Website content is any text, image, video, or audio published on a website. For an online store, that includes product descriptions, the homepage, and blog posts.
Strategically approaching this content turns a passive web page into a tool that can help your business increase customer satisfaction, acquire new customers, and even boost sales. In fact, online sales made up 17.1% of the $340.2 billion in US ecommerce revenue for the second quarter of 2026, according to the US Census Bureau.
This guide explains the main types of website content and how to effectively plan and write each one for an ecommerce site.
What is website content?
Website content is any written, visual, audio, or interactive element on a website. Examples include blog posts, product descriptions, photos, logos, embedded videos, and podcasts—along with interactive elements like quizzes, calculators, product configurators, and clickable maps.
A store owner creates and publishes this content through a content management system, like Shopify.
Website content can also combine formats. For example, a blog post with an audio version of the article pairs text and audio. Or, an interactive US map that displays state-specific information when a visitor hovers over a state combines graphic design and text in one element.
Web copy is a subset of written website content. It’s short text written to prompt a specific action, like signing up for a newsletter or making a purchase. Taglines, banner text, and calls to action are examples of web copy. Whereas, blog posts and articles are written content, but not considered copy.
Google Search Central says Google Search’s automated ranking systems are built to prioritize helpful, reliable content created for people over content created to manipulate search rankings.
Types of webpage content
Website content falls into four groups:
Text
Text content is all the written material on a website, from navigation labels to full articles. The page types below are built primarily around text.
Marketing pages
The homepage, About page, and landing pages are marketing pages. Marketing page content describes a brand and its products to current and potential customers.
Product pages
Product page content describes an individual product and lists details like price, sizing, and materials. The page also holds the product’s main call to action (CTA), the Add to Cart button. Some product pages display customer reviews and answers to shopper questions.
Blog posts
Blog posts are article-style content published on a website’s blog. Often, these posts center on a specific search keyword, to support a company’s search engine optimization (SEO) strategy and content marketing plan. A Shopify online store comes with a built-in blogging engine, which makes it easier to create this type of content. To publish a post, go to Online Store > Blog posts in your Shopify admin.
In some cases, businesses can even start as a blog before adding an online store—such as the men’s grooming brand Beardbrand, launched as a blog in February 2012. The founder added an online store in January 2013, and by October that year, monthly revenue had grown from $1,000 to $40,000, Eric Bandholz said in a Shopify interview.
User-generated content
User-generated content (UGC) is content customers create about a store or its products, like reviews, testimonials, and customer photos. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule—in effect since October 21, 2024—prohibits businesses from creating or buying fake reviews and from offering incentives for reviews that must express a particular sentiment.
Under FTC staff guidance, any customer reviews that a store features in its marketing count as testimonials.
Case studies
A case study describes how a specific customer used a business’s product or service to solve a problem or reach a goal.
Downloadable content
Downloadable content is long-form material, like ebooks and whitepapers, that visitors save from a website. When a business asks for a visitor’s contact information in exchange for the download (a common strategy), the material is considered gated content.
Among business-to-business (B2B) marketers who collect first-party data, 68% collect it through gated assets, webinars, and interactive tools, according to Content Marketing Institute’s 2026 B2B trends research.
Help center content
Help center content answers customer questions about a store’s products and policies, like shipping times, returns, and product care.
Visual
Visual content spans photos, illustrations, logos, graphics, and videos. On a product page, that means product photos and demonstration videos; on a marketing page, it covers brand imagery and banners.
Audio
Audio content can include podcasts embedded on a site and audio versions of written articles.
Interactive
Interactive content changes in response to a visitor’s input. Examples include quizzes, calculators, product configurators, and sign-up forms.
Shopify Forms is a free Shopify app for building forms that collect email marketing sign-ups, wholesale applications, and information about store visitors. Forms display inline or as pop-ups, and a store owner can attach a discount to a form to offer subscribers when they sign up.
What content your website needs, page by page
Each core page on an online store holds a different mix of relevant content and points visitors toward a different next step.
