If you want to be successful on the Internet you must learn how to
write convincingly. This is the only way you are going to ever get a decent
conversion rate. Otherwise you're just wasting your time. Your only other real
option is to hire someone with the talent to write your copy for you. The
problem with this is really talented writers are very expensive. You can get it
done cheaper, but chances are it won't be any better than what you can write
yourself. I've even seen copy that was worse than what the person doing the
hiring wrote themselves. Don't worry if you don't know how to write copy that
convinces someone to buy your product of service, you can learn.
To begin with you must have a good product or service. In other words you
must believe in it. Next it must be something that a large number of people are
looking for and willing to pay money for. Once your product or service meets
this criteria, then you can get started finding the benefits and features.
Through these you'll find the solutions you provide with the product or service.
This is very important because people are always looking for a solution to their
problem. By providing the solution to their problem you can sell by convincing
the person reading the offer that it will be the solution they're looking for.
That's why you must start off telling them about the main benefit, which will
solve their problem. Put it right at the top of the web page in big bold red
type. This will attract their attention and begin the convincing process.
These days, there’s widespread acceptance that a website is an integral part of
the marketing plan of any business. Likewise, it’s commonly accepted that web
copy is a vital component of any website. But how much web copy is enough? The
pure volume of information available on the Internet is daunting – often
counterproductive. There are approximately 550 billion documents on the web, and
every day another 7 million are added. According to an A.T. Kearney, Network
Publishing study (April 2001), workers take so long trying to find information
that it costs organizations $750 billion annually!
Yet people continue to use it. Information gathering is the most common use
of the Internet (American Express survey, 2000). And it seems work-related
searches are amongst the most common, with 48% of people using the Internet to
find work-related information, as opposed to 7% who use magazines (Lyra
Research, 2001). Interestingly, however, the average person visits no more than 19 websites in
the entire month in order to avoid information overload (Nielsen NetRatings in
Jan 2001). So how do you ensure your site is one of those 19? How do you make your
content helpful without making it overwhelming? That’s what this section is
about…
Here are 5 quick rules of thumb
to help you decide how much is enough.
1) Know your audience (Reader or Search Engine?)
Think about whether you’re targeting human readers (potential customers) or
search engines. This must always be one of your very first questions, as the
answer will determine your approach to content.
In general, human readers think less is more. Search engines, on the other
hand, think more is more (well, more or less…). In many ways, it comes down to a
question of quality versus quantity. Human readers are interested in quality,
whereas search engines are interested quantity. Human readers want you to answer
their questions and make it clear how you can benefit them. And they don’t want
to wade through volumes of text. Search engines want a high word count, full of
relevant keywords, and short on diagrams. (Explore
every page of
Ad Copy Writingfor more information on writing for search engines.
Not everyone is a writer. Good copy writing is a science and can be
learned over time. Great copy writing is an art and should problably remain in
the hands of those who can craft it well. Words have power. They can make you laugh, cry experience great joy, provide
encouragement or they can destroy your confidence. They need to be used very
carefully. You can compell people to take an action you want through the power
of your words. When writing sales copy, you need to consider what response or action you
want your reader to take. To do this you need to talk to your reader on a personal level, get them
emotionally involved in and draw them in through the power of your words. You need to think carefully about your audience. In most cases, it’ll be a
trade-off. A high search engine ranking is important (or at least beneficial) to
most businesses, so a happy medium is required. The following tips will go some
way toward providing this balance.
2) Make it concise
Say everything you need to say, but always ask, “Can I say it with fewer
words?” The literary world may be impressed by complex writing, but visitors
aren’t. Keep it simple, and keep it brief. Your home page shouldn’t be more than
1 screen long. In other words, visitors shouldn’t have to scroll. Subsequent
pages can be longer, but try to keep them to a maximum of about 300-400 words
each (approximately 1 scroll). A lot of people will tell you that you also need
300-400 words or more on your home page for a good search engine ranking. You
don’t. If you focus on the right keywords and generate a lot of links to your
site, you can achieve a high ranking without losing your readers’ interest by
padding
TIP: For most businesses, a good rule of thumb is to make it conversational.
Old school writers and would-be writers oppose conversational copy; don’t listen
to them. Unless you’re writing for an old-school audience, feel free to write as
people talk.
