Tag Archives: writing web copy

Web Copywriting – What to Be Very Careful About

The easiest way is not necessarily the best path

The larger majority of people begin their websites with a web designer who plans the site and creates it. At that point it doesn’t have anything in it. Then, the owner of the site seeks a copywriter to fill up the blanks in the site by putting words.

Many of these web designers are in love with certain aspects of technology. For instance, some like flash in the header, lots of pictures, big pictures. Somewhere along the line, the copywriter is expected to put content in this empty container.

This is going the wrong way. There is a reason why in Internet Marketing, content is king. This is not a cutesy statement. Instead it describes a reality. Your visitor will not be driven by web design or by pictures. Words will drive your prospects to the desired action.

From an architectural perspective, the web copywriting should be the first involved into the process of ideation. You will need to develop the message and copy before starting any web design.

This is the opposite direction that most people take. One of homepage the misleading strategies is to buy a pre-built website. This is a very attractive idea. One can get a whole site for a couple of hundred dollars. That option seems to solve the problem of web site creation. The challenge with this, is that the themes forces you to write to an audience that exists in the mind of someone else.

Your homepage is like your business card, it reflects who you are

When you get a pre-built theme, both the homepage and all the other pages are really boxes joined together. They limit the amount of words that you can write. Meaning, it does not allow you to have useful, long copy which is very important for the reader to get value and for Google’s semantic search.

You will be better off getting the service of a custom designed website. Yes, far more expensive than a pre-built site but more effective. Your strategy, your message and your marketing objective will drive the design of your website.

In fact, I would begin by doing a lot of research, which is the most important part of writing a copy. You need to know what is the intention of the site. Is it to give information, to sell a service or product? What kind of information or products are being sold? Who is the audience. Are you selling locally, nationwide, or internationally?

Creating a homepage is the most important part of your website. Good copywriting should allow you to give care and attention to your visitors who will love you, trust you, and buy from you.

What is Content Marketing?

We hear the expression content marketing everywhere on the Internet. But it’s like a store of goodies. There is a world of divisions in there. It encompasses social media, blog posts, newsletters, informational emails, articles, case study, etc. In fact, if you want to reach customers, you need content marketing.

The world is changing at an accelerated rate. What was true just a couple o What is Content Marketing f years ago, is no longer valid. According to the Content Marketing Institute, “Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience – and ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”

For some people, writing is fun. They sit in front of a computer and pound at the keyboard. They had written a fantastic article by the time they finished.

For others, writing is a drag, ideas come slowly, laboriously, and by the time they finished, they stare at the word count. They are observing that what they really wrote was so little. They’ve been told that a blog post should be 800 to 1,000 words.

Clean writing solves this issue

Professional copywriters face this issue all the time in their writing. The question is, how long should their sales letter be? Usually, sales letters are long, very long. However, observe the great masterpiece of writing made by David Ogilvy about the Rolls-Royce. The copy was written on only half a page. Very few words, yet extremely powerful sales.

The fact is that your sales letter, like your blog post, should be long enough to say the essentials, but short enough to be interesting. This answer doesn’t seem profound on the surface, yet it encapsulates a world of wisdom. It all has to do with the intent of your piece.

One piece of writing would be need-to-know products, which would include information about the niche of your blog, such as food, auto parts, coffee, clothing, alternative medicine, etc.

Your prospects don’t need a long copy in this case because they need the products. To sell this kind of product, you’ll have to establish the product’s Unique Selling Proposition and make an irresistible offer.

How long should a blog post be?

Therefore the length of your blog has to do with what it is you want to accomplish. This was pointed out so eloquently in the Copyblogger, when the author says that “Good writers know how to craft long and short content, and they’ve mastered the art of knowing which one to use in every writing circumstance.”

There is no amount of words that should be assigned to a good blog post. The length of your article has to do with your reader and the intention behind your communication. The audience is crucial. David Ogilvy in his sales letter was trying to communicate with people who did not want economical cars. A Rolls-Royce is a car for those who are wealthy and have other cars, as well.

