web copywriting - Express Writers

9 Characteristics of the Best Web Copywriters

June 19, 2024June 15, 2021 by Adam Oakley

According to Flannery O’Connor, a good man is hard to find. Source: Amazon But what about a good web copywriter? Sure, plenty of people out there say they can write for the web. But, as the common saying goes, talk is cheap. How do know when you’ve stumbled on a professional word ninja, or when you’ve been hoodwinked by an upstart money-grubber masquerading as a copywriter? Luckily, we have some ideas. Look carefully at their qualifications, both the ones they say they have and the ones that shine through their writing samples. The best web copywriters will be able to claim all of the skills we have compiled below. If you’re a copywriter working your way up in the industry, study this list and take note. Having these skills could be the key to nailing your next big gig. Marketers/agencies: Look for these traits in the next writer you hire. 9 Skills, Traits, and Characteristics the Best Web Copywriters Have in Spades The best web writers have honed their raw talent and turned it into an occupation where they earn money for every word they set down. Do you (or the web writers you’re hiring) have all the skills on this list? 1. Nimble Creativity The best web writers need to be able to turn on a dime and write in a completely different style and voice for different clients. That means their capacity for nimble creativity needs to be very high. Online writers also need to be able to produce copy and content when that creativity well is drying up. A nimble, can-do attitude is essential, here. Sometimes, you just have to buckle down and get some words out. The best writers who live and breathe online content will be able to do it and do it well, no matter the circumstances. 2. Research Chops Research is a huge part of online writing. To underline your authority, you have to prove yourself in your written content and copy. That means relying on the knowledge and research of others, along with your own. It means citing sources and studies, and providing statistics and evidence that back up your claims. The online writer who is well-versed in research best-practices, including how to properly cite sources and link to them in content, is indispensable. 3. Strong Understanding of the Basics of Constructing Great Sentences Writers construct, tweak, and manipulate sentences to get their ideas across clearly. Without the basic ability to craft really good ones, can you call yourself a writer? This ability includes understanding grammar do’s and don’ts like noun-verb agreement and comma usage, but it also includes knowing how to create a compelling call-to-action, how to write effective meta descriptions, and how to compose a zinger of a headline. As a copywriter, you need to know which of these is correct. (Source: Grammar Girl) 4. Sales and Online Marketing Knowledge Does your web writer understand the various stages of the buying cycle/sales funnel? (Have they even heard of a sales funnel?) Do they get how to tailor their words to what the audience knows/doesn’t know at a particular stage? What about landing page copy? Do they understand how best to craft a page that leads the audience to take action? If they don’t, they should. If you’re the writer, according to Content Marketing Institute, your knowledge should be T-shaped. You need a deep knowledge of content – best-practices that earn traffic, engagement, and conversions, and how to tie in SEO –- that’s a given. You also need at least a passing understanding of online marketing concepts like technical SEO, UX, press & PR, and analytics. 5. Generalist AND Specialist Expertise A web copywriter needs to be a jack-of-all-trades and a master of one… Or two. The former is important for that aforementioned nimbleness factor. You need to be able to pivot from topic to topic without much trouble, research topics if you’re shaky, and write about them like you know what you’re talking about. That is the power of a skilled generalist writer. On the other hand, you also need specialist knowledge in at least one topic. This means you have the background to write about that topic from the viewpoint of an expert. This background can include education, experience, or a mix of the two. A blend of both is a good place to start honing your expertise. Either way, the best writers can specialize and write with an incredibly authoritative tone for at least one industry. 6. The Power of Persuasion Persuasive writing is a huge part of online copywriting. Your readers’ attention spans are shorter than ever (the average currently clocks in at 8 seconds – one second shorter than that of an average goldfish). They’re distracted by every shiny thing that’s blinking at them or screaming in all caps. Source: Muck Rack They’ll click away from your content faster than you can blink – unless you can persuade them to stay. This means knowing and using proven writing styles and copywriting formulas that keep visitors glued to the page. It also means formatting your words for maximum ease-of-reading on tiny mobile device screens or headache-inducing computer monitors. There’s a lot that goes into persuading audiences online, so the copywriter who can do it (and do it well) is worth their weight in gold. Want to get better at persuasive writing? Check out the work of past and present copywriting giants. Look to David Ogilvy, Joanna Wiebe, Jon Morrow. It’s hard to vet good copywriters. Luckily, we do it for you. Check out our services and hire our expert writers. 7. Empathy A copywriter’s job is to speak to the reader on a deep level. You need to be able to address their hopes, fears, and desires like they’re your own. The only way to truly get on their wavelength is to empathize with them. If you have a fair amount of natural empathy, you have an advantage. If you don’t, you can practice it. Step … Read more