The table below lists each page’s purpose, its main content elements, and its primary CTA:
| Page | Purpose | Content elements | Primary CTA |
|---|---|---|---|
| Homepage | Introduces the brand and routes visitors to products | Hero image or video, headline, navigation menu, featured collections, featured products | Shop now (links to a collection) |
| Collection | Groups related products on one page | Collection title and description, product grid with photos and prices, filters, sorting options | Select a product |
| Product | Gives the details a shopper uses to make a purchase decision | Product title, photos, video, description, price, variant options, customer reviews | Add to cart |
| About | Explains who runs the business and its story | Brand story, founder or team photos, mission statement, store location map | Shop now |
| Contact | Lists ways to reach the business | Contact form, email address, phone number, business hours | Send (submits the contact form) |
| FAQ/help center | Answers recurring questions about orders, products, and policies | Questions grouped by topic, shipping and return policies, product care instructions | Contact support |
| Blog | Publishes articles on topics related to the store’s products or industry | Post title, featured image, body text, author, publish date | Product links within each post |
Shopify’s page editor handles individual pages like About, Contact, and FAQ. To add a page, go to Online Store > Pages in your Shopify admin and click Add page. The Content field uses a rich text editor to format text and insert links, tables, images, and videos—plus, it provides a code view for editing the page’s HTML.
Each page also has a search engine listing preview section, which allows you to edit the text displayed in search engine results for a page—including the page title, meta description, and URL handle.
Shopify Sidekick—an AI assistant built into the Shopify admin—generates a page title and body text from a prompt in the page editor. It produces text only, so interactive elements like a working contact form are added separately.
Product, collection, and blog content have their own sections of the Shopify admin: Products, Products > Collections, and Online Store > Blog posts.
Characteristics of good content
Run each page through these checks before it goes live:
- Write clearly. Use plain language and define any technical term the first time it appears. Keep each paragraph to one idea.
- Proofread. Check spelling, grammar, product names, prices, and links before publishing. Read the copy aloud to catch awkward phrasing.
- Define the purpose. Decide whether the piece teaches the reader something, helps them solve a specific problem, or entertains them. Cut any sentence that doesn’t serve one of those purposes.
- Format for scanning. Break text into short sections under descriptive subheadings so readers find specific, digestible information without reading the full page. Use bulleted lists for steps, features, and specifications, and keep paragraphs to a few sentences each.
How to write good website content: 8 tips
Website content supports an online store’s marketing and sales. These eight tips cover how to identify an audience, build a consistent process for creating content, and write pages that communicate clearly.
- Identify your audience
- Create a brand style guide
- Develop an editorial process
- Write intros and conclusions that earn attention
- Optimize for SEO
- Write for scanning
- Write in plain language
- Use AI as a drafting aid, not a substitute
1. Identify your audience
A buyer persona is a fictionalized representation of a store’s ideal customer, built from traits like age, interests, and goals. For example, a swimwear brand might write for “Helen,” a 24-year-old finance professional who swims regularly and is considering a career change into marine biology. Writing with a specific persona in mind shapes word choice, examples, and tone toward that reader.
Shopify stores can build customer segments from actual customer data—like purchase history, location, and spending—to pair with or inform a buyer persona. To create one, go to Customers > Segments in the Shopify admin.
2. Create a brand style guide
A brand style guide documents the basic decisions for writing content for a store. It includes your target audience, voice and tone, grammar and punctuation choices (like whether to use the Oxford comma), abbreviation rules, and when to spell out numbers versus use numerals.
A style guide keeps writing consistent across every piece of content and gives any team member or writer a single reference to follow.
3. Develop an editorial process
Content creation moves through several stages including brainstorming ideas, developing an outline, drafting, reviewing and revising, and a final proof before publication.
A documented process assigns each stage to a specific person or role and sets the order content moves through before publishing.
4. Write intros and conclusions that earn attention
Open written content with the topic or a specific detail instead of a lengthy segue or a generic hook like “Since the dawn of time.” For marketing and product pages, lead with a headline that states what the product does, such as “No pores, no problem.”
End content with a call to action (CTA) that tells the reader what to do next:
- Marketing pages: “Learn more” or “Contact us.”
- Product pages: “Add to cart.”
- Blogs and articles: Links to related resources on the site.
5. Optimize for SEO
Use buyer personas and audience research to identify the keywords a target reader searches for, then work those terms into a page’s title, headings, body text, and meta description. Keep the phrasing natural. Focus on the reader first, and let the keyword placement follow from that.
