How do you write good copy?
Depending on the audience, a good copy will take on a different appearance; they will also respond to different copywriting conventions.
Even the best blog copy can turn out to be awful as advertising copy.
Let’s talk about the copy you are writing for your website and blog now.
What laws apply?
Table of Contents
1. Write in a conversational manner
Instead of lectures, people prefer to have conversations.
Conversations speak with them on an equal footing, as opposed to lectures that talk down to them.
How do you write in a casual style?
There is a real person here.
I always write with a particular reader in mind. I can’t write to a faceless audience; I need a specific person to address.
This strategy prevents me from approaching the reader as if I am lording over her rather than sitting next to her and engaging her in conversation.
Maybe when I write, I’m thinking of a Twitter follower or a reader who left a comment.
Writing posts that your audience requests or suggests will help make this easier for you.
There is a second person there.
It’s acceptable to use the first person when providing a real-world example to illustrate your point (I, me, we).
Use the second person throughout the rest of your post (you, yours).
Grammar commands you not to combine the two; instead, consider how you would conduct a conversation.
“Skunks should not be approached.”
“Why?”
“I once had a negative encounter. believed it to be a cat. You need to stay away from that.”
If you save “I” for your examples and stories and “you” for the rest, you can mix the two in your blog copy.
The idea is to be aware of it and avoid carelessly blending “we” and “you” from one paragraph to the next when there isn’t an example of a personal account present.
2. Make it simple
Simple is good.
If you spend your entire day producing copy, it will be simple for you to bloat your writing.
Words are what you think about and write all day long, and when fatigue sets in, your copy starts to bloat because it is more challenging to write short sentences than long ones.
You can start out complicated as long as your solution is simple. That’s a component of the blogging process that we employ here.
Describe a simple copy.
Communicates clearly and directly. Exactly what it should be said.
Not overloaded with tricksy language or concepts.
Has space for breathing, both in the amount of blank space on the page and the sound of the sentences (mix short with long sentences).
Clear concepts.
Skips over technical terms and words that are impossible to understand and make readers feel stupid.
Speak clearly. If you’re hesitant to say something in your copy, using euphemisms and disclaimers won’t make the situation any less painful. It just turns it mushy.
3. Write to Sell
Writing is always selling.
I hate to admit it because I don’t want to sound crude, but even fiction writing sells. It offers for sale an ideology, a philosophy, a dream, a chance, and a fantasy.
Before you can write good copy, you must be aware of the product you are trying to sell.
Sell concepts to an audience of like-minded people.
You almost always sell ideology when you write.
People who are drawn to ideas are both created and collected when ideas are sold to them. Fans! Adherents! Fanatics! These are the people who, if you’ve successfully pitched the idea, will join your army.
They do all of these things out of a desire to help you—they share your content on social media, discuss it on their blogs, and advertise what you’re doing.
4. Know the difference between features and benefits
You could think of this as knowing your value proposition, but I don’t really care for language like that. (Avoid using buzzwords whenever you can.)
Do you promote a particular lifestyle or a particular beverage? Do you promote hope or entrepreneurship-related ebooks? Which are you selling—watches or an identity?
It’s simple to think that selling widgets is all about the product rather than what it does for the customer.
Perhaps the features are not the key.
Say you are a shoe seller. Because of the clever heel design in your most recent creation, people appear taller while still being able to run easily and maintain their balance despite the boost. For everyone who is shorter, this is wonderful news. You discuss these characteristics in your copy when you talk about this shoe.
Our shoe’s patented heel construction gives you more height while firmly anchoring you to the ground.
Sadly, you overlooked a crucial selling point.
Wearers of the shoe feel more in control and confident thanks to the height increase without compromising mobility.
They don’t give a damn if they won’t fall or about the heel style.
They want to know how the shoe will give them more self-assurance in both their professional and personal lives.
5. Find an angle that works
Which angle will you approach the topic of your writing from? What will be your attack angle? The concept of finding an angle can be viewed in two different ways.
Writing in a variety of styles.
Prepositional phrase thinking is what I like to call it.
Your subject is centered in this area.
Will you provide a report from the air? coming from within? On it? Following it? close to it?
This can be used practically by deciding whether to write about your widget from the perspective of an industry insider, a novice seeing it for the first time, or a patient teacher hoping to broaden readers’ perspectives.
Whichever angle you choose to write from will depend on who you are selling to. You won’t write as though for newcomers if you’re addressing industry insiders.
This will show in the language and depth you use.
6. Don’t slap your audience with your copy
The “SLAP rule,” which stands for Stop, Look, Act, Purchase, is a concept.
True, but…
No need to humiliate your audience.
Nobody wants to be slapped, but that’s what you do if you use shock or deception to get people to stop and look.
You are competing for the interest of a readership that is already inundated with blog posts, email newsletters, “sign up now!” calls to action, and everything else under the sun.
They are receiving SLAPS from all sides.
Like bacteria and antibiotics, readers and copy shock tactics are similar.
Desensitization and resistance build to a certain extent.
You keep raising the stakes in your copy, and eventually, you will run out of options.