3) One subject per page
On this, both readers and search engines agree. Don’t try and squeeze too
much information onto a single page. For example, instead of trying to detail
all of your products on a single Products page, use the page to introduce and
summarize your product suite, then link to a separate page per product. This
way, your content will be easier to write, your readers won’t be overwhelmed,
and you’ll be able to focus on fewer keywords (so the search engines will get a
clearer picture of what you do).
Many books on copywriting have been written. They can guide you and teach you
to be a better writer than you are now - mostly by getting you to avoid making a
gross faux pas thereby making your ad copy acceptable or passible. For the most part, however, if you are not a good writer, you probably never
will be. You can face this reality in one of two ways. You can tear your hair out and
expend valuable time and energy trying to do what you cannot or you can get help
- not book help - professional help from someone with the know how,
expertise,experience and the talent to write compelling, effective ad copy.
4) Make it scannable
According to a 1998 Sun Microsystems study, reading from a monitor is 25%
slower than reading from paper. As a result, 79% of users scan read when online.
So make sure you accommodate scanning. Use headings and sub-headings. Highlight
important words and sections. Use bulleted lists and numbered lists. Use tables.
Use statistics. Use meaningful indenting. Use short sentences. Most importantly,
be consistent in your usage. Oh… and follow rules 2 and 3 above.
Paint a picture of what your product or service will do for them and then
anticipate and answer all of their questions and doubts before they have a
chance raise them. Good sales letters can mean the difference between making sales or not making
them. They are critical to the growth of any business. They are an absolute MUST
HAVE, if you are serious about succeeding. When you need great ad copy, hire a killer Sales writer and use their talents
to enhance your sales letters or your website. It's well worth the investment.
5) Use a simple menu structure
Try to keep your high-level menu (Home, About Us, Contacts, Products,
Services, etc.) to a maximum of about 10 items (5-8 is ideal). If you have too
many options, your site will seem unstructured and your visitors won’t know
where to start. In order for a visitor to want to come back to your site, they
need to feel comfortable when they’re there. They need to know what to expect.
If they can’t identify any logic in your menu structure, they will always feel
lost. What’s more, this lack of structure will reflect badly on your business.
The Internet can be an incredibly cost-effective form of promotion because
the cost per word to publish is so low. Don’t be fooled into thinking more is
more just because it costs less. Audiences – even search engines – don’t want
everything; they just want enough.
How to be creative in writing:
There is a difference between creative writing and copywriting. It took me a
while to come to terms with this but it's true, there is a difference. When I
first started my home based business on the Internet I read a lot of advice
about publishing articles and doing copywriting to advertise your website.
There was always a distinction drawn between copywriting and creative writing.
I did not understand this: surely copywriting is creative? Eventually the
logic dawned on me: all copywriting is creative writing but not all creative
writers can write decent ad copy. If you have never studied that particular
branch of philosophy, it's like all roses are flowers but not all flowers are
roses.
When I came to understand this difference, it explained for me the
reason why I can write at length on any subject (stopping is the hard part)
but tell me I need to write an advertisement and I go all bashful and
tongue-tied. Give me a subject or, indeed, no subject at all -- just a blank
page is sufficient to set me going and I'll hammer away at the keyboard
until... Until when? Actually, I never really stop, just pause from time to
time. Advertising copy is a different matter. I can sit for ages resisting the
lure of the blank page if I know that what I need to do is copywriting to use
for advertising.
This inability to write ad copy caused me problems because I wanted to
advertise my home based business and various individual affiliate programmes.
Plenty of pre-written ads come with most decent affiliate programmes and it is
an easy matter to copy and paste these but I wanted to use fresh material
instead of advertisements that everyone had seen a hundred times before. I
blame my inability to write advertising copy on my upbringing: modesty and
understatement were encouraged and boastfulness was the eleventh deadly sin.
It seemed to me that writing advertisements for myself was akin to bragging.
Eventually, I overcame my distaste for self-proclamation and tried my hand
at some copywriting. When I compared my efforts with the pre-written ads, it
was obvious that something was absent. My advertisements were dull and flat,
uninspired and uninspiring. Then I discovered the secret: copywriting is a
craft not an art. It is has rules which need to be learnt and practised. A
course of online copywriting lessons was not hard to come by. In fact, I ended
up reading several such courses on the good old Information Highway.
