Impressive, powerful web copywriting is not like cutting yourself a piece of cake and eating it. It’s more like building yourself a home with nothing but brainpower and doing it all inside a single day. Think HARD WORK. Typically, us as readers and end consumers just see the other end of the spectrum–we just read the good copywriting every day. But what makes it happen? What makes good copywriting occur on a page (or on your computer screen)?
What Makes Up Good Copywriting?
1) Don’t Be Passive
When writing web content, use the active voice. The active voice means that the subject does the action instead of being acted upon. For example, consider these two:
“We made our multi-vitamin pill to help you lose weight faster and easier.”
Versus
“The new multi-vitamin pill made by our company will help you lose weight faster and easier.”
The first sentence is not only shorter but easier to follow. A good rule of web copywriting is to make your content as clear and as concise as possible too. See what happened there? Using the active voice will also help you call your readers into action later on in order to drive content marketing. That will help you tremendously.
2) Remember the Important Details
…and put them in the first paragraph. The standards of this are the who, what, when, where, why and how. Follow the rule of the inverted pyramid. Always put the most pertinent data in the first paragraph and the supporting data after that. Let your readers decide if they are convinced enough to read on.
3) Make Your Content Skimmable
There are a variety of ways to do this. Remember that your readers have a very short attention span and they will only grab what they want from your website. Make your content user friendly to the eyes. There are several ways to do this. You can make bulleted lists. Also, you can make numbered lists. You can break up your content into lines, paragraphs and you can use quotes to make your content more credible. A good tool to use is to add multimedia to your content. This will influence readers into being more interested in your article.
4) Be Concise
Writing in active voice will help you write with concision. Readers nowadays have shorter attention spans than ever before. Say what you have to say in the fewest amount of words that you can say it in, without sacrificing content, of course.
5) Use Short Words
By short, I also mean simple. Simplify and be concise. These are great rules to follow. For example, use best vs. superior. Use cut vs. eliminate. Simple words will attract users. Additionally, (or should I say “also?”) being simple keeps things short, so you are in keeping with rule #4.
6) Don’t Worry So Much About Keywords
You are writing for your audience and not for search engines! A lot of web copywriting fails to remember this crucial fact. Web copywriters tend to worry too much about SEO and forget that they are writing for humans and not for search engine algorithms. In the end, it’s the humans that will value what you write and not Google. It’s important to keep track of keywords, but they shouldn’t rule your life.
7) Avoid Using Jargon
What did I tell you? Keep it simple. Unless you’re a doctor writing a medical article FOR doctors, writing in simple, readable language should be your goal. Avoid technical language like the plague. Not only will the majority of readers not understand you, but 99% of people will skip your page. Unless, of course, like I said, you are writing for a very specific audience.
8) Be Scarce
And by scarce, I don’t mean don’t be present! I mean incorporate scarcity. If you are pushing for a product to be sold, incorporate a sense of urgency that the product is scarce. Unless, of course, if you are writing a blog for WordPress, for example.
9) Be Positive
Don’t use negative language because that’s what people will tend to remember. Always stay positive with what you write. Of course, sometimes, negative language can add variety to what you write, but that is a rarity, and negative language is something that you have to avoid if you can. People don’t want to read negative copy, but it’s copy that they will remember more than the positive copy.
10) Use Multimedia
Use as much text as images. Not only will this keep readers interested, but it will keep you interested as well! It will help your site show up in Google Images and will link back to your site if someone searches for a particular photo. This will attract more traffic to your site. Multimedia will help you in a big way. So use it. Images are not the only way to go. Embed audio and videos as well to make your site more interesting.
11) Take Advantage of Image Captions
Every time you see an interesting photograph, I’m sure you read the caption below it. Don’t you? Well, take advantage of that fact! Use interesting photographs and put the most important pieces of information underneath them. Don’t plagiarize photographs, however, because that will really reek. Colorful, artful and even bizarre photographs will work for you. Just know how to use it and when. Avoid over-using photographs and under-using your content. Balance them out. It’s necessary to strike a balance here and there.
12) Be A Conversationalist
People just don’t like being sold to. Make it feel like it’s a conversation. Old-fashioned salesmanship doesn’t work anymore. In this day and age, people are looking to build connections. That means that you have to build relationships with your readers. Strike a conversation. Make them feel like they are talking to a real person and not some robot that they found on the internet. It’s best if you talk simply and in their language. It’s never acceptable to be cold, heartless and cruel in any situation. Web copywriting is no exception. So be human. It will pay off in more ways than one.