Webmasters often lose track of the purpose of their websites. Yes, most are businesses and the goal is to make money, but the part of the equation that too many forget is that they are dealing with real people. It is easy to get caught up in the world of the internet and spend too much time worrying about bots and backlinks and lose sight of the fact that the purpose of a web page is usually to convince a person to take some action, whether that action is a click or a buy. Following are a couple of tips that can help you remain aware of the real goal.
Take a Stand
One of the reasons so many wishy-washy web pages that contain many words but really don’t say anything exist is that web writers are afraid that they will alienate potential customers by taking a strong stand that may be in opposition to their own opinions. The opposite is actually true. With a page that makes no real statement, people will look at it and forget it forever. A page that takes a strong position will make people remember it. Even those who are vehemently opposed to the position will often return again and again to argue their side of things. The point is that with the innumerable competing web pages on the Internet, the absolute worst thing for a web site is lack of notice. Making strong statements and backing them up will keep web browsers coming back to argue or offer kudos.
Talk to the People
Intellectual minded people often try their hands at poetry. Very often the results of these efforts are comprised of strings of words with no fewer than four syllables. The would be poets think they are demonstrating their intelligence, but instead only turn something that should be easy and emotionally stirring into something that feels like a slog through a vocabulary exam. Web writers too fall into this trap far too frequently. They have been told to sound authoritative and mistake verbosity for authority. The goal of any writing is communication. Writing in a manner aimed at impressing English professors with your knowledge of obscure words and grammar mechanics turns off everyone but those professors. Web writing should be as simple as possible while still conveying the message intended.
There are many other individual aspects of web writing that could be included here, but it all boils down to remembering that the people your page is meant to reach are actual humans from all walks of life, not bots or teachers looking for a student who can double as a thesaurus.
