For optimum website content, you need to achieve a very fine balance between copy and images. This is especially important as web content must be as concise as possible and the temptation to replace words with images can be remarkably strong.

Before giving in to this, you need to consider the drawbacks of losing web copy. You can’t have ‘key pictures’ as you would key words. Images are not picked up by search engines in the same way (although you can add an ‘alt’ tag to tell the search engines what the image is about). This instantly cuts down on your visibility to vital marketing outlets.

If you are worried that your site will appear text-heavy then keep paragraphs short, with plenty of white space in-between. This makes for more memorable writing, allowing your key messages to jump out at the reader.

When selecting images make sure they have an obvious relevance and are not open to misinterpretation. The relationship between words and images is crucial and should amplify meaning rather than confuse it. An excellent but apocryphal example of how not to choose an image comes from a baby food company, said to have put a picture of a baby and no text on their tins, only to see their sales drop in Africa as people assumed they were selling canned babies.

However, when used correctly images can add visual interest to your web content, emphasising key messages of the copy to create a more memorable experience for potential clients.

The internet has now become one of the first ports of call for customers looking to learn more about a business. Therefore, as with any good marketing material, your website copy should make a strong first impression and be aimed at driving enquiries and sales.

As Walt Disney once said, “always leave them wanting more”. Your website copy should be concise and provide enough information to hook your audience. Many companies make the mistake of attempting to answer every possible question on their pages, which can lead to text-heavy clunky sites.

So you’ve got to be focused. Once you have your website structure, make a list of key points for each page. The list should only be 3 or 4 items long. Stick to this list and ensure that pages don’t openly duplicate text across the site. You’ll also need to bear in mind your keywords and ensure these are scattered throughout with the necessary frequency to attract search engines.

As with your blog content, you will need to decide on your tone. This will be largely dictated by your corporate identity and demographic.

Regardless of your demographic, you should be aiming to galvanize them into finding out more. Calls to action are a frequent, and crucial, part of any website design. Make it very clear what you want the user to do: if you’re an ecommerce retailer you’ll need lots of prominent ‘Buy Now’ buttons. If you sell professional services and you want the website to act as a lead generator, you’ll need to make every effort to capture your visitors’ ID, via contact forms, newsletter sign-up boxes, or free information products in exchange for contact details. The psychology of many web users is to ‘look and not touch’. Converting your traffic to sales has to be the primary aim of your web content, so make sure you give you visitors clear incentives to leave their contact details with you.

One of the best ways to get your company name out there in cyberspace is to publish articles – both on your own blog and on other people’s. Ask other bloggers if they will publish your article along with a link back to your site – as long as what you’re writing about is relevant to them, and the nature of your business is not in direct competition with theirs, most bloggers will agree to let you do this – after all, they get some free web content out of it.

There are a number of things you need to consider when it comes to blog writing. First, you need to pitch your idea to the blog on which you want to publish an article. It’s a good strategy to pitch the idea before writing the article itself as a) you’ll find out straightaway if your proposed article isn’t of interest and b) it’s a good opportunity to get some guidance about how to shape your article.

When a blogger has given you the green light to write an article for their website, make sure you keep the readers of the blog in mind at all times. This will help you to ensure that both the content and style are appropriate for the people who are going to read the blog.

You also need to keep the blog owner in mind. What are their objectives? They are likely to want website content that’s optimised with particular keywords. Earn extra brownie points by finding out what these keywords are and working them into your article. If your writing helps the blog attract traffic from the search engines you will almost certainly be invited back to write for it again!

Finally, help the blog owner out by publicising the article you’ve just written. Link to it from your website and your social networking pages on Twitter and Facebook. Go back to the blog post from time to time in order to respond to any comments that readers have left. Keep the dialogue going as long as possible for everyone’s benefit.