Copywriting Articles
Basic Web Copywriting Checklist
(category: Copywriting, Word count: 346)
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Copywriting is one of the most important parts of internet marketing. Once you get visitors to your site, you must depend largely on your sales copy to convert the visitors into customers.
Sadly, many webmasters neglect the art of web copywriting. Copywriting truly is an art, but have a checklist of important points is also helpful. Here are some of the major components of good web copywriting.
1 - Your Headline
Does your headline grab the readers' attention and compel them to read further? It is essential that your headline do that. Web surfers generally move about on the internet very quickly. Research says that you have a matter of seconds to catch your website readers' attention, or they will move on. That is why your headline is so important.
2 - Your Introductory Copy
Do the first few paragraphs of your sales copy reinforce the headline, and convince readers to continue reading?
3 - Benefits
Does your sales copy sell the features or the benefits of your product or service? For example, does your site try to convince your readers that your vitamin C product is the best, or does your site try to convince your readers that your vitamin C product will give them the most health benefits?
4 - Call To Action
Does your sales copy clearly and compellingly tell your customer what action they should take after reading your website? (usually the desired action will be to buy your product)
5 - Assurances
Your prospects will only buy if they feel comfortable doing so. There are several things you can do to make them feel more comfortable buying from you, such as:
A: Displaying your picture
B: Displaying your contact data
C: A membership with the Better Business Bureau, etc
D: A Guarantee
E: A secure server logo
These 5 points are only a few of the most important parts of web copywriting. If you want to convert as many of your visitors as possible, study the art of copywriting and learn how to become a master copywriter!
Copywriting Demand
(category: Copywriting, Word count: 530)
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Within this article on copywriting demand, we will look at how much work there is out there for someone who wants to do freelance copywriting as well as the demand for copywriters as a profession.
Copywriting demand will always be strong. Demand will always be strong whether the economy is strong or weak. In past decades, it was easy to get away with a strong product and some marketing. With the emergence of globalization, there is a greater deal of competition in all markets and the way to stand apart is through marketing. For many consumers, the only way to be able to discern the differences between competing products is through the marketing. This ensures that copywriters are needed. Any good company which wants to send a consistent message to a target audience will always be employing copywriters. Some companies not looking ahead to the future may cut their advertising budget when they hit weak sales but that is not a smart move. If a recession comes along, demand may go down by a small margin for copywriters but it would pick right back up when the economy turned around.
There is always need for copywriters so no matter what happens within the country, companies will want to make sure that they have copywriters to work for them. There is a growing demand for copywriters in one particular forum and that would be on the Internet. With the Web up past four billion web pages, the demand for search engine copywriting has continued to increase. It is harder to get your web site indexed and search engine copywriting give you a better chance of being indexed. To do this, the search engine copywriters must write well to ensure that two audiences, the people searching and the search bots, are appeased so this provides more opportunities.
If you are looking into copywriting, there are a great many opportunities within this field. You can work for an advertising agency or you can decide to work for yourself. Many jobs are available all over the country for copywriters and you will find that this copywriting demand will stay at about the same pace and continue to grow with the pace of the economy. If you go out to the website, www.monster.com, you will find that there are currently more than 500 jobs are available for copywriters. This is just a small piece of the job market. There are many other ways that you can find copywriting jobs currently at this time. This should give you an idea of how there is demand for copywriters.
Hopefully this article on copywriting demand will help you out. If you are a copywriter, you should find that no matter the condition of the economy, you will always find work. Even when the economy is in a recession, some companies' sales are increasing and they may have a need for more copywriting work. With the demand of the whole market, you should always find yourself needed by someone. Good luck in finding a copywriting job but you will find that this is something that will often not be needed because of copywriting demand.
How To Make The Most Of Your Website Copywriter
(category: Copywriting, Word count: 848)
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Many people feel uncertain when dealing with copywriters. Like any artform, writing is subjective; instead of black and white, most business owners and marketing managers see indistinguishable shades of grey. But copywriting possesses one key element that most other forms of art don't - a commercial imperative.
