Search engine optimisation demands using keywords effectively in your copy to help search engines rank your website. But that shouldn't be at the cost of good writing.
Writing for the web does demand different skills. Homepages need to be brief, easily navigational and help the user find what they need in a click or two. But that doesn't mean you can't also include high quality copy, such as features, in-depth background or research. Links that lead users to this information in fact keeps them coming back to your site. Let's say you're a coffee supplier. It may be that they first visit your site because you're selling coffee at a bargain price. But the reason they keep returning is because your website successfully carves your place in the coffee industry as a leading and trustworthy brand – you become known for your authoritative news, informative reports and entertaining features. For those who love coffee, you become their favourite website.
Why feature writing?
In fact, if you want to really get under the skin of your target audience, feature writing is a good skill to have. Feature writing, unlike branding or advertising, can be a natural way to promote your product. As well as being something you can post on your site, features are an opportunity for publicity. You can pitch features to publications and newspapers and, if printed, build valuable links to their websites.
Brainstorm
If for example then, your company supplies coffee – behind that fact could be a wealth of feature stories your PR department could write or pitch. Your website has to convince users that you are the coffee expert, with accessible information and expert people ready to supply fascinating quotes. If you have a PR department, pitching feature ideas to the nationals and magazines is one way of ensuring your brand gains reputation. Good feature writing is authentic – it isn't paid for advertorials. You start with an idea that is integral to what you do and you find the human interest angle. You put forward representatives from your company for interview, and your product is promoted inadvertently.
The creative edge
For example, if you work in the PR department of a coffee supplier, you need to start thinking creatively. What does a coffee aficionado want to know about coffee? How can the subject be shaped to appeal to targeted markets? Ideas could include:
- A pitch to an ethical or green magazine that looks to promote fair-trade practises. You could do an in-depth colour piece on the African, Indian or Asian coffee bean growers and how their lives are affected by the coffee trade. Focusing on one family can help put the human angle to a major economic issue, i.e. fair-trade, helping to promote your coffee as ethical.
- A pitch to a travel magazine about the best coffee in the world – a feature could look at where you can buy the best coffee, and why it's the best. How coffee underlies different cultures – from the philosophers in Paris to the stylish chic Italians.
- Coffee has subtle flavours, like wine. Find a food and drink magazine and propose a feature that looks at the growing trend of coffee tasting – how, like wine, coffee is becoming a matter of taste, offer a ‘how to' guide to match coffees with moods or occasions.
Some stories will leap off the page; others will demand more lateral thinking. Scouring the national news is one way of finding feature ideas. If there's a news story for example on the health benefits of coffee that could offer a fantastic peg to pitch a feature to a health magazine. If news is sparse, you can set up a survey to find out the nation's favourite drink for example and use that as a peg to hang your feature.
Finding ideas that fit in with your product can be a challenge. Incorporating your product into the feature without looking like a cheap product placement exercise takes skill. To do both, you need to have a talent for features and an inherent curiosity and enthusiasm for the world around us, as well as a journalistic nose for a good story.
Check out Part Two to our guide on the art of feature writing to find out the secrets of great features.