30 Killer Web Copywriting Tips for The Savvy Online Writer

June 19, 2024May 10, 2016 by Adam Oakley

Great web copywriting isn’t just something nice to have. Exquisite online writing skills are necessary for anyone involved in creating business for an online presence. In addition to attracting visitors, great web copywriting helps strengthen a brand voice, differentiate you from the online crowd, and create a unique and distinct presence on the web. You can’t do any of the above without this fundamental base: words. To put it simply. Words that appeal to your audience, attract their eyeballs, engage with their emotions. It’s the vehicle for standing out online. Rather–it’s how you stand out online. 30 Actionable Copywriting Tips for Online Writers Use these thirty online copywriting tips to boost your copywriting and achieve more online success with better, stronger, far-reaching online copy. 1. Provide context In web copywriting as in journalism, answering questions like who, what, when, where, and why can help strengthen your copy. When you add context for people, places, things, or developments that you’re referencing within your text, you provide more value for your readers and create more balanced, informative content. To make this actionable, offer context on products you mention, recent events you cover, and third-party companies you reference. In addition to helping increase your readers’ understanding of the topic, these simple steps can also make your writing more informative. 2. Write in the active voice Writing in the active voice makes for stronger online content and a clearer message. Writing in active voice means that the subject of your sentence does something rather than having something done to him or her. For example, “Jane kicked the ball” is active voice, while “the ball was kicked by Jane” is passive voice. Using active voice more often in your writing makes for clearer content and a more valuable message. 3. Write clickable (engaging) headlines While 80% of people read headlines, only 20% of people will click through to your body content. In light of this, it’s pivotal to spend the time and energy that it takes to write attention-grabbing headlines. In addition to creating a more well-rounded content strategy, this approach also allows you to capture the attention of your readers and grow your company’s online presence. While writing clickable headlines isn’t something you master in a day, it is something you can learn with some ongoing education. By learning to craft compelling headlines, you can immediately improve your online content and help your business get found online. 4. Break up your content While long-form web copywriting converts better than shorter content, big blocks of text can easily be intimidating to a reader. To ensure that you’re not scaring traffic away from your site with never-ending paragraphs and startlingly dense web pages, break your web content up into small and digestible chunks. Paragraphs, subheads, and bullet points are all an excellent way to make your text easily readable and skim-mable for all of your readers. There are many ways to do this, including adding bold or italic text and creating numbered and bulleted lists. You can