When building your website and writing your content, it makes sense to have the end in mind from the beginning. What do you want visitors to do when they land on your website? What actions, if any, would you like them to take?

These answers will differ depending on your organization. Some websites are meant simply to inform or educate, while other sites are focused on generating sales or inquiries. But whatever your subject or the mission of your website, the first step is to provide compelling copy that visitors will actually read.

If you’re building a website or revising your current one, we’d be happy to help you develop the web copy. But if you decide to go it alone, here are some quick tips for writing your own online content:

Be brief: Most folks quickly scan the page anyway; most do not read every single word. If it looks like reading your content will be “work” for the reader, most people will pass! So get to the point.

Break it up: Use subheadings or bulleted lists to deliver your info in bite-sized chunks.

Stay on target: Try to stay focused on one or two main points per page, excepting landing pages or those (such as this one) that contain multiple blog entries.

Make use of white (blank) space: This helps make text stand out. The main Google page is a great example of this.

Finally, make sure your content is well-researched and accurate, and is free of grammatical errors and typos. This should seem obvious, but the sheer volume of information online means that many web pages will contain errors. You instantly begin to lose credibility readers this way, so don’t let that happen!

And though the goal of your site should be the desired visitor action or interaction, don’t forget you need to please the search engines too! This is mainly based on using the proper keywords or key phrases for your product, service or industry. This helps people discover your website in the first place, which is the goal of search engine optimization (SEO). If you don’t know what these keywords are, consult with a professional on what you should be including within your site to attract the most visitors.