How to write texts for a website?

First of all, please remember two important things:

1. On the Internet, not only writing is difficult! As you will find out below, reading is also difficult. Don’t think that the only requirement for someone to read your text is that it is meaningful and persuasive. Many factors could turn your reader away from even the most engaging text.
2. When writing for your website, always remember that you are also writing for Google. Yes, in about 80% of the cases, you will rely on Google to get someone to read your texts because on average 80% of all visitors come to websites from Google searches.

Therefore, no matter if you are writing a long descriptive page about your company’s history or just a short description of one of your products, always remember that you are writing not only for your customers but also for Google.

What should you watch out for?

First of all: write short paragraphs!

As we have already said, on the Internet it is difficult not only to write but also to read! On the Internet, everyone is worried and in a hurry. People have neither the time nor the patience to read long, endless blocks of text.

Reading is even more difficult when your visitor is seeing your texts on their mobile phone, and at least 70% of your visitors will do just that!

Therefore, when writing text, make sure you press the “Enter” key more often, which will create a new paragraph in your text. Thus, your text will become clearer and more readable. Leave more white space and allow your text to “breathe”.

Remember: nobody these days has the nerve to read long blocks of densely written text. This becomes even more unachievable if your visitor is trying to read your text through their phone, propped up in the corner of a crowded subway car, or on a wobbly bus.

Try to keep your paragraphs (the individual blocks of text) to no more than two to three short sentences. No one is going to read an endless block of text filling the entire screen of their phones.

Avoid long and complicated sentences. External stimuli often distract your readers and they have no opportunity to understand the meaning of “complex word structures”. 😉

Also, make sure that in the design of your site, the distance between the individual paragraphs is large enough and they can “breathe”. This spacing depends on the formatting of the texts in your chosen theme, and if you are not aware of how it is set, please contact your web designers.

Let me summarize: more than ten years ago, a book devoted to the Internet became popular. The title of this book was “Don’t make me think“. Therefore, I will conclude by saying: don’t expect your Internet readers to think much. They won’t.

Create clear internal structures by using subheadings

Critically important to the correct perception of a given content is that its texts get well structured, and this is usually achieved through the use of subheadings.

By using subheadings, your reader will be able to understand at a glance what to expect from your page, and this will also give them a reason to read it.

Conversely, if your reader is faced with a long, endless page filled only with monotonous text, it will confuse and scare them, and they will most likely not even try to read it.

Also, make sure you’re using the proper means of defining subtitles that your online text editor, such as WordPress, provides.

We often witness that on some sites subtitles are only “distinguished” by the use of bold typeface.

While this sometimes creates the desired effect for the reader, it is incomprehensible to Google. He has no way of knowing that the bolded text is actually a subheading that carries more weight than the rest of the text. This will inevitably affect your page ranking badly.

And we already know: in addition to your readers understanding you, your goal is for Google to understand you as well. So, always use the respective subheading tags, as described below …

Do not use more than one main heading (<H1>) on a page

We can’t go without a little technical explanation here.

The HTML language, which serves to build websites and defines their visualization through web browsers, provides several types of subheadings, and one (and only one!) main heading on a given page.

However, the title and subtitles are defined similarly. These can range from <h1> (main heading or page title) followed by subheadings from <h2> to <h6>. Subheadings from <h2> to <h6> allow for more precise and “deep” structuring.

Add subtitles the right way

In the WordPress visual editor, these headings are marked as “Heading 1”, which should actually be the main (and only!) heading for the entire page, and subheadings “Heading 2” to “Heading 6”, depending on their weight in the page structure.

Often, however, some authors on the Internet, in an effort to give their titles more weight and more “importance”, format all their titles and sub-headings as “Heading 1”. This is wrong and may be harmful to your website!

While having more than one “Heading 1” on a page is virtually no problem for readers and it is not “forbidden” by Google, it could still be a huge problem for the search engine.

Here’s why: It is extremely important for Google to be able to clearly distinguish the structure of your page. Which of the headings is primary to the content of the entire page, and which of the subheadings are secondary, tertiary, etc.

If Google “sees” more than one main heading on a given page (“Heading 1”), this creates confusion in the algorithms that drive the search engine, and it is most likely that Google will not rank such a “confused” page well.

Again: do not use <H1>. It’s already there!

In addition, if you use WordPress, it is typical for this CMS that it automatically defines as “Heading 1” the title you set for this page when it is created.

In other words, if you’re using WordPress, you normally shouldn’t format subheadings like “Heading 1” at all, simply because it’s already automatically set by WordPress as soon as you type the page title.