also use headings and subheadings to break up your content in an intuitive and easy to understand way. 5. Be as concise as possible Too many writers torpedo their online content by being too long-winded. In online content, brevity is king and businesses who can be concise and informative at the same time are the ones who are likely to win the race. To boost your online content and ensure that you’re not boring your readers or driving them away with wordy material, be as concise as possible. Short sentences, short paragraphs, and targeted messages are ideal for capturing a reader’s attention and keeping it. By being concise throughout your content, you build value for your readers and ensure that they keep coming back to your content. 6. Eliminate jargon Jargon is one of the most damaging things your company can include in online content. By peppering your text with jargon and industry-specific terms, you immediately make it unapproachable for a wide variety of readers. Luckily, it’s easy to get past this by eliminating jargon altogether and making your text approachable to everyone – even people who aren’t experts in your field. Once you’ve eliminated the jargon, take your readability one step further by using short words, cutting out unneeded adverbs, and keeping your text as simple as possible throughout. This can help ensure that your online copywriting is approachable to all readers and that your message doesn’t get bogged down in techy language. 7. Incorporate a sense of urgency Incorporating a sense of urgency into your online content is a great way to grab your readers’ attention and keep it. By doing this, you can encourage your prospects to act quickly and convert in the way that you want them to. Urgency is especially useful when you’re running a promotion, offering an incentive, or providing a “customers only” discount of some type. Incorporate urgency into your online copy by mentioning that there are a limited number of spots for a webinar or that there are only so many products remaining on the shelves. This is a simple yet effective way to improve your online copy and drive your readers to action. 8. Utilize keywords naturally While keywords used to be one of Google’s primary ranking factors, search engines are getting smarter on a daily basis. Today, Google will de-rank content that relies too heavily on keywords, stuffs them into content, or utilizes them in an unnatural way. In light of this, be sure that you’re writing your web copy for people first and search engines second. If you’re planning on targeting keywords throughout your content, they should be incorporated in a natural way throughout. This can help ensure your company isn’t inadvertently damaging your SEO by writing keyword-stuffed keyword that’s chunky to read and worthless to customers. 9. Write in positive voice Just like active voice, positive voice is a powerful writing tool. Positive voice helps your readers feel more trusting and optimistic toward your product, good, or service. The reason for this is that online copywriting that uses negative voice leaves readers with negative feelings. Because of this, it’s important to alter the text to use positive rather than negative voice. For … Read more