Because the copywriter's audience is driven by the realities of the business market, so too is the copywriter. Although the good ones love to write, they don't necessarily love to write about toilet paper and real-estate. Copywriters - in particular website copywriters - write because it's their job. And like any job, copywriting has very defined objectives and parameters which determine how the copywriter works, and the kind of material they produce.
So, if you need black and white, this is where you'll find it.
There are two primary commercial realities for a website copywriter. Understand these realities, and you'll understand the writer. Ignore them, and your job will take longer, be more frustrating, be less engaging, and earn you less money.
REALITY 1 - READER-FRIENDLY AND SEARCH-ENGINE-FRIENDLY
A website copywriter needs to adhere to certain guidelines to ensure your website is both reader-friendly and search-engine-friendly. This is black and white.
Because most websites rely on search engines for their traffic, your website copywriter has to write for two broad audiences: human and computer. This introduces a number of complexities because, quite often, these audiences want different things.
For instance, with humans, less is generally more. But with computers, more is more. Humans need to understand, so the fewer words the better. Search engines, on the other hand, are programmed to think that anything important enough to be ranked highly has to have a lot of words. A website copywriter must balance these conflicting requirements. Your copywriter will work faster and more efficiently if you don't demand too few words or too many.
TIP: If your site needs both humans and search engines, try not to set your heart on less than 100 words per page or more than 300 words. Generally speaking, somewhere in the middle is a nice compromise for both audiences.
And it's not just the number of words used that's important. Humans tend not to like repeated words, whereas search engines do. Humans will understand from your heading what it is you do, and if it's relevant. Mention it once, and they'll generally remember. Search engines are not so smart. They need to be told again and again. This is how they figure out how relevant your site is.
TIP: Don't ask your website copywriter to be a minimalist. The search engines won't like it. By the same token, don't ask them to simply jam every page full of hundreds of your primary keyword phrases, because your human readers won't like that (in fact, neither will the search engines). The trick is to expect each page to repeat one or two primary keyword phrases 5-10 times.
TIP: Remember, balancing human and computer requirements is time consuming. Try to have a clear understanding of the objective of each page before your writer starts. You'll get a much better product with fewer time consuming iterations.
REALITY 2 - BENEFITS, AUDIENCES, PRODUCTS, SERVICES, FEATURES
A website copywriter deals in benefits, audiences, products, services, and features. This is black and white.
These things may be painfully obvious to you, but they won't be to your copywriter. And although a good copywriter will be able to draw them out of you, they won't be able to accurately and comprehensively identify them alone.
TIP: Before you engage a website copywriter, make a list of what you do, who you do it for, and what benefits it gives them. Your job will cost more if your brief consists of one line, "I want to increase sales!"
When it comes down to it, a good website is written around benefits. Customers are only interested in how you can benefit them. This means benefits are the website copywriter's inspiration. By the end of the project, you'll be sick and tired of hearing your copywriter ask, "But what are the benefits of that to your customer?" You'll definitely thank them for asking though.
TIP: Don't confuse features with benefits. A feature is what you do or how you do it. A benefit is what advantage that brings to the customer. Your list should make a clear distinction between the two. This will save your copywriter a LOT of time, and save you a lot of money. Most importantly, it will MAKE you a lot of money because your website will engage your customer.
Website copywriting is an artform. But because it's an artform with a commercial foundation, it can be understood by anyone in business. And when you understand the commercial realities of the copywriter, the greys of the artform will begin to seem more like the familiar black and white of the nine-to-five. Then, and only then, will you be able to make the most of your website copywriter.
Sales Letters That Sell
(category: Copywriting, Word count: 218)
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The average consumer is inundated with sales pitches. So if you're selling a product or service to today's ad weary consumer, if you want your sales letters to get results, you'll need a step-by-step plan that breaks down the barriers to buying. A plan that bypasses the head and goes right for the heart.
If the heart's in it, the brain will follow.
Buying anything is largely emotional. Whether it's paper clips or plain paper copiers, emotions lead the purchase. Facts, specs and the like are simply used to justify the decision, once made. Which means that everything about your sales letter, every sentence, every phrase must appeal to your customer's emotions.
What emotions?
The simple truth is, there are only two emotions that really motivate people: The promise of gain or the fear of loss-with the fear of loss being the stronger. Example: Given the choice of headlines: "Save money in legal fees." Or "How to keep from being sued." The latter will probably get a better response.
