InkHouse’s Guide to Website Copywriting

Copywriting 101

When good messages are hard to read, people miss them. This holds especially true online, where we’re bombarded at every millisecond with a multitude of media. Clear, concise messaging in your website copywriting is thus key to successfully conveying your thoughts to an audience.
 

The website copywriting newsletter issue follows its own advice and gets right to the point: “Use active voice;” “Try interesting verbs;” and “DON’T lean on adverbs.” These are all great tips that can really tighten up your writing. Click through to read more…

Bylined Articles 101

What’s the real difference between an Op-ed and a bylined article? Well, it depends on the nuances of the target publication.
 

Answering the above question—among many others—is important when approaching the draft of a bylined article. To that end, we’ve written a dedicated newsletter to help you navigate the process…

Related blog posts

Your website is the first thing prospective customers see, and it’s critical you make a good first impression. That’s why clear, on-brand website copywriting is an essential component of any content and communications strategy. But with so much marketing hype around digital and social media, it is something that often gets overlooked.

When executed properly, a well-crafted blog and strong website copy can help your company:

✔️ Build brand awareness and authority
✔️ Increase website traffic
✔️ Engage potential customers or leads
✔️ Amplify content and media coverage to new audiences

Improving your website copywriting can be daunting, but here are some tips on how to get started.

How To Start A Blog For Your Business

The idea of launching a blog may seem daunting, but is something that should be considered for your marketing and communications strategy, particularly if you have a bench of subject matter experts, strong website copywriting skills, a library of content that could be repurposed or consistently find yourself answering the same questions from clients, partners or prospects. Here’s what should be top-of-mind to get started:

Before you open a blank Google Doc to start your first blog post, convene the appropriate stakeholders to form alignment. What are the goals? Is it to elevate an executive as a thought leader in their industry? Build awareness among a new audience? Inform existing customers about your product or services? And how do these goals map back to the overarching organizational goals?

The Essentials Of Headline Writing In A Digital And Mobile World

In a webinar from Poynter’s News University, Andy Bechtel, professor at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at UNC-Chapel Hill, discussed the essentials of headline writing, specifically as the trend to consume content online and via mobile devices continues. I’ve summed up six key takeaways below.

First, think of your headline as an invitation. A headline offers an opportunity to draw your reader in. It’s just as important to include the key details in your headline as you would any invitation—have you outlined the who, what, where and when? A headline also offers the ability to convey news and information. If your headline doesn’t give some kind of an idea as to what your story is about, it’s likely the reader will quickly move on.

Making Headlines “Clickable”

You only get one chance to make a first impression and, in the world of publishing and content marketing, that is the headline. Today, reporters are often compensated by the numbers of page views and clicks on their published stories which has led to a rash of clickbait, sensationalized headlines everywhere from Buzzfeed to Facebook, designed to elicit an immediate click, such as: 15 Amazing Celebrity Diet Secrets: Your Jaw Will Drop at #7 or Someone Left This Dog Outside During a Rainstorm…Then This Happened.

In PR and social content, headlines matter enormously. Whether it’s the subject line of an email pitch, the headline of a contributed article, or the title of an infographic or video, a headline is an important part of your website copywriting strategy. The reality is we also need to think like reporters and editors when developing content so that our pitches are read and our content widely viewed and shared.

Here are the most important things you need to consider when writing headlines to drive CTR (plus a few things to avoid).

Are Instagram Captions The New Blog?

You can spend hours putting together the perfect company blog post – researching, writing, editing and navigating through all those review cycles. But what good is any of that if no one is reading it? While there are company blogs that have become go-to sources for industry news and analysis, and we’d like to think Inkhouse falls into that category, it’s no secret that most companies struggle to drive traffic to their blog.

So why not put your content where your audience already is? On average, Instagram users share 70 million photos per day and its per-follower engagement is 58 times higher than Facebook and 120 times higher than Twitter. And I’m not just talking about pictures, I’m talking about converting your blog content into long-form Instagram captions.

This opens an opportunity for brands to share the content they care about and in a place where people will actually read it. Here’s what to keep in mind.

How To Make A Buzzfeed-Style Listicle Work For Your Blog

Millennials flock to Buzzfeed, the internet media darling that’s best known for its sensational headlines and GIF-heavy “listicles.” It’s the place you can find stories like “17 Things You’ll Only Understand If You’re Slightly Obsessed With Cats” and “This Is What It Feels Like When You’re In A Blah Mood” — a site where you can find all the information you never knew you needed, complete with GIFs of Beyonce or puppies.

The thing is, Buzzfeed is onto something. Listicles can be a quick, fun way to engage your readers in your content without delivering a text-heavy post that will put them to sleep. Attention spans are shrinking — Hubspot found that 55 percent of readers are spending only 15 seconds on a webpage. So, pick out your favorite GIFs and follow these best practices for working the listicle format into your website copywriting strategy:

Trick Or Tweet: Are These Five Hashtag Mistakes Haunting You?

The hashtag has transformed into a pop culture phenomenon. But in the beginning of the Twitter era, the hashtag was originally developed to help organize tweets and get them seen by the correct audience and those interested in the topic.

I know what you’re thinking… Hashtags? Piece of cake. Although hashtagging may seem straightforward and simple enough, many people aren’t getting it quite right. Stay social media savvy and avoid these common hashtag mistakes.