When dealing with readers interested in “how to” information, you may have to stir up a desire for the product. So your copy might need to be a little longer. This is where the intention behind your communication comes in.

If you’re writing a highly technical blog post, then it could be more than 1000 words. As Copyblogger rightly pointed out “many long posts do very well online.”

Great content increase traffic

You can observe that companies who substantially invest in great content – like videos, blog posts, or case studies – experience 8 times more site traffic than companies who don’t. According to Forbes, the trends for success is up for content marketing in 2018.

It is not surprising to know that 4,500 B2B and B2C companies shared with HubSpot that the growth of their content was the number 1 priority. According to a study done by Forrester Research by 2019 digital marketing will spend a $103 Billion.

The well known and respected Content Marketing Institute points out that prominent organizations in the world like P&G, Microsoft, Cisco Systems and John Deere use content marketing. There is no better way to attract the attention of prospects and generate leads, as well as expand the customer base.

Copywriting Services – Various benefits

One of the most important aspects of having a successful online business is to have traffic. This would be generated through high quality content that you can get from copywriting services. A lot of content in your site means a strong web presence. As a business owner you may have a lot of good ideas about your products or services. Help for putting all this content in a consistence fashion on your site is available.

A Google search will quickly reveal that there are literally thousands of copywriting services available to use for your online business. However, you need to keep in mind that a good copywriter service will try to get to know your audience. It’s not all about writing and putting a lot of things in your site. It is about adding worthwhile, relevant content that offers value to your audience.

Copywriting services that businesses need

The important thing about copywriting services is to see if their interest is focused on what they can do for you or what benefits they can offer you.

You may not know how to present yourself to your target market in a manner that appeals to their intellect and emotions. Which is why your writer has to be able to fill the gap for you. First and foremost, copywriting is about selling.

Therefore, when you consider copywriting services, watch if the writer tries to go inside the heads of your target customers. The writing is not all about words in the web site, rather, it’s about persuading your prospect to own the product or service that you are offering. Crafting the copy has to speak to the demographics of your market.

When you look for copywriting services, try to see if they will also do SEO. Remember, a copywriter does not necessarily have to write according to the search engine optimization (SEO). That’s another kind of service, and it will cost you extra.

Website Copywriting

Having content is a necessity in order to succeed therefore you need to do website copywriting. Many people have the tendencies to talk about the features of their products. That is alright. Features are an important aspects of the product or service you’re providing. Describing features in your website copywriting means presenting to your audience the characteristics of that product.

When you prospect for a product and you look at the specs, what you are doing is looking at the features of this product. In website copywriting, you certainly want to include these since it will describe your product to your reader. However, you will want also to include the benefits of the product. What the benefits means are the things that the product can do for you.

Website copywriting that sells

In your website copywriting, you have to tell your buyer what’s in it for him. A good example of benefits would be in the case of weight lost products. Talk about how it will allow someone to lose with in just a short amount of time. Often this is a bit strange to talk about because we are so used to just talk about features. If you know next-to-nothing about website copywriting, you will need a learning curve.

With some patience you can accomplish a tremendous work. Website copywriting is very different for other forms of writing. This is why in this article I am providing you with a good starting point to turn things around. Doing website copywriting requires special skills that will make your web pages compelling to the reader. When you use powerful search engine optimization (SEO), then you can have a tremendous impact on your marketing.

Doing powerful website copywriting will be helped if you do a keyword research. This is an important step in your writing. Whether or not you want to become an expert, it is a matter of personal choice. But you need to acquire a minimum amount of skills to be successful.

What is copywriting? The Art of Selling

Whenever I find myself in a social situation of some sort, there is always someone who ask me what is copywriting. This in fact, is not a ridiculous question. It is a very smart one. Many people think they know what is copywriting by thinking that is writing things. I have found people looking for copywriting for their blog, when in reality they wanted someone to post articles for them.

