How To Write Effective Copy For Your Website

by
Jeff Colburn

So, you've decided what to call your website, what pages you want, you have all of your graphics and you're ready to go, but what about content?

Without copy, all of your efforts will mean nothing. I don't mean just having words on your site, you need to have content that will get your message across to visitors in a way that will inform, educate or make them buy your products and services

The key to writing for the Internet is to realize that when people go to a website they want information to be fast and to the point. No hunting around, no reading pages of copy for a few sentences of information. Give visitors what they want as quickly and easily as possible.

There are several ways that you can do this. The first is to have short sentences and short paragraphs. Long blocks of text on a website look intimidating, and boring, to visitors. Breaking up your text will make visitors more likely to read what you have to say. You can also break up text by having a one-cell table with a complimentary background color, and put visitor's comments, testimonials and other interesting information into the table.

Another technique is to use bulleted lists. Use this to highlight a series of important items instead of making a long paragraph. Which of the following two do you find easier, and faster, to read?

When I went to the store I bought bread, butter, jelly, lettuce, cereal and muffins.

Or

When I went to the store I bought:

• Bread
• Butter
• Jelly
• Lettuce
• Cereal
• Muffins

A few other things you need to keep in mind when assembling your website content is how the copy is displayed. If you want to draw a visitor's attention to something, all you have to do is bold the text. Just bold the key item, not the entire sentence. Also, don't bold too much text or it will lose its effectiveness. Too much bold will make the reader tune it out and pay no more attention to bold then regular copy. The same goes for italic text. Using italic will draw attention to something, but many people have trouble reading words that are italicized, so I would suggest sticking to bold.

As for some things not to do:

• Don't use flashing text. Everyone hates it.
• Don't underline words that aren't links. People expect underlined words on web pages to be links, and when they click on the word and nothing happens they get disappointed and frustrated.
• Never use more than three different font styles on a page, and preferably use only one. More than three fonts becomes distracting to the reader and gives the look of an amateurish website.

You also want to speak on a one-to-one basis with your visitors. Don't say, "People find my product useful." Say, "You will find my product useful." Write as if you were speaking to only one person. Use words like, "You" and "Your" to make the reader fell like you are talking only to them. This will draw them into your copy.

Okay, so you have a page filled with short sentences and paragraphs, bulleted lists and all the other things I've mentioned, but there is one more thing you need to do. This is the most important aspect of writing copy for websites or print that is designed to persuade someone to buy your products and services, and most people fail miserably at this critical item.

When you write about your product and service, you need to fill the copy with benefits not features. This works for both selling things and convincing people of your point of view.

Which of the following sentences would make you want to buy an apple?

• It's roundish, red and nutritious.
• Can you hear the crunch as you bite into an apple's juiciness, and taste its sweetness fill your mouth?

• Our car has a metal body, four doors and an engine.
• The Yatzz has a sleek aerodynamic design that maximizes your gas mileage. Its powerful engine can easily take you up even the steepest hill, and the superb ground clearance will get you over any obstacle you encounter on the road.

Look at the commercials on television. They don't say their aftershave smells good, they say it will get you women. They don't say the bubble bath will make you clean, they say it will melt away all the stresses of your day. Personally, I want to know the features of a product or service, but 99% of the buying public wants the benefits. So focus on the benefits of your products and services and your sales will be much higher.

Some words that are useful to use include:

• Fast
• Guaranteed
• Limited
• Easy
• Discount
• Sale
• Free
• You / your
• Important
• New

By using the techniques I've mentioned you will have content that's clear and powerful and that will speak directly to your visitors.

Do you want to learn how to make your website work for you and not against you? Then visit The Creative Cauldron NOW to find the answers to your questions, and achieve what you want in life. Go to www.TenCommonWebMistakes.com to download the FREE report "Ten Common Mistakes Found On Websites, And How To Fix Them."

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