easy to start writing everything focused on your company and products. It’s normal because you’re working all day with your products and services and you know them through and through. You’re completely invested in your products; you believe in them and you’re always looking to improve them. Because of that, it’s natural that you want to share that passion with the world.

The mistake with doing that is that the rest of the world doesn’t actually care about your story. Their main priority is improving their own lives and fulfilling the needs and wants that they have. Your content and website need to answer one simple question that your customers have: what’s in it for me?

A product page that has a good copy will discuss features and benefits only a little bit, but most of the copy should focus on the experience. This is where many people go wrong. By focusing on the experience, you have to think about the target audience and what they want to see. It’s only once they’re interested that they’ll look more into the features and benefits.

To be able to focus your writing outwardly, Monica Lewis, a marketing manager at eliteassignmenthelp and State of Writing, suggests that you “start by gathering feedback from prospective clients and customers. Find out why they buy your products or why they don’t and how they feel about doing business with you. Every feature your product has should be associated with a benefit, and the benefit associated with an experience.”

Mistake 2: Not having a clear lead

If your website visitors are on your site and they can’t immediately see why they should stay there longer, you’re losing your opportunity at a conversion. Visitors will decide whether they want to stay on your site within only a few seconds. It’s important to communicate the most important message of your page as quickly as possible.

Look at your existing web pages and think about how where your leads are. Do you start your page with the main idea, or is it buried in your copy? Are you enticing your visitors to stay on your site and find out more? If the person writing your copy is more used to writing novels or essays, they will write the text assuming that people will read from start to finish. This is a huge mistake, because web writing techniques mean that you should write each sentence in a way that encourages the reader to stay – starting with the most important.

The usual assumption is that a visitor will read only the headline and the first couple of lines of text, so you need to put the most important message in the easiest place to find and read it. To do that, consider before you start writing what your key takeaways are for your website visitors. What do you want to accomplish with that page? That’s how you figure out your lead. If you can’t find a way to work that in to the first sentence, highlight in in bold font.

Be as clear and concise as possible, and avoid making spelling mistakes. Use these online tools to help you write excellent copy:

• My Writing Way and Let’s Go and Learn are great online copywriting guides to help you get started if you’re drawing a blank.
• Ox Essays and Paper Fellows are editing tools to help you review all your copy and make sure it flows and it’s consistent.
• Simple Grad and Study demic are some grammar checking tools to make sure there’s no spelling mistakes or typos.
• Academized is a fantastic proofreading tool that comes well-reviewed by UK Services Reviews.
• Academ advisor and Via Writing will help you format your copy on your website so it looks as good as possible.
• Australian Help and Big Assignments are the go-to sites to help generate good headers, subheadings and keywords.

Mistake 3: Poor meta material

Your most important text on your website is not necessarily the copy. Some meta elements are key for improving user experience, conversion, and brand awareness. Meta elements are portions of HTML code that search engine robots use, but both the meta title and meta description are crucial for humans also. As a copywriter, it’s essential that you understand how to use them properly.

The meta title is the subject matter description of the page and should be 65 characters or less. Visitors will see the meta title in the browser tab as well as in the search engine results. Meta description, on the other hand, is a text that’s ideally less than 155 characters, and gives the reader a snippet of the information under a link on the search engine results page. It doesn’t have a lot of SEO value but it’s very important to boost conversions.

Meta descriptions are pieces of text that show up in search results under the page title.

Google puts a lot of emphasis on meta titles, so be sure to include primary keywords in them, specifically at the start of the title. For readers, the title tag should also be clear and to the point. For your meta description, try to avoid overusing keywords because it will appear to readers like spam. Avoid lots of exclamation points or over the top claims because this will alienate your readers. The good news is that you can change your tags at any time, and you probably should change them regularly to keep them up-to-date and accurate.

Mistake 4: Failing to include Calls to Action

Your website and copy are absolutely useless without a well-written and clear call to action (CTA). Visitors want to be led to the next step and that’s where a CTA comes in, whether it’s placing an order, asking visitors to subscribe or enroll, getting a quote, or finding out more information. Every page of your site should have a CTA but they need to be matched right with each page.

Examples of some compelling CTAs

The CTA has to be engaging and obvious, like ‘order now to save 20%,’ or ‘learn the 5 tips for a healthier lifestyle.’ The success of CTAs will be boosted by testimonials, credibility statements, a warranty, and a sense of urgency or value. Many businesses make the mistake of writing their CTAs as an afterthought and they’re not specific or engaging enough.

Mistake 5: Writing to the wrong audience

Website pages need to have a clear focus or they will not be effective because they aren’t speaking to anyone in particular. If you try to reach too broad of an audience, you’ll lose all your prospective clients. Before you start writing copy, think about who your customers are and who your target clients are. The more you understand who they are, their age, location, gender, interests, and more, the better you’ll be able to write content that speaks to them.

If you realize that your copy is too vague or is written for the wrong audience, it’s natural to start all over. You’ll be happy you did because it’s better to have a good sales page that requires a little extra work than keeping your existing page up that doesn’t lead to conversions.

Mistake 6: Failing to have a value proposition

A value proposition is what differentiates you from the rest of the competition and convinces your clients to choose you. Think about what you’re selling and to whom, and be very clear about your value proposition.

What will be most effective is the value proposition that speaks directly to a client and tells them what they’ll get from choosing your service or your product. If you’re struggling with this portion, think about what makes you different than other similar companies out there. Why would someone buy your product or service, and how can you fulfill a specific need that they have?

Mistake 7: Poor use of testimonials

The last mistake you can make is not properly including customer testimonials. This can be either something that’s too over-the-top and clients will assume it’s too good to be true or there’s a catch, or not including anything at all. Product pages that include too many ridiculous promises don’t draw in customers. Make sure that what you claim on your sales page can be done by the company so you’re not letting down your clientele.

You should include some credible testimonials to build trust with your audience. If they can see that customers just like them used your product to great success, they’ll be more likely to purchase it. Testimonials actually speak for your and sell your product for you. You can also build trust and authenticity by having a valuable social media presence and engaging with an online community in that field.

These mistakes are all about fixing your website copy and improving your conversions. If you’re not writing engaging copy, you’re losing visitors to your site and potential customers. Whether you’re focused more on a hard sell or a soft sell, if you can’t sell anything at all via your webpage, it doesn’t serve a purpose for your business. Think about whether you’re making any of these mistakes and what you can do to improve your website copy.

Ellie Coverdale, a marketing writer at Essay roo and UK Writings, shares her tips and tricks on digital and social media marketing with her readers. She’s interested in how businesses can boost conversions and create exciting new websites that will appeal to their audience. She teaches writing skills for Boom Essays in her free time.