Writing for Digital

You’ve ever heard the meaning of the phrase “king’s content? ”. In today’s highly technological and digitized world, this phrase is largely used. In the next few weeks, we will discuss “writing for digital” in depth. Today, we will go over the introduction, how to get started on creating your content for digital marketing, and the important key terms and concepts you need to know. 

Content Is King

When it comes to building your website, the UX design and experience are not the only crucial parts. The content of the website itself is massively important.

Whether you are working on the content of your website yourself, or you have a team doing it for you, there is plenty of stuff you need to look into. This also goes for online content writers. 

It is not an easy task, especially because the content is what your audience first sees when they visit a website. It is your content that makes or breaks the website. If the audience loves your content, they can be converted to customers and even become regular website visitors. 

Online Copy – What is It?

There are plenty of neologisms and buzzwords on the internet. Especially since the internet keeps on evolving every single day. In this article, we will help you keep on top of these vital words such as online copy.

What is an online copy? It is the core text of your website that guides your audience all throughout. This copy is a hardworking multi-tasker at the very least. 

An online copy must provide all the information (big or small) to your visitors. It also is used to engage with your website visitors, and convince them to take the desired action (hence why to call to actions are important to add in a content). More importantly, an online copy must also maintain and convey brand ethos. 

However, those are not the only things an online copy does. As we said, it is a multi-tasker working on different goals at once. It also needs to provide context and relevance to search engines. 

Importance of Online Copy

This is very important so your brand and website can reach as many people as possible without spending too much on advertisements. By providing relevance to search engines, your website has the potential to rank higher. This means that when someone searches a keyword in the search engines, your website will be amongst the top of the list of the search engine’s suggestions. 

All of the above needs to be achieved without making it look as if the author is trying too hard to get people to read. Over the next few articles, you will find out that writing for digital is miles away from writing for more traditional forms of media. 

Why? Simply because the content is king. Scratch that… the value of performance is the king. Especially with the sheer volume of information on the internet. Your content is competing with thousands, maybe even millions of other content. The quality is of utmost importance. 

The Significant Factors of online Campaign

A lot of people would argue that high-quality content is one of the most significant factors that will determine the success of your online campaigns. This is not at all surprising considering that the content on your website is one of the most direct lines of communication you have with your customers.

This ties in heavily with our previous article, Is Content Marketing Important?, and Creating Your Marketing Content. Listed below are some of the most important key terms and concepts when it comes to writing for digital.

Important Key Terms and Concepts

Since online copywriting involves a lot of things, including the text on a website, the subject line of an email, the caption of a social media posts, and etc.there are a lot of key terminologies and concepts to learn about.

An online copy is not just a website’s content, it can also refer to Press Release articles, four-line search adverts, the title of a video, a caption of a social media post, and more. The bottom line is, if it is being read on a screen, it is an online copy.

Earlier we mentioned that writing for digital is very different from writing for traditional media. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that the traditional rules of writing need to be abandoned. If anything, the core foundations of writing still remain. It’s just used in a different structure. 

Key Terms

• Above the fold – this term refers to the content that appears on a screen without your audience having to scroll up and down.
• Active verb – active verbs are words that convey action or behavior to your readers. In many cases, active verbs are found in Call to Actions which tells your readers what to do. For instance, a brand may use words such as “Buy Now”, “Checkout”, “Subscribe Now.”
• Audience – this word has been largely used on the internet, especially for writers and marketers. It refers to a group of people at which marketing communication is targeted.
• Benefit – this refers to the positive outcome for a user that feature providers. For instance, your website feature can provide a lot of benefits for your audience, hence they are willing to follow the Call to Action or CTA because your feature provides more benefits for them.
• Call to Action or CTA – this is used to motivate your users to take action. Additional CTAs may also include “sign up now,” “book now,” “call us,” and more.
• Feature – this is a prominent aspect of a product that is beneficial to your users. 
• Dynamic Keyword Insertion – Keywords are the terms in your online copy that will let a search engine know what is covered inside. In paid advertising, Dynamic Keyword Insertion allows keywords used in searches to be inserted automatically into advert copy.
• HyperText Markup Language or HTML – we discussed HTML in previous articles before. This refers to the code used to structure the information and features found within a web page.
• Keyword Stuffing – This refers to the process of putting too many keywords into the metadata of the website. It also refers to using many irrelevant keywords. As we mentioned earlier, the online copy needs to be read as if the writer isn’t trying too hard. Keyword Stuffing is trying too hard to put too many keywords all at once. This is a huge mistake since search engines can penalize websites using this practice. It also ruins the content’s quality.
• Mass Customization – this refers to tailored content for many individuals
• Meta Data – if you are already working on website content, then you know that the metadata is any information that can be entered about a web page and the elements on it. Meta Data offers useful and relevant information for search engines.

Key Concept

• Persona – this refers to a character created to define a group of readers in order to speak to them as though they were a unique reader. It helps increase the appreciation of your audience.
• Paid Search Advertising – this refers to advertising on search engines. It is also usually referred to as Pay Per Click or PPC advertising. It is when a brand or advertiser pays only for each click of the advert. 
• Search Engine Optimization or SEO – SEO will also be discussed in-depth in the next few articles. It is the process of improving website rankings on search engine result pages. The higher your rank is, the better your chances of getting more audience.
• Search Engine Results or SERP – is the actual results returned to the user based on their search query. For instance, you search for the keyword “content.” What comes in your search results is referred to as SERP.
• Unique Selling Point or USP – is the aspect that differentiates you from your competitors. 

© Image credits to Steve Johnson