Supporting the promise of gain and the fear of loss are seven key emotional hooks or basic human needs. No matter what your product or service, to be effective, your sales letter must directly address as many of these basic needs as possible:
Watch Out Copy Mistakes Are Sinking Your Site
(category: Copywriting, Word count: 303)
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No matter how well you write, or even if you have a professional writer create your web site copy, you're going to have errors. Misspelled words, awkward sentences, phrases that don't make sense, and words that are used incorrectly run rampant through many sites. And it's no wonder. Writing well is hard work. Even a good writer will be too close to the copy and won't see ALL their mistakes, even when re-reading the copy carefully.
Mistakes in your copy can sink your web site. The online audience who accounts for most of your customers are a rather literate group of people. Studies show a large percentage have a good knowledge of spelling and punctuation. If they find your copy has several errors in it, prospects will figure you do sloppy work.
The solution is simple. Get a proof reader to carefully check your copy. You can enlist the help of a friend who has a sharp eye for spelling and punctuation. Better yet, get a professional proof reader to read your copy. Proof reading is almost always affordable and the investment will pay off big time in avoided embarrassment and missed sales.
Don't get too comfortable with spell checkers. Many have limited numbers of words they recognize, and will skip past some misspelled words. One of the most common problems is that a spell checker can't help you if you use the WRONG word.
Don't feel like I'm picking on you. I worked in the TV and movie industries for many years. I can tell you from personal experience that even Hollywood's writers struggle with typos and other errors in their copy. None would dream of turning in a script without first having a capable proof reader go through their drafts and revisions.
Writing Helpful Help A Minimalism Checklist
(category: Copywriting, Word count: 562)
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User documentation is all too often written by programmers for programmers. It tends to focus on the product's features, rather than the user's tasks. Generally, programmers aren't in the ideal position to be writing user documentation. They're too close to the bits and bytes, and they're too far from the user. To them, what the product can do tends to be far more important than what the user can do with the product.
It's a subtle - but vital - distinction. Research shows that the key to effective user documentation is writing task oriented help. Even better, write your help according to the minimalist theory. In the documentation world, "minimalism" is a fancy word for a commonsense practice. In basic terms, it means write to your reader and keep it simple.
The theory itself has a lot of twists and turns. If you want to read a great - but slightly wordy - book on the subject, check out the book "Minimalism Beyond the Nurnberg Funnel", 1998, edited by John Carroll.
In the meantime, if you can tick every item in the following checklist, you'll be well on your way to usable online help that both your readers and your managers will thank you for.
Helpful Help Checklist
1.Base the help on real tasks (or realistic examples)
2.Structure the help based on task sequence - Chapter headings should be goals and topics should be tasks
3.Respect the reader's activity - this is generally more about what you don't do than what you do. Don't waste the reader's time by diving off into tangents
4.Exploit prior knowledge and experience - Draw the reader's attention to previous tasks, experiences, successes, and failures
5.Prevent mistakes - "Ensure you do x before doing y"
6.Detect and identify mistakes - "If this fails, you may have entered the path incorrectly"
7.Fix mistakes - "Re-enter the path"
8.Provide error info at end of tasks where necessary (rule of thumb, one error info note per three tasks is a good average)
9.Don't break up instructions with notes, cautions, warnings, and exceptional cases - Put these things at the end of the instruction, wherever possible
10.Be brief, don't spell everything out, especially things that can be taken for granted
11.Omit conceptual and note information where possible, or link to it. Perhaps provide expansion information at the end of the topic, plus maybe a note that there are other ways to perform the task/goal, but this is the easiest
12.Sections should look short and read short
13.Provide closure for sections (e.g., back to original screen/goal)
14.Provide an immediate opportunity to act and encourage exploration and innovation (use active invitations to act, such as, "See for yourself..." or "Try this..." rather than passive invitations such as, "You can...")
15.Get users started quickly
16.Allow for reading in any order - make each section modular, especially goals, but perhaps tasks (definitely if they can be performed in different order)
17.Highlight things that are not typical
18.Use active voice rather than passive voice
19.Try to account for the user's environment in your writing
20.Before writing anything, ask yourself "Will this help my reader?"
