Web Content Writers – Those who are pragmatic in their approach, focusing on “plain language” and “soundbite” sentences, who are hyper-aware of website visitors as “users” with physiological parameters that define the interaction they have with words, as elements, published on a technology-based platform.

Their content is often written at the expense of the descriptive fluff that causes emotional responses in readers – tears …laughter …shivers.

Web Copywriters – Those whose words are used to influence, persuade, and sell. Their aim is to connect with target audiences on an emotional level using familiar vocabulary that is not only engaging but purposeful to a website’s page rank and statistics.

Their content is often written at the expense of the brevity and simplicity required to keep visitors from clicking the back button out of frustration.

Who’s Right?

The reason behind the distinct web content factions is simple – web content as a discipline is roughly 5 years old with its claim staked by two disparate groups: those from the User Experience/Library Science/Web discipline and those from Marketing/Communications.

To be fair, both have borrowed and adopted some of the practices from the other to create web content that is not only easy to read, but also supportive of the business objectives or purpose of the website.

But for some reason the plain language camp is more vocal …more militant about the need for bulleted lists over verbose discourse. Perhaps the Marketing/Communications side is so used to being beaten up for haughty language and superfluous diction that they have come to ignore the purists.

After all, this debate is not a new one amongst writers. Journalists are cut and slash editors extraordinaire, while Advertising Copywriters can play with the nuance of language for hours at a time.

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.”

~ George Orwell, Politics and the English Language, 1946

I believe the answer lies in a careful balance between practicality and artistry. Where we acknowledge the humanity of the “user” by creating a fundamental connection through the power of the written word to evoke emotion.

In fact, the universal objective of most websites is to spurn action – click, download, comment, call. By engaging viscerally through the abstract beauty of language, the written word becomes more than a call to ACTION …but one that inspires REACTION.

Plain language advocates can espouse the F-Pattern, Fleisch-Kincaid Readability scores, and content scanning in response to the physiological and educational requirements of a reader but, in my opinion, hard scores will never trump the connection you can make with a reader through carefully crafted prose.

Constructing language to fit on a web page is left-brain. Deconstructing language to derive meaning for a website is not. Right-brain thinking drives perception and emotion – two critical elements websites must have to build customer relationships and make sales.

“Do not all charms fly at the mere touch of cold philosophy? There was an awful rainbow once in heaven: We know her woof, her texture; She is given in the dull catalogue of common things. Philosophy will clip an angel’s wings, Conquer all mysteries by rule and line, Empty to haunted air, and gnomed mine – unweave a rainbow…”

~ John Keats, Lamia, 1819

If Color and Flavour Names Affect Choice in consumers, why should web content writers focus merely on the steak without adding a little sizzle?

Bulleted-lists won’t entice me to stay at your resort, but a descriptive paragraph that causes me to imagine the feel of sand beneath my feet, the taste of pineapple on my lips, and the serenity of peace on earth away from the hectic bustle of life…. Sign me up!

Information Architect and User Experience professional, Jeff Parks, recently talked about the need to balance our data obsessed corporate culture with an equal amount of creativity, compassion, and understanding of the processes others value to bring back humanity in the digital age.

Being Human is NOT Quantifiable from Jeff Parks on Vimeo.

In his presentation, Being Human Is Not Quantifiable, he talks about how web professionals tend to connect with “users” first and “people” second. In doing so, we are in essence talking to people with the left side of our brain, creating an imbalance impervious to making eye-to-eye contact with the very people we want to engage with.

In the end, the style and tone of web content comes down to the purpose of your website. Less is more. However, less at the expense of creative expression can as much detract from a website’s purpose as it can bolster it.

Words are as expressive and descriptive as images, so depending on the topic it might just make sense to stretch the 150 word-count limit, leave in the first paragraph, and freely use descriptive nouns and adjectives even if it means losing a reader or two.

Otherwise, our society might as well revert back to the sole use of iconography to convey meaning …and our humanity.

In the interest of time (of which they have little), they invariably break the first cardinal rule of web content review as they bravely take on the company’s role of de facto editor:

“Thou Shalt Not Forward The First Draft Of Web Content To Staff, Friends And Family For Feedback And Comments”

In the business owner’s defense, their rationale is sound. After all, colleagues and internal staff know the business inside out and should be able to provide constructive criticism on the information presented, while non-industry friends and family can give honest feedback on whether or not they “liked” the writing itself.

