How to write effective web content

As you know, your XSite comes with more than 75 (20 for XSites Standard level) professionally-written content pages.  You can edit them as needed to make them more personal or more geared towards your market.  But you may also want to write your own content pages from time to time.  But writing content for the web is different than writing an essay for English class.  Web surfers rarely read web pages word by word; rather, they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences that appeal to them.

Because you only have a few seconds to grab your visitors attention on the web, here are some tips on writing effective content pages:

• Reel them in with a good headline.  Grabbing your XSite visitors’ attention with a compelling headline is the most important ingredient to good website content – and it can often be the most difficult part to write.  When writing your headlines use words that appeal to your target market and remember the age-old K.I.S.S.  formula: Keep it short and simple.
• Use the inverted pyramid style.  Treat your content page as a news article and provide a summary of your information in the first paragraph so your readers will know the direction of your discussion.
• Write as though you’re having a conversation with your readers.  You’re not writing to impress, you’re writing to communicate so keep your sentences simple.
• Use the active voice not a passive one.  For example, instead of “I know I will be able to find the right loan for you” say “I will find the right loan for you.”
• Add subheads and bulleted lists to break up your copy and make it easy to scan.
• Eliminate fluff.  Avoid using filler sentences that do not contribute to your discussion.
• Proof read!  Spelling or grammatical errors in your web copy make your site look unprofessional and will likely turn off your visitors.  Read the copy out loud or have someone else to proof read it.  And don’t rely on spell check as it won’t pick up errors that may have been spelled correctly, but do not make sense in the copy. (For example, if you wrote “This it a loan for home owners who have built equity in their home” instead of “This is a loan for home owners who have built equity in their home”).

To add your own content page to your XSite, go to Step 6 in your Wizard, click on the “Custom Pages” tab and click on “Add A New Page.” You can write your content on the page using our robust editor that includes everything you might see in a word processing program like Microsoft Word.  Plus, you can also add your own images, outside links, Flash files and other media files with just a few clicks!