By building these practices into your documentation process, you'll find that your online help becomes easier to write, shorter, and far more usable for your reader. What's more, your boss will love you!
Keyword Article Companies
(category: Copywriting, Word count: 364)
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When it comes to making the most of your website or blog, you will need to have top notch content. The bottom line is that content brings visitors to your site, and visitors bring profits.
In order to increase traffic to your site, you will want to use a good mix of keyword articles. These will go a long way in increasing your traffic from search engines. Not to mention the fact that keyword articles can also be very educational.
When looking to choose a keyword article company to help you out, there are three important things that you should keep in mind. These details are as follows.
1. A good keyword article company should be devoted to helping you succeed through quality content. This means that you will want to find a service that offers quality content, not just fluff. After all, people are going to be reading what you put on your site. If your writers do not do a good job you will not be making your visitors happy.
2. Even though price is not everything, you will want to take it into consideration. Think of it this way. If you need 10 articles a week, and one service offers them for $6 an article and another $8, you will be saving $20 total every week. Over the course of a month this is $80; and during the year $960. Surely you could find something to do with an extra $960. Remember, costs can add up; shop for the best price without compromising quality.
3. Search for personal service. When you order any type of copywriting project chances are that you will need to be in touch with the writers you are working with. This means that you should do your best to choose a service that will walk you through the process, not one that simply completes the work and sends it back without communication.
Overall, there are several top quality keyword article companies that are available to work for you. As long as you do your research and follow the tips above you should be able to find the one that best suits your needs.
Copywriting Lyrics
(category: Copywriting, Word count: 505)
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Within this article on copywriting lyrics, we will look at this particular field a little more closely.
Copywriting takes on a similar form no matter what niche you are writing for. This is exactly true when copywriting lyrics. When you are working at copywriting lyrics, you are writing a message to a certain audience. To do this, you must understand the way that your audience thinks and acts and what sort of message is going to appeal to them. Many people write songs every year but these are not played on the radio because it is not something meets with the audience's thoughts and feelings. People who are good at copywriting lyrics know what their audience wants and gives it to them.
You will be working to get a message across but you also are working to provide instant recognition of a song. A good example of this would be Beyonce's new song, "Irreplaceable." In this song, one of the main lyrics within there is "To the left, to the left." If you are to hear this on the radio without knowing what the song sounds like, this provides instant recognition of the song. This helps build the knowledge and awareness of the particular singer of the song.
Copywriting lyrics does not necessarily have to be just about the sales. The ability to put words together in a manner that move people is a talent that very few people have. Words have the ability to carry you to different places or to bring you down and this is what music can do every day. When you are copywriting lyrics, you are sending a message to people if they are truly listened to the entire song. Often we cannot remember the entire words to the song so that is where the hook or the chorus can come in.
Any time you are copywriting, you are working to persuade an audience in one form or another. Copywriting lyrics is very similar to writing articles in a newspaper because you're putting across a certain message. When you're writing lyrics, you are speaking from the perspective of a particular person and trying to get a certain message across to an audience. This audience will be moved hopefully in that they will like the song as well as think about purchasing the album. These are two critical steps that go in tandem with each other.
Hopefully this article on copywriting lyrics has given you some insight into the subject. Copywriting lyrics is meant to achieve the same purpose as any other form of copywriting: build an awareness of a particular singer. It is hard for someone to remember the words to an entire song but most people can remember a short phrase or statement from a song. This can be a great way to help an artist's sales. Remember that copywriting can have several different focuses with the writing. This is not something that is normally focused on but a message can be used in different manners.
6 Reasons Why Case Studies Are A Terrific Market For Freelance Writers
(category: Copywriting, Word count: 112)
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I remember the first time a client offered me a case study writing assignment.
I was petrified.
It was early in my freelance writing career and I didn't even know what one looked like. I had a lot of questions. "What the heck is a case study?" "How long is it?" "What is the format?" "How much do I charge?"
I didn't have a clue.
Of course, these days, I know more. A lot more. In fact, I write dozens of case studies for clients each year.
Case studies now rank high on my list of the most fascinating
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