A plan is a
vital stage of copywriting on the web, as knowing exactly what you want to
accomplish is key.
First, you need
to determine your own site goals, whether you want to increase sales, build a
list, give out useful information, or a product. In order to do this, you will need to use
your web copy to accomplish your goal.
To produce
great copy, you need to know your visitors and exactly what they want, so you
need to determine who your core audience is.
You cannot be all things to everyone,
so the copy you create needs to be targeted.
You need to
know who you are targeting, or else you will miss out on the people who are
most willing and eager to pay for your help and expertise.
You can
determine your target market by figuring out what particular problems, your
site solves, whether you are offering a product, service or information. You have to know your product inside out and
all it's benefits and how they equate to your potential customer's problem.
When you have
determined who is your targeted audience, you can then start hunting them down
and create a profile of the people who would benefit most from your help. You need to use strong web copy to explain
what the site can do for them specifically, with strong benefits as bait.
If you need to
target different types of visitors to your site, with different problems, then
create separate pages for each of their requirements. If you don't provide exactly what a visitor
needs and quickly, they will go elsewhere and you will be forgotten. You need to offer something of value that is
useful, especially if it is free.
You can
consider visitors to your site as goldfish, except they have an attention span
of 15 seconds, which is why they need to be captivated by something they can
use.
There are four
simple questions that your core audience will need answered in your web content
immediately.
They are:
1.
Is this the site I want?
2.
Can I find what I am looking for?
3.
What's in it for me?
4.
Is it easy to find what I need?
You can answer
these questions to a certain extent with your site's navigation and design,
however you should use your copy to explain them, as well. These answers need to be blatantly obvious to
first time visitors, as well as regular users of the site.
By now, you
will have already decided your core audience and what it is that they really
want, now you will need to work your copy to achieve your goals and
theirs. Here is a strategy, you can
use. Bare in mind, each point is as
important as the next:
1.
First of all, you need to write about
what your customer wants and needs
2.
Your tone needs to appeal to your
target audience.
3.
Your copy must be uncomplicated easy to
understand.
If you do not
follow these rules, you will lose visitors - as half will not bother trying to
work it out and the other half may find it too difficult to find the answers.
You should
always remember this KISS! Keep It
Simple Stupid
No comments:
Post a Comment