Rules are fine, I have a good memory. Examples are not hard to come by and
it was easy to make a collection of snippets from the copywriting courses. I
learnt about the importance of writing an attention grabbing headline. I can
manage that, there are plenty of examples to borrow. I got to grips with
selecting buzz words such as amazing, customised, effortless, excellent and,
the best one of all -- free. So far so good. Use sentence fragments -- not so
keen on that idea but, when you think about it, that's how conversation goes
in real life, so I'll do it. Sell the sizzle not the steak --yeah, I get it.
Offer benefits, not features --yeah, yeah, I can do that.
Things started to look better and better as I became familiar with the
rules and I began to daydream about becoming a copywriter (like in the film
"The Guys" with that nice Anthony La Paglia). My daydream ended abruptly when
I found there was one rule of English grammar I could not bring myself to
break. The very thought made me shudder and give up any idea of a copywriting
career. I can cope with all the fragments, buzzes and sizzles. But I could
never begin a sentence with "and".
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There are several ways you can
continue from here :
But your first paragraph must compel them to keep
reading. To do this expands on the main benefit mentioned in the headline. When
you are writing become your customer. Think like your customer thinks. Feel what
your customer feels. Know the solution to their problem. How this is
accomplished is through research. Find out who your prime customer is and what
would drive them to buying your product or service. Everyone has certain
psychological triggers that compels them to buy. These triggers are brought to
the front when the proper compelling arguments are used. When you become your
customer the convincing words you need to use in your copy will become apparent.
To become your customer find out their underlying reasons for buying what they
buy. In my case, since I write sales copy, my customers buy my service because
they want their own products to sell better. So there compelling reason is to be
more successful. Now this is where the investigating and researching comes into
play and you have to discover why. Since each will have their own reason for
wanting to become more successful. You must focus on the reason the majority of
them want to become more successful. Once you have discovered the real reason
that underlies you will be able to not only get their attention, but also compel
them to buy. That is why your research is so important. It really is the key to
your success because people buy when they can see that the solution you provide
is what they are looking for.
Writing effective copy is arguably one of the hardest things to know how to do.
Knowing the secrets that the high paid copywriters use will make this job much
easier. Anyone that can speak can write for the internet, but writing something
that will convince customers to buy is all about getting them to agree with what
you are writing. To do this consistently you need to know your customer. Find
out what they want, what they desire, what are their dreams and aspirations. The
only way to know this is by doing research. Who are your customers. Why would
they buy your product. What benefits are they looking for with a product like
yours. Why should they buy your product and not your competitor's product. This
is all just basic copywriting strategies. Copywriting is not an exact science
and even following these simple not always work, but they will work more often
than not. If you are not writing your own copy you should be. No one can get as
excited about your product as you. No one knows your product as well as you. No
one knows the benefits your customers are going to get as well as you. So my
advice to you is learn to write your own sales letters.
Don't Lose Your
Visitor's Attention!
Website copywriter has several jobs. They will need to provide the
information, the words, and the persuasive text that is used within any site
that is visited. For many individuals, this means that they will need to know
the products, understand the site owner’s needs, and to be able to draw
customers into the site by providing interesting and informative information.
Getting into this field takes a true understanding of how the World Wide Web
really works. And, it takes diligence, hard work, and perseverance as well. A
copywriter has a very important job to do.
Did you know that your writing can have a huge impact on how successful your
site will be? If you're trying to sell a product or a service, what you say
and how you say it is extremely important because you don't want to lose your
visitor's interest before they get to your order form.
A copywriter needs to
understand how people get to the site. They need to do copywriting that will
encourage others to visit and to eventually purchase the products available at
the site. Copywriters have some of the most important jobs online because they
help to get traffic to go in the right way. For example, many people open their
web browsers and go directly to a search engine to find what they need. Good
writing will allow the search engine to get the person to the right site. There,
they will find the products or information they need.
Here are some tips to
help you improve your writing skills in order to keep your visitor's
attention.
Stress The Benefits Early
If the goal of your site is to sell a product or service, don't focus on
what you want, focus on what your visitor wants. Whether you realize it or
not, when a person lands on your homepage, there's a little voice inside their
head that constantly asks, "What's in it for me?" They came to your site
because they are searching for something, and it's your job to help them find
it.
Now, this next sentence is going to sound a little harsh, but there is a
lot of truth to it...
Visitors don't care about you until they find out what your site
can do for them.
Think about it and read that sentence again. When you go to Google and do
a search for "download music", that probably means you are looking for a site
that will allow you to download your favorite songs, right?