The problem, in the end, is that each member of this hodgepodge review team brings his/her own bias to the editorial process making it more convoluted and less constructive than the business owner ever intended it to be.

De facto editorial teams typically:

- Extend the content phase of the web development process; and can,
- Skew the design and messaging off course entirely.

Here’s why:

All successful website projects must start by defining the main goal or purpose of the website. Simply having a website because “everyone else has one” doesn’t really qualify as a quantifiable objective against which you can measure results.

A website’s purpose may be to increase brand awareness, build customer relationships, provide information, or serve as an additional sales channel thus predominantly dictating web content requirements including choice of tone and style to “speak” to the identified target audience for whom the website is intended.

Nota Bene: Your website’s purpose drives your web content — and your web content drives everything else including the design and site navigation structure.

So, when a well-intentioned business owner shares the first draft of web content with a group of “editors” who were not involved in defining the website’s goal or messaging in the first place, the comments and feedback received are of limited value at this stage of the editorial process.

Reality Check:

- Staff often have a myopic view of the company as filtered through the lens of their own day-to-day jobs and experiences.

- Friends and family have varied experiences that can alter their perception of the content focusing in on style, tone, and grammar instead of key messaging and positioning.

- Staff, board members, friends and family are often not your target audience.

- Few are versed in the usability aspects of web content (text is scanned – not read; web pages aren’t sequential; SEO alters sentence structure and vocabulary choice; etc.)

- Fewer still recognize that writing for the web is different than writing for print (which, right away, negates the comments from a next door neighbour who happens to be a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, or a sister who writes children’s books in her spare time)

This is why, business owners who share the first draft of their web content with too many unqualified individuals (i.e. those who were not privy to the initial web strategy planning meetings) typically end up getting confused and being forced off course by trying to amalgamate all feedback into one cohesive content solution.

This leads to either additional revision cycles, or worse, unnecessary rewrites at the expense of a project’s budget, timeline …and ultimate goal.

Solution:

- Include all relevant staff and/or colleagues during initial website strategy meetings. These individuals will then form your editorial review team for the first draft of content. Team members should include all business partners (stakeholders/decision makers), as well as representatives from marketing, sales, admin and/or IT (if feasible/applicable).

- Include the web copywriter in all discussions pertaining to the web development project, especially those involving strategy, branding, and design.

- Wait until the 2nd or final draft before soliciting input from other colleagues, staff, board members, friends and family.

Websites are as much about creative expression as they are about functional information delivery. From the look and feel to the style and tone, it’s easy to get swayed by personal preference. By focusing on the website’s purpose and target audience, web content review becomes much more about “hitting the mark” with respect to positioning and messaging …than about shivers on the back of the neck subjectively-induced from reading well-written prose.

“What about Twitter? Is Twitter considered web content?”

It’s a good question.

Digitalword is a web content company, and Twitter is certainly a continuous channel of content (both good and bad), indexed in real time by Google’s search engine results, whose very definition is: “micro-blogging in 140 characters or less”.

Combine this with the fact that more and more conferences for professionals in conventional industries like accounting, financial planning, dentistry, interior design, and law are featuring presentations given by social media experts from my own industry evangelizing Twitter with “adopt or become obsolete” fervor that leaves conference participants thoroughly confused as to whether 140 characters will make or break their entire careers.

While the Twitter content question is a fair one to ask – the tone of apprehension, hesitation, nervousness and wonderment with which they approach the question is one best reserved for things of greater importance …like private counsel with the Dalai Lama, perhaps. (I hold those in my industry accountable for making Twitter sound more complicated than it needs to be and, really, more important than it should be for many.)

Reality Check:

Twitter is a great way to:

- build relationships
- share knowledge with like-minded professionals
- expand networks
- increase your circle of influence
- provide online customer service

Twitter is not a great way to:

- provide customer service if your customers aren’t on Twitter
- provide customer service if you deal with sensitive or confidential information (while a well-intentioned @ reply to “bunnyslippermom” might seem covert enough to get around your corporate privacy policy, Twitter is still very much in the public domain)
- build relationships if your target audience isn’t on Twitter
- build your personal or corporate brand if you aren’t going to put the time in to Tweet regularly

Note: Twitter will NOT make you a better dentist, lawyer, or accountant, but it can grow your client base (if that’s something you want/need to do) and it can be a great source of information (although for many of the more conventional industries, newsletters and conferences are still the preferred way to disseminate critical content).

