Writing for your company website isn’t as simple as loading up a 500-word slab of text full of SEO keywords to win over the elusive Google algorithm.
Any content created with this in mind will be functional at best or robotic at worst. If your aim is to make business conversions from your visitors, your content needs to be captivating and absorbing. It needs to be a good read. But what do we mean by that?
How can we define ‘a good read’?
You could look through the seemingly unrelated prism of television drama. You know you’re watching a great piece of television when you’re thoroughly drawn into the narrative and don’t notice time passing. The methods used to make this happen are just as valid for content creators. As I will demonstrate:
The classic or period drama:
A good period piece has amazing costumes, authentic-looking props and not a shred of the modern day in its street scenes or in its dialogue.
To have any chance of succeeding at period drama, the production team has to have impeccable research skills and pay an astounding level of attention to detail.
When writing content, you skip this initial part of the process at your peril. All good writing starts and ends with excellent research based on relevant and authoritative sources.
Period example: Downton Abbey let the side down recently during a cast photoshoot where a plastic water bottle appeared on an Edwardian mantelpiece (see above).
The factual/biopic:
Much like the period drama, factual drama or biopics rely on fanatical attention to detail to be effective. But source material creates the difference: is it objective or subjective about its central subject?
Dramatising one person’s autobiography would offer a very different outcome to a drama based on a book or books about them by someone else. Writers must be similarly aware of their source material and any perceived bias that may come from it and how it is presented. Who is the audience? If you think nuances don’t always matter, you’d be wrong.
Biopic example: Ray, which charted the life of musician Ray Charles, won an Oscar for its lead actor, Jamie Foxx. They got it right.
The procedural drama:
Procedural dramas (set within workplaces like hospitals or police stations) are also driven by research and detail. More often than not these shows have the assistance of expert advisers, from medical advisers on Holby City to agricultural expertise that feeds into Radio 4’s rural soap The Archers.
Expert sources give a writer’s work greater credence, but can also lead to differences of opinion – a storyline might sound amazing, but in the context of the show in question, is it credible?
The same principle applies in content creation: does a sentence work well enough written a certain way, or by changing it do you risk altering vital meaning? Such discussions are part of the work of content editorial staff when consulting with their clients.
Procedural example: ITV’s London’s Burning, following the lives of Blue Watch at Blackwall Fire Station, ran for 14 years until 2002. The realistic portrayal of a character being buried alive in a building in season 4 won it a record audience of 18.86 million viewers.
The soap opera:
For all their faults, soaps have mass appeal and longevity – the very things businesses covet most of all from their customer base. Each soap has its familiar setting and regular characters that the audience has come to expect.
Likewise with content creation, you need to set out with a strong identifiable brand before consumers develop affection for it. Success won’t come overnight. Related content cannot therefore go off-message – it should remain faithful to its parent brand’s language and style, be aimed at the correct demographic, and above all remain consistent over time.
Soap example: Coronation Street, on British TV screens since 1960, is still based in a tiny northern cobbled street. Though Manchester has been much reinvented since Corrie pioneered the long-running slice-of-life drama, the format is too precious to completely alter.
The comedy drama
Good comedy always appears effortless. Much effort goes into that effortlessness. Comedy writers spend a huge amount of their time playing with words, writing and rewriting until they have the essence of a punchline just right.
If it’s dialogue they’re writing, they will have listened hard to the speech patterns of their characters. Good humourous writing is not easy. That’s not to say content must always be funny but if you intend it to be, you’d better make sure the joke works. This means working hard to achieve an appropriate pace, not arriving at the punch to quickly or too slowly. Or the worst outcome, missing it entirely.
Comedy example: Cancer, drug dealing, family money worries. Heavy themes call for humourous treatment in the multi-award winning US show Breaking Bad – this year it entered the Guinness World Records as the highest-rated TV show of all time.