Avoid keyword stuffing, the practice of repeating a keyword unnaturally or listing keywords without adding value to the page. Google’s spam policies note that keyword stuffing can lead to a page ranking lower in Google search results or being left out entirely.
Use a logical H1 > H2 > H3 heading hierarchy, since skipped heading levels make a page harder to navigate for screen reader users. WebAIM’s February 2026 scan of one million home pages found skipped heading levels on 41.8% of pages and missing alt text on 53.1% of pages.
Write alt text for every image that describes what the image shows or does, not its appearance. In Shopify, alt text is edited on the media item itself: Go to Products, select a product, click a media item, then Add alt text.
Edit each page’s search engine listing to control how it appears in search results. A clear page title and meta description help readers decide whether to click.
6. Write for scanning
Break your text into short sections under descriptive subheadings, so readers find specific information without reading the full page. Use bulleted lists for steps, features, and specifications instead of folding them into paragraphs—and limit paragraphs to a few sentences each.
Put the most important information first in each section and each paragraph. Bold key terms sparingly to help a reader’s eye catch the main point of a sentence. Break up long blocks of text with images, including product photos and screenshots, where they illustrate the content.
7. Write in plain language
Replace jargon and industry terms with words a general reader understands. If a technical term is necessary, define it on the first use.
Use short sentences and common words over longer alternatives, such as:
- “use” instead of “utilize”
- “help” instead of “facilitate”
- “start” instead of “initiate”
Write in an active voice so the subject of each sentence performs the action.
Cut filler words and phrases that don’t add information, including transition adverbs like “additionally” and “furthermore,” and hedge words like “simply” and “basically.”
8. Use AI as a drafting aid, not a substitute
AI tools can draft a first version of a product description, blog outline, or page section. Review every draft against this guide: Check facts, cut unsourced claims, remove banned language, and verify any statistic at its primary source before publishing.
Shopify Sidekick is an AI tool that can generate blog posts, product descriptions, and other store content from a prompt.
Sidekick highlights the fields it fills in purple so a merchant can identify and review AI-generated content before publishing. Among store owners who use AI tools, 69% say content generation is the most common use case, while 75% of store owners report using AI tools overall, according to Shopify Survey of Store Owners, Q4 2025.*
AI-written content still needs to meet the same bar as any other content. Google’s guidance on optimizing for generative AI search states that content doesn’t need to be rewritten specifically for AI systems, and that existing SEO fundamentals, including original, people-first content, continue to apply.
Sixty percent of US adults say they read the AI summaries at the top of search results, according to the Pew Research Center, so content that AI systems surface reaches a majority of searchers directly.
* Based on a November 2025 survey of 500 Shopify merchants conducted in English across Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United States. Respondents were established merchants with two or more years on the platform. Results reflect the experiences of this specific sample and may not be representative of all merchants.
Website content FAQ
What is the content of a website?
A website’s content is everything a visitor sees or interacts with on a page: text, images, video, audio, and interactive elements like forms and quizzes. On an ecommerce site, this spans product descriptions, the homepage, blog posts, and help center articles, each written for a specific purpose, from informing a purchase decision to answering a support question.
What’s the difference between web content and web copy?
Web copy is a type of website content, written specifically to prompt an action, like signing up for a newsletter or completing a purchase. Taglines, banner text, and calls to action are all web copy.
Web content is the broader category since it includes web copy along with longer-form writing, like blog posts and product descriptions, that informs or engages a reader without necessarily asking for an immediate action.
How often should website content be updated?
Update website content when the information behind it changes, rather than on a fixed schedule. A product page needs a refresh as soon as its price, availability, or details change. An A/B-tested page should switch to the winning variant as soon as one is clear.
What are the 5 major components of a web page?
Every web page is built from the same five structural parts:
- Header: The logo and top-level information.
- Navigation menu: Links for moving between pages.
- Main content area: The page’s primary text and media.
- Footer: Secondary links and contact details.
- Sidebar: Supporting content like related products or recent posts.
How can you optimize website content for search engines?
Use relevant keywords naturally in a page’s title, headings, body text, and meta description. Link to other relevant pages on the site, write a meta description between 100 and 150 characters, and add alt text to every image.