When I founded Digitalword in 2005, it was based on the principal that all websites need professionally written web content in order to be successful. Fast forward to 2010 and I am now forced to re-evaluate the definition of “web content” with each client meeting I have:

“So, do you write scripts for online video?” – not yet. “Do you write content for blogs?” – let’s talk. “Can you research and write content for Twitter?” – no.

Here’s why.

Twitter isn’t really micro-blogging. The best comparison I have for clients is that Twitter is the 21st Century equivalent to the early 20th Century telephone party line. Twitter allows you to listen in on countless conversations for snippets of information that may or may not be relevant to you. Twitter allows you to hold conversations in soundbite format (Tweets) with other Tweeps (Twitter users) for all to hear and contribute to. And, Twitter lets you broadcast your own musings, rants, perceptions, and experiences in touret-like fashion for catharsis …or, if you’re lucky, validation.

As such, Twitter is a written, verbal conversation typed out in 140 characters like a public text message …making the content more about YOU, the individual, than about simply the words and messaging on the page. In order for Twitter to be effective, the conversation needs to be authentic, transparent, and …as juicy as the party line fodder devoured by the gossip-mongers of days past.

Twitter becomes your “voice” for you, and you alone, to leverage in the Twittersphere. Like it or not, your voice cannot be outsourced.

Companies! Not departments comprised of a team of experts. Not individual team members working with other experts towards the greater goal of helping clients achieve online success. No, companies!

My argument here isn’t about whether an entire company should be founded on the basis of one particular discipline sub-set within the industry. After all, Digitalword is a business founded entirely on web content and web content strategy. My concern, rather, is the manner in which “experts” abound in this industry without so much as a need to qualify their status with credentials, past experiences, or even a roster of satisfied clients.

Caveat emptor

While self-proclamation runs rampant, I blame clients who are easily swayed by loft-offices and martini parties (during the dot-com boom) and voluminous Tweeting and slick custom Fan pages (during today’s current social media trend). In the past, “expertise” was a moving target for early adopters of the Web. Today, with at least a decade of experience behind them, any individual who is working in the industry should at least have a portfolio of credible work to their name. With no over-arching governing body to regulate the sanctity of title, there is nothing stopping a bored professional from another discipline from waking up one day and staking claim as an expert in a particular field online.

In Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan) and Julien Smith’s (@julien) bestseller, “Trust Agents”, they explain how companies and individuals can leverage social media to build business. While I recommend this book to all of my clients, from an industry perspective, I find it interesting that the first few anecdotes are of infamous scoundrels and rogues in recent history who duped people just by positioning themselves in the right place at the right time so that they could gain trust and build relationships with influencers around them.

Online, there are no borders. Buyers must beware that the loudest person on Twitter may not be the expert s/he claims to be. It is quite easy for one to postulate in 140 characters without any real life experience or expertise …can the whole of a person really be understood online without seeing them and their beliefs/actions at work?

“A Little Less Conversation, A Little More Action”

Without bricks and mortar, companies and people can build and promote any persona they want. How can you trust what/whom you perceive to “know” is really real?

I began this post by mentioning that the web industry is over a decade old. 2010 signifies the dawn of a new age for those in my profession: One based on the accountability traditional businesses have had to respect for decades prior to ours. The Web industry can no longer be upheld for something new and ephemeral. We’re still working out the growing pains …but like it or not, the industry has come into its own and needs to recognize that business is not built on the whims of the latest and greatest persona or app.

Protect Yourself! Do you really know who you’re doing business with?

Are you thinking about working with a web development company or aligning yourself with an expert in the field? Just like any new relationship, consider the following first:

- Does this person have any credentials that support their expertise? (For the record, this is not always easy in our industry and certainly should not form the basis for rejection alone …see next point)
- Does this person have a list of clients and experience in projects relating to their professed area of expertise?
- When did they complete their last project?
- How many clients have referred other clients to the individual/company?
- How many clients are repeat customers?
- Is the individual active or known within their community of practice?
- Is the individual active or known within their local community?
- Can the individual provide references within their own community or client listing that supports the vision/expertise touted online?
- Is the company/individual established and where do they expect their business to be in 5 years?
- Anybody can read a book and spout advice. What has this company/person done to provide value to a client and what were the results?