How To Convert Visitors to Customers With Your Web Copywriting

January 1, 2021June 13, 2014 by Adam Oakley

Do you have a lot of visitors to your site? Do you do a happy dance every time the number increases or you see someone from a faraway country stop in? It is really exciting to see all of those numbers and all of those people, but eventually it becomes exhausting and overwhelming when those visitors leave and never become customers. Turning them into customers is important and now is the time to do just that; but how does one go about that? This blog is going to discuss five ways to use web copywriting to convert visitors into paying customers. How Web Copywriting Helps Convert 1. Get the Blog Going. We say this time and time again, but it is crucial when you are trying to convert visitors into customers. “How does blogging do this?” Blogging gives you the opportunity to become an authority in your field with Google, helping you rank higher on the search engine results page (SERP). The higher you rank, the more visitors will come. Once the visitors get to your site, they’ll begin reading through your posts and deciding whether or not your company is worth their hard-earned money. If the visitors like what they see, they could just add you to their RSS feeds and keep up with your blog. This is where hyperlinks become important in your blog. If you add them throughout your blog posts, you have a higher likelihood of getting visitors to other parts of your site and to your products. Did you mention a service or product similar to yours such as dog grooming and gourmet food? Hyperlink those terms to your specific service or product, showing readers you do exactly what they are reading about. This will help convert those casual readers into consumers quickly. Never underestimate the power of the written word, especially on the Internet! 2. Publish Yourself. Getting your content published in various formats around the web will also help convert visitors to customers. You can publish Whitepapers, which can give potential clients detailed information about your company or you can publish press releases to make people aware you exist. These are great ways to create interest in your product all while giving potential clients the information they all want. These forms of web copywriting can help act as an FAQ of sorts. 3. Email Is Not Dead Yet. An important part of web copywriting is email. Many seem to think email marketing is going away, but that is simply not the case. We all check our email first thing in the morning and the last thing before we go to bed. We are all hopelessly addicted to the Internet and email, which gives you a perfect opportunity to market your company. Encourage visitors to sign up for your newsletter when they stop by to read your blog. You’ll be surprised at the amount of people who will sign up if given the choice. Don’t force people to because this tends to scare people off. Give them a choice and then send out weekly or bi-weekly emails about services or new blog posts to keep interest alive in readers. 4. Research Your Audience and Keep Researching. Research is the name of the game when it comes to converting visitors into customers. The more you research, the more likely you will hit the target perfectly. Business2Community says that by providing information regarding your services and industry, visitors will already know if you meet their needs. This gives potential clients enough information about your products and shows that you are worthwhile. Another excellent way to research your visitors and industry is to formulate case studies. A case study will tell an interesting story filled with facts about your current clientele and success rate, which will encourage those reading it that you are a company that is trustworthy. A case study will help you beat your competition and can also help you see any changes that need to be made for your company. 5. Landing Pages Are Crucial To Creating Customers. A crucial way to use web copywriting to convert visitors to customers is having an incredible landing page. Landing pages are great for taking visitors to the location you want, instead of them going to the overwhelming front page. You may think that customers want to see that front page, but the reality is most people find the main site to be confusing no matter how organized it is. Do you have a specific product you wish to sell to your visitors? Send them to that landing page. This is a great way to generate leads for your company. Let’s take a quick look at a few handy tips for your landing page: Make sure it is simple and only has the basic information you want your visitors to see. Don’t overwhelm them with tons of images and other information about your services; stick to a specific product. This will cut down on any confusion your visitors may have, helping to make them into paying customers. Make sure people can navigate around your site easily. The harder it is, the less likely visitors will want to pay you for any service or product. As with all web copywriting make sure you are friendly with visitors. If you site is hyper professional, this will come across as snooty and arrogant. However, if you are friendly or down-to-earth, this will come across as someone people will want to work with in the future. In Closing Converting visitors into customers isn’t very difficult if you follow the above steps. The more you cater to your visitors, the more they will realize your company is a great one to work with. Don’t be too upset if this doesn’t happen over night. Sometimes it takes a little while for visitors to realize that they want to purchase items from you, but soon you will start watching your customer base grow to meet your website’s visitor rates and that will be … Read more

