AMPERAGE Marketing & Fundraising

One-Minute MarketerTop 6 Website Writing Tips

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Top 6 Website Writing Tips

Web writing is a new art form. For communicators, the new way of writing is driven by the fact that people do not “read” websites, they “scan” websites. And for that reason, keywords are not only important for web crawlers, but for human eyes as well.iStock_000068861827_Medium

We have a process at Amperage Marketing & Fundraising which involves keyword saturation metrics and other variables to write and test our copy. Yet, the one key measure you need to keep in mind is the size of your smartphone. That is the dominant location for searching websites.

Here are some good rules to follow for the new smartphone-dominant, scanner-oriented web world:

  1. Shorten everything—short paragraphs, short sentences, short words
  2. Use bullets and highlights to direct the eye
  3. Use subheads to help scanners find information
  4. Use graphics to show facts and information
  5. Avoid industry jargon (unless it is a keyword) no matter how you think it makes you sound—unfortunately the marketing industry is the absolute worst at this
  6. Use the word “you” throughout your website—unless you think many people will gather around your website and scan it together, one person is scanning your page, so write to that one person

It’s best to refer to your “readers” as “scanners.” It may help you change the target-marketing mindset as you write your web content.

Written by:

Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle.

After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant.

He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.”

Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.”

One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College.

Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board.

Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.