Copywriting Tips And Tricks

You must give special attention to your website copy or your online business is doomed for failure.

Most online business owners think last about the words they use on their site and first about the design and the graphical aspects and aesthetics of their websites.

While the graphics can help boost visitor attention, it’s the words that will boost visitor retention. (Wow! Just read that last sentence again. Sometimes I can be so poetic that I want to take notes on myself!)

The following is the first serving of a four-part article on writing effective website copy. I’ll be dishing out over forty tips that you can use as a checklist to help improve your website sales copy.

Let’s dive in.

1. Place your strongest benefits in your headline and sub-headlines. The headline must also build enough curiosity for the visitor to read further into your letter. If your headline doesn’t grab the interest of the reader your battle is already lost.

2. Write in the language of your potential client and as to one person, not to a group. Make your writing conversational as if you were speaking to an individual sitting right in front of you. To help accomplish this goal use contractions such as, “you’ll”, “they’re”, “I’m” and “you’re”.

3. If you can, use a story to pull your readers into the copy. Some of the most successful direct marketing pieces used stories to get their point across. People are always interested in stories about other people. Just take a look at the most searched for words on the search engines and you’ll find that the majority are for personalities such as Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez. This tells you that people are interested in people.
4. Try and change your “I” statements into “you” statements instead. You are trying to appeal to your readers and must place the focus on them. To be personal as possible you should change “we” statements to “I” instead. Remember you want to be perceived as one person in conversation with one other person-your visitor.

5. Appeal to your reader’s emotions and not just logic. Most people make a decision based on emotion and then try to justify the decision with logic. Fill your letter with emotive words.

6. Tests have shown that people respond more to a fear of loss rather than the desire for gain. Show your readers what they would LOSE if they don’t get your product as well as what they’ll gain if they do. You will want to emphasize the loss aspect over the gain aspect.

7. Products that are presented as a prevention measure never sell as well as products that sell as a cure. Just think about it for a minute. Which sells more, vitamins or prescription medicines? Fresh fruits and vegetables or cancer treatments? Present your ‘prevention’ product as a cure and you’ll sell more. (That last sentence sounds like a nice jingle, doesn’t it?)

8. Use one or more P.S. in your letter. Tests have shown that apart from the headline the P.S. is the most read part of the sales letter. Use the P.S. to summarize your offer and ask again for the sale or desired action.

9. Avoid using too many complex sentences. Break sentences up into simpler ones. You should write for a Grade 6 level which is the average reading level. Even if your audience is more sophisticated than this you can’t be too simple but you can be too complicated. A simple message is a clear message.

10. Use sentences of different lengths to vary the cadence and rhythm of the paragraph. All sentences of the same length will make the letter read mechanical and dry.

11. Write in the active voice instead of the passive voice. So instead of writing “When this link is clicked an email will be sent to your inbox“, write instead, “When you click this link you will be sent an email.” The first is legal and dry the second places you (not the email) in the center of the action.

In the second part of this article we’ll look at ten other tips to improving your website copy and hopefully your sales.

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Filed under: Online Copywriting