Great ideas and online personality does not mean an individual or company is capable of doing the work necessary for a job well done. With most web projects starting with an initial investment comparable to buying a small car, it is absolutely critical you know where your money is going.

To paraphrase Shakespeare’s Macbeth:

[Web Experts] are but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

The word “ritual” however holds its meaning in religious observation. A tradition passed down from generation to generation. True rituals are bigger than ourselves and connect us with our past and our past’s past.

A few years ago, I had the pleasure of visiting Stonehenge in person. While the origin of this famous historic site is often debated, it is arguably a significant testament to the power of ritual. Archeologists speculate its construction evolved over several phases spanning 1500 years.

1500 years!

If an average lifespan in 8000 BC was 50 years – that means the ritual of Stonehenge belonged to 30 generations of people. A ritual so much larger than any one moment in time.

While so many of us have adopted social media strategies in business to connect with our online communities every instant of every day, are we cheating ourselves out of the bigger picture of creating something bigger than ourselves?

My wish for you this holiday season is that you find peace away from your iPhone, Blackberry, Twitter, Facebook… That you spend time celebrating family traditions and rituals that bring value far greater than the much sought after “Social Media ROI”.

And that you then take time to reflect on how you might incorporate social media into a longer lasting endeavour than a fleeting status update.

These people have:

* Epic Change
* PS22 Chorus

The power in this is where true wealth lies. Peace!

How did a recently graduated English Literature major with no prior experience in sales do it? Here are the top 3 things I learned that apply to online business today:

Publish Information People Can Use …and Understand!

Have you ever read the fine print of most financial documents? To the average reader, the acronyms and third person narrative are dry, intimidating, and confusing. One of the first things I did when I started in my position fresh out university was to leverage my inherent ability to write as a way of connecting with my target market.

Through newsletters that ignored industry jargon, focused on plain language, and provided real-life examples of how our company’s products/services could be used, I not only built respect and credibility for my knowledge …but was able to initiate relationships with others who found value in what I was writing about.

Online Business Tip #1: Craft your web content around your target audience. Provide valuable information in a way that connects and engages, using plain language …not industry-speak!

Relationship Building Doesn’t Stop At The Handshake

In sales, the best source of leads is your natural market – friends, family, colleagues. One of the challenges I faced was that I was working in a market that was entirely new to me. I moved to the city for the job. This meant that each and every person I met had to be treated as a potential client …and the relationships I needed to establish had to extend long past the initial handshake.

How did I do this? By listening to people and finding out what was important to them in their careers, their business and their lives. I paid attention to spouses names, their children’s interests and other aspects of their lifestyle that they valued. I then solidified the relationships I built by seeking out ways to genuinely help people in areas that mattered to them. The key here is “genuine” – - after all, taking a bona fide interest in someone else is very different than serving your own interests by being fake.

Online Business Tip #2: Relationships aren’t built by “accepting” LinkedIn or Facebook invitations alone. Foster relationships through conversations on Twitter, send email links to blog posts, videos of interest, and “share this”. Whenever possible, make sure to connect face-to-face offline. Above all else: be yourself, be transparent and be genuine!

Never Sell On Price

In the insurance business, you never make just one sale. Upon policy renewal, you are responsible for reselling the insurance vehicle despite any rate changes to the premiums. That’s why selling on price alone was always a bad approach to building business.

This unique set of circumstances forced me to focus on educating clients on the benefits of the product and company over its selling features. Most insurance products have similar attributes, so highlighting intangible elements not related to the product itself was a way to differentiate ourselves from the competition and stand out in the client’s mind. Things like: local service, free seminars, and even just the positive aspect of doing business with me and my colleagues. By educating clients on both the benefits and features of the policy, it made reselling at the time of renewal that much easier. Price increases can be explained by external factors, visceral reactions to price increases are much harder to overcome when the client was never sold on the value of the product in the first place.

Online Business Tip #3: A cheaper price is always just a click away! Focus on intangibles like creating a positive online experience by organizing content in a way that makes sense for your target audience, not your organization. Make sure your web content is written in a way that is approachable, readable, and provides information that your current competition may not be offering. Provide value-added services like mobile and customizable content. And think of creative ways to both highlight and add value to your products/services online and off!

In my experiences, the Herb Tarlek approach to sales never worked. My success was largely defined by the relationships I built with other people …both clients and fellow team members.

