Code is the DNA, the building blocks which form the skeleton and mould the body; design perfects the shape, size and colour, words form the soul and the personality – of a website.
Just like a three-legged stool, a website can only do its job if code, design and words work together. An obvious equation now, but it wasn’t always like that. For too many years words were seen as merely functional, telling web surfers what the gurus thought people needed to know.
Over the past 18 years, since the genesis of the World Wide Web, design and code was carefully, beautifully crafted, tooled, sanded and varnished, but content often looked as if it had been roughly hewn and almost jammed into a slot. Websites became more and more interactive, clever and sexy, needing to, wanting to be seen by their target market. There are billions of webpages in the world and billions of users, but how do you get those users to fall in love with your site, your brand, your product?
Market – a very loose word for those billions of actual people logged onto the WWW. But people got bored very quickly, and they now nimbly click from one site to the next.
Grabbing attention
And this is where people like me, and my colleagues in Flow Communications’ writing studio, come in. People who weave compelling and accurate stories, awakening the imagination and grabbing attention. For the past 20 years, while developers and designers were honing their skills, crafting the legs for the bar stool, we writers were playing on the fringes, not sure how, where, or if we would fit into the digital age. One fact stared us in the face: people were no longer interested in reading our ink-printed stories.
For centuries my kind and I have depended on paper and ink to write the truth, to record history, create flights of fancy, keep people informed and yes, even to change lives. And the Internet gods noticed this “soft skill”. They also saw that their “market”, the people they were selling their brands to, needed more than just a sexy website. Websites needed soul, a spark, a lure, and scoff if you will, a Pied Piper. Storytellers were the obvious next step.
We have an uncanny knack, you see, a gift, if you will. We can conjure up stories, connect the seemingly unconnected, draw readers in and convince them why the brand, the service, the items for sale matter.
Businesses know that the Internet can unlock many opportunities, and having a presence on the web is all-important. That is true, without a doubt; but what is also true is that if your website is not clear, if web surfers cannot see the reason for its existence, then the website becomes meaningless.
Everyone has a story, and people want to read stories, they want to have a hand in lifting up the underdog, they want to get warm, fuzzy feelings when they buy an item, knowing they are buying more than just a muffin. But you can only get that feeling when you know the story of the fuzzy muffin. (Yes, the fuzzy muffin is made up, but there are many fuzzy muffins out there, their stories just waiting to be told. Continue reading, it will make sense.)
Yawn – so 2005
Necia Parker sells muffins. Two years ago she launched her website, and the design and colours were meticulously chosen to “stand out”. The website, remember, is one of billions out there: it tells potential customers where they can buy her sweet and savoury muffins, the different sizes, that it can be ordered online; delivered door-to-door, the history of the once-humble muffin, and a few paragraphs about Parker.
That’s not just a muffin
But, what makes her muffins any more special than those I can get at the corner bakery or at a supermarket? Why would anyone spend time on Parker’s website? How will they find her website?
Search engine optimisation (SEO) enters the stage. I’m a content person, remember, and this is where writing that touches your soul and yes, where word-magic comes in. Us old hacks can sniff out more than just the Madagascan vanilla muffins.
What the website does not tell you is that for eight years Parker, 45, mixed, baked and sold muffins from her house in Welcome Estate, Athlone. The muffin business supplemented the salary she earned as a legal secretary. A single parent, Parker was able to pay for her three children to go to university.
Her business grew, she employed staff, bought premises, devised new flavours and combined unusual ingredients to create new taste sensations (not bad for a Capetonian raised to only ever use vanilla essence, cocoa powder and maybe a squeeze of lemon in the batter).
Parker is a hero in her community, not only because her soft muffins are deliciously addictive, but more importantly, because her business strategy is based on empowering people. Her delivery man has a job for the first time in a decade. Her kitchen supervisor’s job is a second chance for this school drop-out, who was abused by her step-father, leaving her scarred and broken. Parker has given her a purpose.
Parker sends her staff, including the 12 women who mix, bake, decorate and package the muffins, on cake-decorating and business courses. She has a dream that they will all one day have their own enterprises, and employ more people.
But her growing business could stagnate or implode if the Internet does not deliver the growth in sales she desires. Cupcakes, whoopie cakes and decadent chocolate brownies are new lines under development, and she’s toying with the idea of making her grandma’s special malva pudding. She uses organic ingredients, the chocolate is Fair Trade, the packaging compostable. Ten percent of her profit goes to youth programmes.
Telling these stories is where the word-magicians step in. We dig around to find the stories, write the fuzzy, soul-warming copy, and help to grab attention. So now Parker’s business is much more than muffins, and her customers know that it’s about uplifting people as much as it is about turning a profit. Thanks in large measure to the words on her website, as carefully crafted as her confections, her enterprise stands out from the others.