Question: Our website has a lot of great copy about our products and services but we have noticed little engagement or conversion from it. What can we do to get more interaction and conversion from our website?

5 or so years ago (and longer) website copy was basically a brochure for your brand. A lot of companies (especially small ones) would take their physical product marketing and transfer it to the web as if it was a CD collection being converted to MP3.

During the days of Web 1.0 when it was merely a place to learn about a business, this type of approach worked as well as any. However, in the era of the social web, people visit brand sites to not only learn, but to interact, engage and communicate.

In the past I have talked about the importance of your entire online existence not being purely self promotion. The urge to spill on all of the great products, services and ideas that your company has isn’t unique, but it is the downfall to many companies online marketing efforts.

So while it is important to have a clear message and web copy that puts you and your customers in touch, in the era of Web 2.0 you need to be thinking more about shared learning, engagement and connection. Here is what I recommend…

Get Social: Have active social media presences on the social platforms where your customers are. Integrate social with your website so people can see the info you are sharing and they can connect with your brand. Make sure all of your social content isn’t just promotional.

Create Content That Isn’t Promotional: At least not directly promotional. Write or create videos about lessons, best practices and other highly valuable information that doesn’t stink of self promo. If you are a great source of knowledge, the interest in your brand will be built by default.

Think Semantic Search: SEO is important, but what is most important is that your website copy and articles are speaking to the searches that people are asking Google and other platforms. Meaning, today people are entering full thoughts and phrases into Google to get the best results. A statement such as “How do we drive more traffic to our website” is going to be asked more often by people looking to solve that specific problem whereas just “Website Traffic” could mean many things and will be a hard search term to win.

We have entered a world where social, content and search are changing and you have to build a website that supports it.  Is it time to Rethink your Website Copy?  

Post first seen on Broadsuite and can be found here. Image: Creative Commons via Flickr