Successful websites recognize the value in connecting with other people and facilitate this connection in ways that are meaningful and engaging to a specific target audience. Web stats alone can’t reflect this value …but your bottom line results over the long term will!

Web content in 2009 seems to have weathered the storm of the economic downturn and, in fact, is poised to only increase in popularity in 2010. A comparatively inexpensive investment relative to the overall cost of developing or redeveloping a company website, organizations are slowly starting to recognize the inherent value of web content as a business asset.

After all, a recession-proof strategy for most websites typically includes one which increases traffic, yields higher conversions, builds stronger relationships and creates a more positive experience online – all direct functions of a successful web content strategy and web content writing.

However, just because the virtues of web content are inherent for “fixing” many of the problems associated with websites today does not mean that content alone is a blanket solution for every aspect of the business.

Sure, keywords can drive traffic, messaging can position product, and calls to action can encourage sales – but it’s ultimately the core offline business decisions that will have the greatest influence on success. It’s easy to get caught up in the expectation of what a website can do rather than what it can realistically deliver.

I have had a number of clients with a local client base reach the saturation point for what their SEO can accomplish. It stands to reason that once all of your existing customers are referencing your web content, and the number of people who need your services out of a base population are already connecting with your site through search engines and directory listings – - you may not be able to tap any further into the lead generation pool.

When this happens, it’s time to get back to the basics of Business 101: Are you charging more than what the current market will bear? Are there ways to add value to your products/services? What online tools or content can be included that might increase customer service, or provide information above and beyond what the competition delivers?

There’s no doubt about it, in this age of information the organizations who fail to recognize the value of web content are those who are failing to capitalize on one of their company’s biggest assets. However, companies who also over-value content as a solution to all of their business problems risk missing opportunities to generate sales/leads/relationships in novel ways both on and offline. As with everything in life – balance is key.

Web content strategies can learn a lot from television advertising. You see, when I talk about web content to clients, I don’t just mean the words on the web page. I mean defining and communicating key messages using the best possible tools available to do just that.

Websites used to only be about branding and messaging – hence, the commonly used online brochure analogy. However, with embedded video and integrated social media applications and campaigns, web content has to be about supporting the purpose of the website in a way that makes it more memorable than brand positioning and recall alone.

This is one of the reasons I advocate clients think about their website’s content before the design. One is the driver for the other. This is also why I believe tools such as wireframes, when done properly, can serve to not only facilitate discussions about what messages need to be communicated on each and every page of the website …but how.

Gerry McGovern talks about the “Content-Attention Paradox” in his book “Killer Web Content”. The premise is quite simple and governs (no pun intended) the practices of professional web content writers everywhere – the amount of written text on a web page is inversely proportional to the attention span of your readers.

Quite simply, the greater the number of words on a web page, the less reading people will do – after 150 words, you’ve probably already lost 80% of your audience.

So, how do you communicate your message in 150 words or less? Take a cue from time constrained 15-30 second television commercials. If a picture is worth 1000 words – adding video or images to your website gives you upwards of 1,150 words to work with. For example:

The message can be the focal point with images and video as supporting players like in the following ad from Wiserhood:

Or the images or video can be the focus of the message with the content merely serving to reinforce or clarify the purpose, like in this ad for Grand Marnier:

The most effective web content strategy approach, therefore, is the one that best articulates the message you’re trying to convey, in a way that engages your target audience, in a manner that supports the primary purpose of your website.

That’s why, when a recent client came to me and asked for a quote for web content writing for a brand new website, I steered them back to the web content strategy phase. The client, a prominent interior design firm, was better served by a website whose message – internationally-renowned, outside-of-the box, creative solution provider – was delivered in pictures, rather than words. Very rarely do I promote web design before web content writing …in this case, it was a no-brainer.

As a profession, web content strategists need to adjust their way of thinking to extend the “Content-Attention Paradox” and provide greater value to clients and target audiences alike, by:

- Implementing a social media strategy that encourages participatory content creation and proliferation – actively (comments on blogs etc) or virally (Share This!);

- Partnering with User Experience professionals whose talents for communicating visually (i.e. infographics) extend beyond the linear parameters of the written word; or

- Expanding our own way of thinking by reading, recognizing and adopting visual communication techniques like those featured in Dan Roam’s book “Back of the Napkin”

While Content is still King …Context can be shaped without adding more blah, blah to a web page!