How to Make People Want to Read Your Web Content: 5 Formatting Tips

December 31, 2020April 5, 2014 by Adam Oakley

Want to get people to read your web content? Buckle up and settle in. It’s harder than you may think. Good content that people want to read isn’t just well-written. It’s also: Organized Concise Scannable In other words, it’s easy on the eyes. You don’t have to do much work to make sense of it. But, why is this important? It’s simple: People read differently on the web than they do anywhere else. “Anywhere else” includes papers, books, magazines, and other printed matter. Whatever the physical medium, people do not read them the same way they read a web page. If you’re not optimizing your web content for the way people read on the web, you’ll be turning them away more often than inciting them to dive deeper. Want people to get the most out of your content? You need to fan the flames of their interest, not douse them in freezing cold water. Why Do People Read Web Content Differently? Why do people read differently on the web than they do for printed matter? We could surmise that people don’t feel like they have time to read every page they encounter word-by-word. The web is so large, and there’s so much information to sift through, something’s got to give. Think about how many pages you click through daily. If you have no idea, check out your browser history for yesterday. How many websites did you visit? If you’re like me, the list is most likely a mile long. There’s no way I would have digested all that information unless I scanned it. Deep reading is not conducive to web browsing. What Does Research Say About Reading on the Web? Research backs up the fact that people don’t read web content like they do books. In fact, the Nielsen/Norman Group found this was true 79% of the time in an eye-tracking study they did. They measured over 300 people’s eye movements as they browsed hundreds of websites. They came to an overwhelming conclusion: People do not read on the web. They scan. Slate came to a similar conclusion when they tracked how far people scrolled down their web pages before leaving. Even if people do stick around long enough to scan the page, they don’t stay for long. About 50% of users stopped scanning at the halfway mark in a Slate article before they clicked away from the page. Across the web, people stopped at about the 60% mark. Here’s Slate’s conclusion: “Few people are making it to the end, and a surprisingly large number aren’t giving articles any chance at all.” Another Nielsen study found that to be true. According to the research, people only have time to read (or choose to read) about 28% of any given web page. If this isn’t discouraging for web content creators, I don’t know what is. If we can’t get people to read our content, how do we make any impact at all? There’s Hope: You Can Get People to Scan and Scroll Your Web Content Yes, you can improve your chances that people will scan your content, read at least some of it, and scroll all the way to the end. On the internet, where attention spans are shorter than a blip, that’s a huge deal. Some of these tips to achieve these goals may be obvious, but some may be surprising. Here are five ways to make people more likely to skim, scan, and read. [clickToTweet tweet=”Learn the five strategies to get people to scan and scroll your web content via @ExpWriters!” quote=”Learn the five strategies to get people to scan and scroll your web content via @ExpWriters!”] 1. Organize Your Content Well Well-organized content is scannable content. It’s a cinch to read, plus, you can easily find ideas within the text. Some examples of good organization: Bulleted lists Numbered lists Headings and sub-headings Short paragraphs with one main idea in each Meaningful links These all have one thing in common. They’re all ways to break up your content so it’s scannable. Readers latch on to these text markers – all of them are alerts that say, “Hey, this is important. Pay attention.” And, luckily, most readers do! So, what does the opposite look like? This leads us to my next point: 2. Don’t Build Walls of Text! You can find content with zero organization most often in that infamous “wall of text.” You know what I’m talking about. It’s hard to scan and will make people want to punch their computer – never a good scenario. Because they can’t punch their computers, instead, they’ll leave your website without a backward glance. 3. Make Your Organization Logical A page that’s organized is great, but if that organization isn’t logical, you’re still not helping your readers. What does logical organization look like? It means ideas are grouped together. One paragraph, one idea. One bulleted list, one main idea. Here’s a fantastic example: Note that all items in each list go together. On one hand, there’s the list of ingredients. On the other, there are the instructions. These groupings make sense. They’re logical. Here’s an illogical example: Note the formatting. Some of the items have punctuation; others don’t. Some are one-word long; others are sentence-length. Also, note the information itself. All the items in this list relate to ice cream, but they don’t all belong there. A bulleted list needs to have the same type of “thing” next to each bullet. Don’t make these errors. Instead… 4. Format Your Bulleted Lists Well Good organization helps your readers immensely. It also makes them want to linger on your page. When your page is easy-as-pie to scan, your readers can glom-on to important information. They’ll grab the hook and get caught on your line. Here are some main keys for strongly organized lists in your content: Don’t mix sentence fragments with full sentences in your lists. Use phrases exclusively, or only use sentences with periods – not both. If you find yourself typing … Read more

Website Content Writing 101: Stop Worrying About Keywords, & What to Focus on Instead

