The Changing Face Of Web Copywriting

Web copywriting is different to other forms of writing within business. If you think back to the traditional ways we used to market our businesses, we used ads, brochures, flyers, paper based proposals and tender documents and newsletters. I can still remember days when how heavy a tender document was related directly to how importantly it was perceived by the companies.
In traditional writing, people often tended to pad out their words, stating and restating their content in different ways, or fitting their information into convoluted policy documents and templates. It used to feel like you were being hit around the head with a feather pillow trying to read some of the traditional writing.
What has happened in the past 15 or so years is a quiet revolution in terms of communication. In parallel with our quest for quicker, faster and better things – we now want our information in digestible chunks. We are less willing to tolerate jargon, complex academic language and pompous sounding words.
The first web-sites were much like the old fashioned documents except they were just put up on the net. These sites were called brochure sites as all they really contained was information you would read in brochures about the business.
The language was stilted and formal and usually talked a lot about the company and very little about the customer. If you still have a brochure website, you are wearing the online equivalent of a safari suit. Great at the time, but a tad dated.
People now want to quickly work out if the information they are reading is relevant to them. If it is they will dig deeper for more information. How we read has changed. We now scan for clues about the information in the document and then only if we are interested we mine further for data.
In the past 3-5 years there has been a further shift in how we process information. People now want to engage in discussion about the content, to find out more from the creators and to share their thoughts with other like-minded people. This has given rise to Social Media and interactive websites.
The art of writing for the web is all about understanding these trends in communication and presenting information in a way that people now “get”. We need to blend our web copywriting with colourful icons and clear design to allow people to first scan and then mine deeper for information.
In as much the same way that we don’t use words from Shakespeare’s time in our modern communications, now we need to change our communication to match the current ways people use information. Unless we keep pace, our web copywriting becomes irrelevant and our message goes unheard. Is your website speaking olde English or keeping pace?