The best definition that I believe would do justice to the question of what is copywriting, is this. Copywriting is salesmanship in print. No it’s not about putting content in your blog. It’s not about writing articles, even search engine optimized articles. It is not about writing information on your web page. None of it. It is about selling.

Understanding what is copywriting

Just like you need someone to either go out there and sell your product or get on the phone and do cold calling. The answer of what is copywriting turns out to be selling on print. The copywriter uses words in a certain fashion to persuade a prospect to own the product that he’s presenting. It is important to understand that copywriting is not advertisement.

What is copywriting is not about writing clever or witty stuff in the hope that your prospect might buy the product. First, a copywriter addresses himself to a very specific audience. Meaning he has to know his market. Who is he selling to? He needs to be familiar with the product. This is indeed true also of the salesman who goes out to prospect.

When you find out what is copywriting, the next question would be, how do you learn it? There is no universities, no colleges, no schools that exist that will or can teach you copywriting. Just like there is no universities or colleges, etc. who will teach you or train you to be a salesman. In fact, copywriting is a trade that is learn at the feet of the masters.

B2B copywriter

Like a lot of professions, copywriting can be specialized. A B2B copywriter is a specialist. B2B means business to business. Therefore a B2B copywriter is someone who writes for business to business industries. What do we mean by business to business? It simple means companies that deals only with other businesses in the supply of goods and services.

One cannot be a jack of all trade. Some people specialize as a B2B copywriter. Some body else may specialize as a business to consumer copywriter. Both industries are quiet different. A consumer searching to buy the latest iPad will be completely motivated in a different way from the VP of a mid size company wanting to buy an additional truck for their delivery system.

B2B copywriter specializes in an industry

The B2B copywriter addresses a very specific market. Most of them furthermore specializes in industries, for example the software industry or the oil industry, aircraft industry. Each of those industries have their own markets, technologies, and lingo. Understanding the software industry is not the same thing as understanding the oil industries.

A B2B copywriter has a tremendous challenge ahead of him or her as far as writing good sales letter or lead generation content. Being able to communicate with marketing directors is an essential part of the work. There are many steps involved in the process of persuading him to spend a couple of million dollars on a product. Very different goal than in the consumer world.

Obviously the prerequisite to the B2B copywriter is to be able to write. There is a certain training necessary to be a copywriter. One needs to know the industry. One has to know the different marketing pieces that would be needed to be done in a B2B copywriting. In a nutshell a certain real world experience is important. This is not a trade you will acquire by reading some books.

Copywriting Tips

There are many people who want to learn about copywriting and others who want to launch into this career. I will be giving here some copywriting tips. First of all, I want to say that writing copy can be a lot of fun. Many of us may have experience writing in school as a “drag” and feel discourage of doing so either for themselves or professionally.

But among all the copywriting tips that I can give you, I will also say that writing copy can be very lucrative. The most important part of doing copywriting is surprisingly about knowing your product. When you write a sales letter for a product, you’re trying to convince someone to buy that item. So you need to do some research on it. You have to known the product in order to write about.

Copywriting Tips and Techniques

Knowing about the product is not sufficient, you need to know the market. All of these are important copywriting tips. Who are the people using this product? The answer of that question will tell you who you audience is. For instance, if your product reduces blood pressure, who will be using it? Obviously, people who have high blood pressure.

Another word used for copywriting, is direct response writing. There are many authors who will give you significant copywriting tips to write persuasively. The first part of your writing will have to be the headline. It is the sentence or phrase that will draw your reader to reader the rest of your letter. In fact your header should be unique.

Your header has to be unique otherwise it’ll be something that people see all the time and they will not be interested. The kind of copywriting tips that many professionals give, is the need to market yourself all the time. If people don’t know that you exist, they can’t hire you.

