What is the right tone for your website text?

To what extent is writing website text different from personal communication? In personal communication, conveying a message effectively is determined by more than 90% non-verbal cues. So, if we have to limit ourselves to text only, conveying a message effectively is naturally more challenging. Besides using images (photography), we can still do quite a bit with text. We can choose a certain “tone.” For example, a more formal tone or a more casual one. But how do you know which one to use? In this piece, we discuss the importance of a clearly chosen tone in website text and the steps to determine it.

In practice, the tone of communication from our clients is largely reflected in the positioning we have developed together. We have made choices with the client, for example, do we address the customer with “you” (formal) or “you” (informal). This may seem trivial but often turns out to be a hot topic. Do we want to be on equal footing with the customer? Do we communicate from our company’s perspective or from the customer’s? The tone we choose is decisive in this. First, we go through the reasons, then the steps to arrive at a consistent tone for all your website texts.

Writing Website Text: The Importance of Tone

Recognition – A recognizable tone and style ensure that people feel comfortable with your content, making it easier to read and share.
Understanding – You want people to take a certain action after reading your content; tone gives the reader a feeling about the direction you want them to take. An authoritative tone, for example, suits a lawyer more than a charity.
Branding – Your tone is part of your brand. Think of the commercials from C1000 or the State Lottery.
Personality – The tone gives your content personality and makes it distinctive. The wrong tone can make an engaging piece unreadable or turn a dull production process into a technological marvel.
Consistency – It is rare that one person handles all communication for a company. A clearly defined tone ensures that everyone speaking on behalf of your organization does so in the same style, supporting all the reasons above.

Important questions for choosing a tone for your website text(s):

• Who is my audience actually?
• How do we want to come across?
• How do we view our own organization?

Steps to Determine a Tone for Your Website Text

Step 1 – Briefly describe the personality of the ‘writer’/author
Step 2 – How do people relate to your brand or organization and what feeling do they have about it?
Step 3 – Find a number of adjectives that fit the outcome of the first two steps. For example; formal, professional but casual, young, old, learned, plain, and so on.
Step 4 – How does this relate to the brand or organization?
Step 5 – Do you use formal or informal “you”? Youthful language or more academic? How much jargon do you use?
Step 6 – Write a 300-word story in this tone. Tell about the brand/organization and tell about the reader. This way, you create a story in which you already use the most common words and phrases and can use it as a reference in the future.

By now, you should have a pretty good idea of the tone that fits your writing, brand, or organization. By reflecting on this beforehand, you avoid double work and make editing text from the organization (or your own texts) much easier. Besides, it’s actually a pretty fun exercise because the more this character (the tone) takes shape in your mind, the easier it becomes to come up with content that fits this character. And we all want to write new content easily!

In the main article of In practice: writing website text, you will find the other topics we have already covered. Next week, we will write about how good website text contributes to your search engine visibility (SEO). If you want to talk further with us after reading this piece, we would love to hear from you.