So when you click on the first site, you don't want to get bombarded with
biographical information about the author of the site. At this point, you are
looking for the benefits. You want the goods, the guts, and the glory.
Now, after you discover that this site may be of use to you, you may decide
to read up on the author and how the site was founded, etc. But you don't
want to be hit with the history of the site right from the beginning.
I see so many people starting their web sites out with a 10 paragraph bio
about themselves. The paragraphs are filled with countless "me's" and "I's".
(Yawn)
If you are trying to sell a product or a service, this is the absolute
WRONG way to go about it. You must feed your visitors the benefits, give
them what they want.
Get rid of all the I's and me's and replace them with the all important
word, "YOU". Remember, you are not writing this site for yourself,
you're writing it for the potential customer.
Don't Assume Your Visitors Will Read Everything
The average person will only read between 5 and 10 percent of your site.
This is because most people find what they're looking for within the first few
pages. So if you're trying to sell something, make sure your important
benefits are listed upfront and get to the point quickly.
Not only will they not read every page, they also won't read every word on
your pages. They scan for information just like they're reading a newspaper.
That's why it's important to make sure your pages have lots of short
paragraphs separated by subtitles.
This makes it easier for them to scan and find the information they're
looking for. Don't make them hunt too long to find something or they'll leave.
This is another reason why it's important to include some kind of search
function, site directory and/or table of contents on your site. Also make
sure that these features are accessible from every page. Organization is
definitely key.
Look at Your Site Through Your Visitor's Eyes
After you've written your copy, it's a good idea to take a step back and
put yourself in your visitor's shoes for a moment. Pretend
you are visiting your site for the first time and read
over all the content. Then ask yourself a few questions:
Have you explained everything clearly?
Sure the content makes sense to you because you wrote it, but if you were a
first-time visitor, what questions might you have? Did you leave out some
information because you assumed the visitor already knows? Are there terms or
phrases that you need to define?
Does the content flow logically?
Have you put the cart before the horse? Do your thoughts jump all over the
page or are they organized?
If you develop your content in your head as you type, it's very easy to
produce copy that is unorganized. Make sure you read over everything to
ensure your paragraphs and sentences flow logically.
Does your site navigation make sense?
Navigation is so very important. You don't want your visitors to get lost
so it's vital that your navigation titles make sense and clearly define what
each page is about.
You also want to ensure that important pages like the order and contact
form are easily accessible from every page on your site. In addition, be sure
that your navigation is consistent and doesn't change from page to page.
If you find this difficult to do, ask a friend to help out. Have them read
every page of your site and jot down any questions or comments that develop as
they go along. You'll be amazed at what you'll discover when someone else
reads your work.
Who is Your
Customer?
When you want to sell something…anything… you need to first know who is
going to buy it. Why? Because your ad copy has to be written to that person.
You should actually picture a real person and write to them. It might be
someone you know or someone you know about. But it is someone. Give your
person a body and a face you can visualize as you begin to write. If you
have a photo, tape it up where you can see it as you work. If you don’t, try
finding someone in a magazine and cut out his or her picture. SEE your
customer. Give him a name.
Then, consider what makes him tick. What does your customer want from
life? What worries him? What does she dream about? What are his goals? What
motivates her? Is your customer wealthy, or on the edge of poverty? Well educated… or
barely educated? What kind of work does he do? What does she do for fun? Once you have a firm picture of this person you can direct your
advertising directly to him (or her) because you’ll know why your product or
service will make his life easier, more fun, healthier, or more prosperous.
With that knowledge, you can decide which benefit is most important and
deserves a place in your headline. You can decide how to make a promise that
offers something your prospect wants on an emotional level. Only then will
you create a headline that jumps off the page and entices your prospect to
read the rest of your ad… and then take action.
Sometimes you can be too close to it and find it hard to look at your site
with an objective eye. Many individuals who are copywriters are also in the
freelance business. For those that work alone like this, it is important to
find lasting opportunities in the field. To find work, it is important to
build through trust in relationships and strive to provide quality work each
and every time. For those looking to get started in this field, they will want
to work on their skills first.
From there, they can find job postings throughout the web that can offer
them exciting ways into this freelance environment. It will not be easy work,
though. Many of the individuals who try to do this type of work believe that
it is simple and easy to do. In reality, it takes true dedication and real
responsibility to deliver quality work to clients. Remember, the content on your pages represents your voice on the web. It's
what stands between you and your potential customer, so make it effective. You
never get a second chance to make a first impression.
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