Junior Copywriter and Web Copywriting

A junior copywriter is first of all someone who knows how to use words in order to communicate a message. The copywriter uses words to sell a product or service to either the public or to businesses. Often he works for an advertising agency or a publishing company. This a field that requires creativity. Therefore the junior copywriter will have to develop ideas to sell products.

The life of a junior copywriter in an agency is usually fast pace. He has to develop concepts for what he’s trying to sell. It is often required of him to have excellent writing skills, good grammar and be a good speller. You may find the junior copywriter working in the field of radio advertisement or writing copy for billboards. Experience in this field is obtain through practice.

Junior Copywriter in Marketing

The junior copywriter will be writing sales letters offline and online, direct mail advertisements, booklets and even brochures. This is not a career for which you need a specific degree. It is really open for anyone. A university degree in English will not help you in copywriting. In fact it may even hamper you. The reason is that colleges are academic institutions who pursue goals totally different from those who are doing direct selling.

Journalism might be related to junior copywriter, but is not the same thing. If you decide to work for an agency, you should know how agencies run. You should acquire a certain familiarity with the different positions, titles and responsibilities of the various departments. Be aware that all agencies are not the same.

As a junior copywriter, you will have to write headlines for your copy. You will need to develop a concept. It usually have to be unique. Your piece will not only have a body but also a call to action. Meaning, persuade your reader to do something such as buyer the product.

Copywriter job description

Today we will explore the subject of copywriter job description. Obviously we all know that there are people out there who are copywriters. But what do they do? First of all, I want to say that people making a living out of that have fun. Sometimes we think that writing is hard. We all confronted the situation when we are assigned, perhaps in school, to write. And the first thing in our mind is, “What am I going to write?”

Well, copywriter job description can be said to be exiting. Really, there are many types of jobs that copywriters can do. And they can make a handsome living at it. You will need to think about what you like to do. For instance, what industry would you like to be involved with. Many copywriters specialize in industries. And often they may work for an agency.

Copywriter job description is often misunderstood

When we talk about copywriter job description, we need to keep in mind that many times people doing writing are not in fact copywriters. In this case, it’s just a job description that has to do with writing. A writer can for example write books or instructional manuals. Actually a copywriter is specifically someone who writes sales letters offline or online.

Copywriter job description is often vague. Since writing is a function that has many, many branches, often a company may think that looking for a copywriter whereas in reality they looking for a writer. Two different things. In offline marketing, you receive mail envelops containing letters, brochures, presenting a product. There is an order form.

This material would have been writing by a copywriter. That’s a very good example of copywriter job description. The writer communicates to a specific market the existence of a product or service that would solve their problems. The letter is written persuasively and invite the prospect to make an order.

What is Copywriting – The function of Copywrite

Increasingly there are many people wanting to know what is copywriting. It is the art of selling through print. It has nothing to do with just putting content into your website or blog. This article is not copywriting. First of all, your starting point is having a product of service that you offer to a particular market.

Hopefully that market has a particular need or they have a problem. And your product or service fulfills that need. Communicating to that market is what copywriting will be about. You will try to sell that product to your market. There are many people who are involved in the noble profession of selling, as salesperson. This is one way to reach to your customers.

For those who are good at selling, there is certain the possibility of making a tremendous amount of money . But selling is a tough activity. You have to work long hours and face the possibility of rejection. This is why people want to know what is copywriting. Because it’s an activity that allows to sell without necessarily the drawback of live selling.

Many people want to know what is copywriting

To find out what is copywriting, you need to start by the beginning which is your headline. It should reach out to your prospect. The headline is the first sentence of your copy and it should grab your reader and bring him to continue to read. This is why selling with the written word is something entirely different from live salesman.

In finding out what is copywriting, you learn that fact that your headline should have four critical rules called the 4 U’s. Use them, and you will write a great headline. Don’t use them, and your headline will problematic. However, keep in mind that practice makes perfect and so you will get better over time.

One of the U’s that your headline should have as an expression of your desire to know what is copywriting is, usefulness. Your headline needs to give a reason to your prospect to keep on reading.

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