August 25, 2022December 25, 2013 by Adam Oakley

If you, like me, have been in the world of website content writing services for a while, you remember a not-so-distant time when online writing was all about keyword inclusion. Namely, how many keywords could you cram into a given web content page, and would Google notice? While many marketers are still relying on tactics like these, Google and other search engines have changed drastically. It’s gotten to the point where marketers who have not evolved their content strategies are being left behind. While Google used to rely on keyword inclusion as a reputable quality metric, today’s search engine algorithms are much more sophisticated. Today, Google looks at things like social signals, site quality, SEO, link strategies, image inclusion, content layout and length, besides just keywords. While keywords still have an important place in the world of online content, focusing too much on keywords can come at the expense of your other content. In light of this, it’s time to toss keyword reliance to the wind and to focus, instead, on all of the other things that make the world of web content writing go around. Improve Your Content Writing on the Web By Focusing Less On Keywords Only In the days of old, a page needed few things to rank well. For one, it needed a high keyword saturation that helped Google interpret what the page was about. In addition to that, it needed a link strategy and some on-page content. That was about it. Today, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Google has gotten amazingly advanced in the last several years, and sites that are to rank well in today’s version of Google need to have dozens of different high-quality ranking metrics, including good SEO, high-quality visuals, a solid social strategy, following, and base of shares, and a relevant, long-tail keyword strategy. Unfortunately, marketers who are too busy focusing on things like keyword saturation and density often miss these nuanced things. The Modern Face of SEO Web Content Today, SEO is virtually unrecognizable to professionals who worked in the old SEO styling. Today, anything that’s considered to be solid in terms of SEO web content writing must optimize for two things: people and search engines. If this sounds like a tall order – you’re right! Modern SEO as a whole is complicated, and it requires a set of guidelines and a skilled team to execute it properly. Here’s a list of some of the basic foundations of modern SEO content mapping, to help you get a feel for how it works today: Modern SEO utilizes long-tail keyword phrases in natural ways It optimizes for people first and search engines second It seeks to provide value and solve problems rather than to sell directly It gains its success from click-throughs, conversions, and shares It is more conversational and less technical It adapts frequently to changing consumer desires and needs How to Improve Your SEO Web Writing Right Now: 5 Tips When it comes to content writing for websites in the modern world, improving SEO generally means making the web content writing more functional and valuable. While there are dozens of great ways to improve on-page content and ensure you’re making the most of common SEO standards and practices, the following steps are an excellent way to get started improving your SEO: 1. Get social with your web content writing Social media is a key element in great SEO, and it’s one of the most important things for both humans and search engines of today. While social media is often written off as a waste of time or a platform that’s more suited to leisure than it is to marketing, the fact of the matter is that great SEO often starts on social media. By using social platforms to distribute high-quality content, interact with followers, and build a base of devoted fans, it’s easy to improve your social following across the board and enjoy a boost in Google rankings, as a result. 2. Create a two-way dialogue in your online copy Want to encourage customers to keep coming back to your web content? Show them that you appreciate their existing interaction! While many companies brush over comments, likes, and shares, the trick to creating a successful online presence is to reach out and encourage engagement with your customers. Have a new Instagram comment? Take a moment to thank that person or company for taking the time to comment. Have a new Facebook question or mention? Respond to it! While this may not be directly an SEO writing tactic, it’s a simple step that can go a long way toward improving your overall visibility on the web and ensuring that your customers can find you, wherever they happen to be online. 3. Shoot for long-tail web content keywords Right now, long-tail keywords make up 70% of all search volume. Because of this, they’re a critical thing for marketers concerned about good SEO web content to target. While the whole point of this article is that it’s wise for marketers to avoid focusing on keywords too much, long-tail keywords are a wonderful thing to include in your overall content strategy. Since long-tail keywords are highly specific, including them in your copy is a wonderful way to target it to your customers and boost your SEO by ensuring that the people who visit your site are qualified leads who are there because they’re ready to purchase or convert. 4. Beef up your linking strategy in your website content Linking has been a fraught topic in the world of SEO for years. Before SEO advanced to the point it’s at now, so-called black-hat SEOs used to stuff content full of spammy links to trick Google into ranking it well. Since then, Google has cracked down on these exploitative practices. Today, links can benefit your copy, but they have to be executed correctly. This means plenty of high-quality internal and outgoing links that point to other, valuable content and (in the case of outgoing links) sites with a high DA score. This helps communicate … Read more

