Engineering Copywriter Blog

Building an engineering website with relevant content does not automatically guarantee online success for your business. However, your website copy contributes a lot more than you might think.

A website’s copy is the core text that guides readers through your website and informs them of what they need to know. It is the text on all of your website’s main pages including the home page, about page, and products/services pages. It shows how your brand’s message is communicated, how it is delivered, and how you expect that message to be perceived by your target audience.

Effective website copy engages visitors, provides information, converts readers into customers, and expands your reach. Your web copy is the first thing that visitors will notice. So how can you create effective copy for your engineering website? Here are some of the things that you need to remember.

1. Be specific and succinct

When creating your engineering website copy, remember that engineers like efficiency. Your web copy should have short, direct phrases and minimal use of adjectives. Most engineers are looking for quick information so you want it to be simple and accessible. Rambling text with lengthy introductions can be uninteresting for anyone, but especially so for an engineer. If you don’t grab their attention in the first few seconds after clicking on your website, they will likely be off to the next one.

When arranging your content, relevant facts or updated statistics that demonstrate your point should show up early on the page.

2. Appeal to the heart through the head

While most successful marketing strategies appeal to emotions, engineering copy might not necessarily take this angle. Engineers are accustomed to carefully weighing facts and valuing data over emotion. Indeed, you can view the average engineering mindset as having the emotional need to make the most logical and technically sound decision possible. Your web copy should reflect this.

Your engineering website copy needs to present facts in a clear way that will give its readers solid information. Engineers tend to trust information from another engineer or scientist – people for whom data is a native language. You need to speak their language by using the type of technical jargon most familiar to them. It can give the impression that you are an engineer, too, and that you understand their needs. As a rule of thumb, only define and use technical terms that are specific to your product or service or are related to an emerging technology that’s not yet mainstream.

3. Highlight the features as well as the benefits

As a marketer, you already know to emphasize benefits and let consumers know what’s in it for them. While this is also applicable to engineers, presenting product data should be approached differently. Engineers need to know whether the product meets their technical specifications and if it is compatible with their existing equipment, so don’t overlook the features and the data.

If your product provides benefits that are not common to those sold by competitors, then highlighting these benefits is a must to help you stand out.

4. Include statistics, quotes and original data

Adding data and statistics to your engineering website copy can improve a reader’s opinion of your business. However, this also requires that you also provide sufficient evidence to support it. The inclusion of statistics often strengthens the points you make in your content and helps increase your authority. Instead of making broad statements, you can quantify your claims with figures that appeal more to your engineering readers.

Overdoing it, however, can have a detrimental effect on your brand as a whole. Over-reliance on third-party data, no matter how high in authority, suggests that your brand is unable or reluctant to make original content. You don’t want your website copy to feel like a book report. Engineers will also want to hear about real experiences with products. Specific case studies are a good way of communicating your capabilities, which adds social proof from your satisfied clients. As a marketer, you need to focus on striking a balance between original data and citing relevant and timely statistics. This is the aspect of your job that will be more an art than a science and will require constant refinement.

5. Include visuals in your engineering website copy

Writing effective engineering website copy doesn’t mean focusing entirely on text; you should use visual content as well. The term visual content covers more than just stock photos, screenshots, memes, and infographics. It should also take into account formatting, contrasting colors for CTAs – making your content more appealing to the eye and finding ways to draw readers in.

Visuals also tend to help convince higher management or decision-makers to purchase your product or select your services. This is especially helpful when your engineer-readers are the influencers but not the decision-makers. A well-researched buyer persona will help you identify whether your readers are the influencers or decision-makers when it comes to purchasing products. Your content strategy can then be adjusted according to the presentation that is relevant to them.

Instead of just focusing on the features and benefits, you can also focus on the return on investment. Your service or solution is a financial investment that the customer expects to benefit from in the long run. As such, you can provide visual aids such as comparison charts, infographics, and screenshots that support the idea that you are better for the bottom line than the competition. These tools help influencers present the idea to their boss who decides where to put the money.

While it is true that there are a lot of ways to create compelling website copy, industrial marketers in the engineering realm have to implement relatively unique strategies. The above tips, when correctly implemented, can help your business stand out online.

If you need help creating an effective engineering website copy, feel free to contact us!