The most successful piece of writing I have done for this site so far has been “Why SEO doesn’t Matter For Writers.”
It prompted a quick discussion on Twitter, it has had visitors come from Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus (The only time G+ has ever resulted in a link to this site, in fact.) Ironically, it also performs pretty well in Search Engine Results… there is a theme there.
If we are going to make a living from writing for online markets, and we are going to ignore SEO, then we have to do something. In the article mentioned above, I suggested we used good copy practices to get and hook readers instead.
Learning good copywriting is really easy and really difficult at the same time.
It is easy because there are a million resources, and writing good copy is a process based on learning natural language processes anyway.
Writing good copy is all about:
- Using emotional language.
- Writing compelling arguments.
- Getting your points across in the shortest time possible.
That sounds easy enough.
So why is writing good copy also so difficult?
Because the resources are all out there. Not in any particular order or syllabus. But just… out there.
Writing good copy is about psychological triggers, and so it is a topic where you can write endlessly about micro topics within the field. There are hundreds of books about copywriting, and there are lots of courses you can take. There are also lots of gurus who want to sell you tricks that are irresistible.
So where do you start?
How do you separate the wheat from the chaff?
This article is a review of a pretty old book in internet marketing terms, but it is one I found really helpful. It’s called Web Copy That Sells:the Revolutionary Formula For Creating Killer Copy Every Time by Maria Veloso.
Web Copy That Sells: What Is It
Web Copy That Sells is a book about writing copy for the web. I’m going to talk more about that in the review section, which consists of three major lessons you can learn from the book. Let’s get straight to it.
Good Point 1: Web Copy That Sells is for the web
I am on an excellent, year-long course for copywriting. Every day I get a new assignment and go through the classic adverts across the years. (I will write an article about this later.) It is worth less than this book for writing blog articles though. Why? Because the overlap between a newspaper marketing campaign and online copy is pretty small.
This book does a niche job- it talks about web copy. It isnt going to help you with email marketing. It isnt going to help you with your ad campaign in the New York Times either. It is going to help you write better landing pages for your website though.
Good Point 2: Web Copy That Sells Uses Simple Language… And Shows Why You Should Too
Writing good copy is, as I said above, a psychological process. It is easy when you are talking about psychology to get incredibly complicated in your descriptions.
This book doesn’t do that. In fact, one section even cautions you as potential website builder to avoid doing that too. The average reading level of an internet user is at the level of a fifteen year old. This is something I personally have to work on, and something a lot of web writers also need to work on.
When you write for a living, you also read a lot. As a heavy reader and writer, you don’t realise you are a different target market than people who haven’t read a book since they were doing their end-of-school exams. You need to avoid making writing too complicated for the online reader.
Good point Three: Writing Good Copy is All About Structure
If you are like me, then one of the things that won’t come naturally to you is structuring your web copy. Writing good copy is about taking your reader on a journey, and web copy that sells gives you a lot of different structures so that you don’t have to think about it.
For instance, every good landing page will do the same things: grab attention first, build curiosity, give the benefits, go into the specifics of the persons problem and then make the sale.
If you forget any of these, then your copy is not going to be as effective as possible. It is easy to forget something though, which is why following the structures laid out by the book is so helpful.
Closing Thoughts
Web copy that sells is a great guide to writing good copy. Some of the information is basic, but that is actually a secret positive of the book.
It is easy to overcomplicate copy. You can get analysis paralysis and not write anything if you think too hard. This book provides a simple structure and simple guidelines to get you started. It only costs a few dollars, and for its simplicity is worth more than a lot of complex courses that overcomplicate things.
You can get it on Amazon. There are two versions. I have the older version, which you can get via the following links:
Web Copy That Sells: The Revolutionary Formula for Creating Killer Copy Every Time (US Amazon)
Web Copy That Sells – The Revolutionary Formula for Creating Killer Copy Every Time (Amazon UK)