A Blueprint to Quality Web Copywriting

January 1, 2021November 27, 2013 by Adam Oakley

You may have the most beautiful website design in the whole world, but if you fail to implement good web copywriting—that is, if the content on your website basically sucks—you may not get readers to take the “desired action” after reading the content on your site. When creating content for the web, it is important to understand that the Internet community is a jungle filled with information hunters. Websites that have been designed to convert readers and visitors should have “words crafted to convince;” period. Believe it or not, web copywriting is an art and there is no software on the face of the planet that can come up with words that can touch the human soul the way an experienced and gifted writer can. What is the Rule of Thumb In Web Copywriting? Be clear and concise. A large number of Internet users simply scan sites for the information that they are searching for, so you need to create content that is clear and concise. You want readers to easily locate the gist of every paragraph as fast as possible. Fancy words and highly complex sentences are practically useless on the web. Seriously, why would you want to use a fancy word like “obtuse” when you can simply use “stupid” instead? No one has the time or patience to reach for a dictionary when they read your content. Another important copywriting rule to follow is to make your content easy to read. How Do I Learn the Art of Drawing Readers In? It is certainly no secret that great web copywriting is a vital online marketing tool for drawing, retaining and turning visitors to loyal customers. But, how do you create content that draws people in? Once you know the secret of drawing readers in with words, you will be way ahead of the competition. Here are some surefire ways to draw readers in: Keep the Copy Short. Remember, the attention span of an average online user is short, so for Pete’s sake do not babble. Place the “juicy meat” of all your points right at the beginning of your web copy, instead of burying them at the nosebleed section of your webpage. If you interest your target readers up front, they will read the details and stay on your page for much longer, thereby increasing the possibility of buying your product or service or taking desired action that will benefit you in the long run. Get In Style. Having a unique writing style will not only make your site standout, it will also do a great job of drawing readers in. For a lot of websites, an informal but lively voice is the best way to go; it will help achieve easy readability and simplicity. The online community typically prefers websites that have content written in an informal and conversational style. Know Your Audience. Who are your target readers? When you know who your target audiences are, then and only then, will you be able to create content that will speak to them. Build an Emotional Connection. An effective web copywriter strives to connect with readers by making them smile, cry or laugh out loud. The content should strive to make readers feel any emotion besides indifference. Look for a way to connect with your readers the way the competition isn’t. Think about it, why was the Oprah Winfrey show loved so much, by so many people, for over two decades? Her show has a way of connecting with viewers in the most powerful way. Do Not Fake It! Readers can sense when you are not writing from the heart or trying hard to be what you (or your brand) are not. You need to be true to your voice. It is important to understand that people hate fakes. Wait A Minute, What About SEO? The 1990s is history and search engine algorithms have become more advanced. Quality web copywriting no longer involves keyword stuffing, but search engine optimization (SEO) is just as vital as ever. Keywords are important to your webpage, but should be included in the title and body of your content in the most natural way. Many copywriters use applications like Google’s Keyword Planner in order to add a little bit of scientific dimension to their God-given intuition. Hyperlinking: How Exactly Does That Work? Hyperlinking is very important when it comes to creating content for a webpage. A hyperlink is the most convenient way to provide more information and attribution to readers. For instance, if you mention a proven fact in your content, but you do not wish to go into the details, all you need to do is to just link to another article that clearly explains that proven fact. The process of hyperlinking is very simple, you can either write something like “for more details see this research,” or link on the word “research”. Or you can highlight a particular word, which will provide readers with a clue as to what information that link will provide them. See what Matt Cutts said on links in content marketing. Just ensure that the link is set to open in a new window or tab, this way, the readers will find it easier to get back to your website. Or else, readers could get carried away by the new information they are getting from the other site and even forget that they began their search on your webpage. Direct Readers With a Call to Action When it comes to effective web copywriting, your “Call to Action” is the main item you want readers to click on. If you write great content and fail to give readers a directive on what to do next, then congratulations! You have just won the award for “Dumbest Mistake to Make with Your Web Copy.” According to an interesting article on Moz, a lot of webmasters make horrible mistakes when it comes to content marketing—do not be one … Read more