February, for me, is my favourite time of year because the Super Bowl spawns a whole new batch of creative advertising campaigns. The Super Bowl has a lot riding on it …and for marketers it’s not about which team wins or loses. One 15-30 second commercial has to communicate, engage, leave an impression, and hopefully be something worth sharing long after the winning field goal has been kicked.

Web content isn’t far off from these objectives as well. Whether it’s a 30 second spot or 150 words or less, it has just as much riding on it. Because in the end, it always comes down to numbers …and ROI is the most important one of all.

Is there a project or initiative that may be in the planning stages but not ready to post on the website? Are you hoping to be able to incorporate how-to videos or podcasts on the site in the near future?

Many people get caught up in the design of the website without really thinking about the overall website strategy. At Digitalword, we encourage all clients to do their due diligence prior to even starting the web design phase. A pre-design approach can be as intensive as interviewing key company stakeholders and end-clients to find out what content, tasks, and engagement strategies should be accounted for when creating the website structure; or, for simpler websites, researching competitors’ websites for an idea of positioning and messaging.

This exploratory phase can reveal a lot about how a company sees itself vs. how others perceive it, and can help uncover inconsistencies in actual business operations vs. those which might be communicated online.

During a recent exploratory phase, one of our clients revealed that they no longer considered two of their service offerings as separate and distinct and were, over the next year, moving to consolidate both under one umbrella.

However, meetings with key stakeholders who weren’t “in the know” about this new structure revealed that they still regarded each as being a separate brand. This potential issue needed to be resolved offline before determining how to communicate and structure the website online. There’s a big difference – both in design and content requirements – between only one parent level navigation item …and two!

Had we not asked questions about the future direction of the company and its initiatives, the website would have launched based on “today’s” requirements outlined by those who were in charge of the website, but not in charge of the strategic direction for the organization. This very common scenario would have set them up for the very real potential of an annual redesign. Ironically, a reactionary web strategy that the client had already been using (rather unsuccessfully) for the past five years!

So while it may seem obvious that a website should start with an overall strategy to define its purpose and content requirements, most companies still start with the design and work backwards. Creating a website strategy blueprint using information architecture best practices in site mapping and wireframing can save you time and money in the long run. After all, it’s a lot easier to discuss a website “on paper” with the key members of your organization than it is to wait until it has been designed and coded only to discover missing or erroneous information.

A website strategy blueprint is not only critical to the design and content direction of the website …but serves as an essential springboard for discussion with the key stakeholders and decisions makers of your organization.

There is, in fact, a fourth kind of web content that rarely gets talked about however because it isn’t sexy or creative. Organizations consistently misunderstand the greater implications of what they erroneously feel are just “bits of text that need to be there but don’t require much thought in writing”. Sadly, nothing could be further from the truth!

What I’m talking about is what I call “Functional Content”. The “Function” actually refers to both the on and offline implications of this kind of content.

1. Functional Content provides context to the functionality of a website. For example:

- “Click here to download a PDF”
- “Click here to access Search”
- “Click here to email our customer service department for a copy of our latest annual report.”

Functional content in this regard is about facilitating User Experience online. In many instances it is part in parcel of task-based content (encouraging your target audience to “do” something; to interact with your website), but in this case the task is more of a business-centered policy decision than a marketing one.

What happens after the Click Here?

Do you need more staff to respond to email requests? Where will electronic copies of requested documents reside and who is responsible for keeping these up to date? How will data be gathered and what privacy policy needs to be implemented to secure this data?

That’s a lot to think about from an organizational perspective when it comes to two small words!

2. Functional Content communicates information pertaining to the over-arching organizational policies of the company.

- “Privacy Policy”
- “Terms of Use”
- “Proactive Disclosure”

In this case, Functional Content is both a business decision and a legal one. As a web content writer, I have been asked on several occasions to write the content for these documents, however I always refer clients to their own legal department or lawyer. Web copywriters or content writers can help position your message and communicate in plain language, but they are not qualified to draft legal documents. Functional content in this case should always be left to the professionals whose words hold weight in a court of law.

The importance of Functional Content really can’t go unnoticed if a company wants to ensure both the functionality and credibility of their website. While it may seem like just a small sentence here or there or a tertiary document linked from the footer of a page, its business implications are far greater than any of the marketing language you’ve invested in. In essence, Functional Content can not only make or break your website — but potentially your business too!