Words are the building blocks of every website and pretty much, are the building blocks of modern civilization. Words matter. They always have and always will. On the Web, words matter even more. The right words.
The problem is that there are lots and lots of words. For your website, there are a small set of words that really matter, and then there are an awful lot of words that don’t.
How do you judge if a particular word matters or not? You don’t. It’s not for you to judge. It’s for your customers to judge. Customers are highly impatient. They search and scan a page quickly, looking for their right words.
If you want to design a new website, the first thing you should decide on is the words. Not the graphical design, not the software. No. The words must come first. Once you get the words right, you are half-way there.
But the words don’t come first, do they? Most websites are driven from a technical or graphical design perspective. The words are hardly even considered. The people who wrote the words were brought in late on in the process and asked to fill in an already agreed-upon structure and design with some words.
Words are simply not respected. Does it really matter if it’s:
“Buy” or “Buy Now”
“More information” or “Request a demo”
“Find a dealer” or “Buy: shop locator”
“Login” or “Logon”
It really does matter, hugely, enormously. In more than one situation, sales have doubled by changing a couple of words, nothing else.
In most web teams people who work with words get very little respect. But if you work with words, you are literally sitting on a goldmine. The problem is you are selling it like a coalmine.
Most web writers think that their job is about writing articles. But it must be much broader and deeper than that. What is the navigation of the website made up of? Words. What are the links on the website made up of? Words. What are the applications on the website made up of? Words.
Nothing can work on the Web without written words. No page. No link. No classification, navigation or menu. No application or software.
Nothing.