What Makes Web Copywriting Great

One thing that puts a lot of people of a site is sloppy wordmanship, as well as a poor design.  It is easy to become inconsistent with phrases used to describe certain benefits of products, within your copy.

Be aware at all times of your spelling, grammar and formatting of your copy.  Many sites have lost sales because of small spelling mistakes, or bad formatting.  Always use a spell checker and a human eye to ensure that everything is correct.

Formatting can be improved by:

·        Breaking up large chunks of text, by making sure that your paragraphs are small and easily digestible.

·        Another way of breaking up large chunks of text is to indent key elements, as this will help emphasize a point and will lead the reader's eyes to this part of the copy.

·        Keep the width of the page of your site quite narrow, as the human eye finds it easier to read sentences of a smaller width.

·        Use plenty of subheadings and bullet points, as these will help the visitors who just like to skim read, before deciding whether they'd like to read the whole thing.  These subheadings and bullet points should portray the key points.

·        Make sure that your links to other URLs are in a universal format, (blue and underlined) so that you do not confuse the visitor.

It is essential to check through your copy for these inconsistencies, not just once, but on a regular basis, as you don't always catch them all first time round.  Also check that what you are trying to communicate is ultra clear and easy to understand.

Other off putting traits of copywriting include lots of capital letters and exclamation marks, as it makes your site look very childish.  Instead of capitals, you can use bold text, or highlighting to emphasize important points.

Writing copy is not the same as writing articles, short reports or any other type of writing, as you need to have a really good understanding of the written language.

The language you use in your copy has to be very well thought out, as you need to manipulate the language to influence people's buying behaviors.  You need a good understanding of what words to use in your copy and which to avoid.  Also you need to think about what phrases to use to make the visitor read on. (There is a chapter on power words and transitions later on, which will help you understand these concepts more.)