Each page on the site should contain relevant information about its subject. It should be instantly obvious to the reader that this is the case by use of prominent keywords and eyecatching headers above each paragraph, accurately describing the content of that paragraph.
The paragraphs should be concise, clear and keyword rich.
Think about what you're going to write about before you start. If this means drawing up a site map, then do so. Your website should be well structured anyway to permit a good flow through the site, and your copy should reflect this. If you are a department store, you wouldn't write 500 words about one product on the home page: you'd start by introducing your store, then a paragraph on each department. Each of those paragraphs links to a full page on that department. That department's page is split into paragraphs describing the product categories available in that department.
Content on the Home Page
The Home page is obviously the most important page of text on the site. It should both describe the entire content of the site and also invite the reader to explore the rest of the site in more detail (see below).
It can help to think of each piece of text as a short, introductory sentence to the other areas on the site, listed in the order of importance to the reader. These subjects are then expanded upon in the rest of the site.
Content on Ordinary Pages
Every page on the site is a stepping stone to the site Goal: to sell a product, or to describe a service in such a way as to provoke contact with the service provider.
The rules below on amount of text per page should be followed: if the subject can't be described in less than 500 words, the page needs to be broken up.
Hyperlinks within body text
Linking to pages within a site via the menu structure is normal good practice. Linking to the same, or more, pages using hyperlinks within text allow the user to read the text and then click on items of interest, allowing them to build their own path through the site.
Rules for structuring content and keywords
Length: 400-600 words per page. Write more and you bore your reader; write less and you risk being classified as spam. If you have a lot to say, you should be able to break it up into properly structured sub pages. If you don't have a lot to say, you should reconsider saying it at all, or research your subject more thoroughly.
Eyecatching: use of bold and italics helps the user focus on the salient points. We avoid underlining as this is used for hyperlinks. That said, use hyperlinks too.
Grammar and spelling
Getting these wrong is one of the quickest ways to have a reader leave your website with no remaining confidence in your ability to operate at a professional level.
Check your copy thoroughly: do not rely only on a spellchecker, as these will permit the wrong word to be used as long as it is correctly spelled. Consider the following guide:
Common typ0s and misteaks
I guarantee that there will be no spelling misstakes or misplaced apostrophe's on any of my sites.
I'll avoid duplicate content.
When copy writing, I am trained to avoid cliches like the plague and wouldn't over exaggerate in a million years.
I'll avoid duplicate content. And lame writer jokes.
Their will also be no confusion over homophones as this is a good way to loose confidence in the audience and end up having to apologies. Spellcheckers don't work on this kind of mistake.
In order to maintain reasonable reading quality, prepositions at the end of clauses up with we shall put and we boldly may split the occasional infinitive.
We won't use inappropriate "Quotation" marks, or, overwork the punctuation grinder, not for hyphens or - my favourite - colons: I'm a sucker for them.
Exclamation marks are the written equivalent of laughing at one's own jokes during conversation! Whilst doing a starjump!!
Multiple exclamation marks or !? combinations are, quotably, the sure sign of a diseased mind.
Because we pay attention to structure and grammar.
We won't write colloquially, which means we won't be all like, inappropriately informal.
If you have something to say, say all of it, not part of it, so treble dots are banned, as are "and more", "and so on" etc etc...
While we're on that subject, inappropriate use of e.g., i.e. using e.g. in place of i.e. when you meant e.g., e.g. is as unacceptable as the other way round, that is, you wouldn't say "that is" when you meant "for example" for example, that is unless, you had for example poor understanding of the abbreviated terms.
Apostrophe: one apostrophe
Apostrophes: multiple apostrophes
Apostrophe's: something belonging to one apostrophe