5 Secrets to Web Copywriting

January 1, 2021November 12, 2013 by Adam Oakley

Web copywriting is not rocket science, but it’s not as easy as it sounds either. There are no hard and fast rules, but there are things you have to avoid. Sounds confusing? At first, it must be. However, there are ways to circumvent this confusion and turn it into something good. Here are some secrets to great web copywriting. Web Copywriting Starts With Proper Research And no, I don’t mean just knowing about your product. I mean knowing about why people would buy your product, market trends, competition, the nitty-gritty, that kind of stuff. You need to know what will cause your customers to buy your products and what will cause them to turn away. In other words, not only do you have to know the strengths of your product, but you have to know its weaknesses as well. Don’t write your content with SEO in mind, because there are currently SEO problems in Google that even you can’t circumvent. When you delve into research, not only will you find out what your customers want and need, you will know how to speak their language. That is something that effective web copywriting is successful at. What is the most successful way to find out this information? Why, ask them yourself! Customer surveys are a great way to gather information, as old-fashioned as it may seem. Begin by asking them the basics. Age, job, where they live, lifestyle, preferences, etc. These things will sound simple but they will tell you a lot about the demographics about who might be interested in your products and, more importantly, how you should write about your products. Remember, you are writing FOR them. 1) Find A Unique Selling Proposition Your product must be unique in some way, or else why sell it? Find an angle that you know will sell and sell it that way. There are two steps you need to take here: Define the problem: what do customers want fixed? How do they want their problems to be fixed? Explain the uniqueness of your offer: what is in your offer that your competitor doesn’t have? For this part, you have to have an intimate knowledge of your competitors. (See what I meant about research?) Let’s face it, you didn’t just re-invent the wheel, did you? Of course your product is unique, but just how unique is it? You have to find an angle that your competitors haven’t thought of yet and that is where you will strike. The best way to incorporate your unique selling proposition into your website is through a value proposition. A value proposition explains the benefits and values that the customers can get by availing of your product. Of course, a value proposition isn’t just a chunk of text that you put on your website. There is a format to it. First, there is a headline. This is where you talk about the end-benefit of your product. It’s a one-liner that should grab the reader’s attention. Then there’s a sub-headline. The sub-headline is a 2-3 sentence paragraph that explains what your product does and what problems it fixes. Next, put three bullet points. These three bullet points should be the points that your customers told you about in your research. You should list the most important benefits of your product here. Keep it to only three bullet points to make it short and sweet. Lastly, put a visual at the very end of your webpage. Web copywriting that uses images can increase customer response significantly. Content is important , but so are images. Images will attract users and it will make your site more attractive anyway. 2) Be Human Don’t write like a robot. The best way to know if your content will be read is to write the way that your customers do. Are they upbeat, funny, enthusiastic? Or are they laid-back, relaxed? If you did your research, you should know this by now. Avoid jargon as well. Write the way that your customers would. So avoid jargon unless you are writing for a very specific group of people. If you work in the technical field, for example, then maybe you can write highly technical articles if you are writing for technical people. However, if you are writing for laymen, write like laymen do. Web copywriting has transitioned from simple web content writing to now integrating social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Use these tools wisely and they will serve you well. 3) Be Grammatically Correct Nothing will turn off readers more than bad grammar. That will show them that you are not credible at all and that the information that you are presenting can’t be trusted. After all, if you are selling a high-end tech gadget and you can’t even speak proper English, how can they trust that they gadget that you are selling is indeed authentic? Know what you are writing and how you are writing it. Also, mind your punctuation as well. Don’t put too many exclamation points!!! It will sound off as if you are screaming at your readers, and that is not something that you would like to do. 4) Stay Focused On Your Consumers I know you’re trying to sell your product, but you’re trying to sell to customers, so focus on them instead. Focus on how it will benefit them instead of focusing on your profit. Once you add value to your product, profit will follow flawlessly. Stay focused on what you are trying to give instead of what you are trying to get. This will pay off enormously in the long run. It’s better to give than to receive, as the saying goes. 5) Don’t Be The Salesman Refrain from being too much of a salesman. Instead, be a friend and strike a conversation. Be a consultant and take a friendly tone for your web copywriting. It will pay off. A conversational tone is always preferable to a robotic tone of voice in any situation. This goes for … Read more

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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)?

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Web copywriting is an ever-evolving field, and the copywriter needs to be constantly aware of the changing environment of the blogosphere and the Internet in general. New views, shares, and search traffic are a set of moving targets, and unless you have your finger on the pulse of the Internet, you’re going to be a less effective copywriter than you can be.