Copywriting is often a misunderstood skill set that takes a while to master. Many people confuse copywriting with being one particular style or another, for example, sales copywriting, blog copywriting, ghostwriting etc. At its core, copywriting is simply a process of getting the reader to engage with and act upon your content. In sales, the goal is to convert readers. With blogs, the focus is on engagement, shares, likes, and retweets.
Despite this, copywriting follows a set of principles that applies to all writing styles. Below are five tips that you can start using in your copywriting today to increase user engagement and conversions.
So let’s begin.
1 – Keep It Simple
Nobody likes to read through a three thousand word sales page or open an email to be greeted by a five hundred word essay about your latest promotions. Likewise, nobody enjoys having to google a word every other sentence because they’ve never come across it before.
The idea of excellent copy is simplicity without sacrificing clarity.
If you can convey the same information with the same level of clarity using as few words as possible, you’ll keep your readers engaged. They will be more likely to interact with your content, and you’ll appeal to a wider variety of reading levels in your audience.
Restricted word lengths in header fields, such as YouTube titles, should also be considered. Users are more likely to engage with content if the header or preview text is enticing and intriguing.
2 – Know Your Audience
Market research is a gold mine for writing excellent copy that translates to your readers in a language they understand. When writing for a particular audience or social group, knowing how they speak, what slang they use and how they structure sentences, amongst other things, is the fastest way to gain their trust and make them open to your writing.
Every social media platform uses hashtags and word detection to let the algorithm decide who to show your posts, blogs or videos to. This is important for ensuring that your writing is presented to the right audience; search engines like Google and Yahoo will use metadata to decide which blogs or websites to place at the top of a search result.
Therefore, it’s essential to know who you’re writing for and how they speak. They’re most likely to find a blog, social media post or YouTube video that uses their language because of search algorithms.
3 – Don’t Sell With Short Form
You can’t sell to someone in less than 200 words, especially if they don’t know anything about you or your product, and they may not care to find out. Short-form copy is usually used in emails, tweets and descriptions with the goal of sending the reader into a sales funnel. This funnel usually starts with a 200-word post or tweet teasing the product or highlighting a problem that the product will solve.
CTAs (call to action) at the end of a post are usually in the form of a link or embedded video that will then explain the product using long-form copy, which is where the copywriter will try to close the sale.
4 – Understand Different Readers
Not to be confused with understanding your audience, everybody reads in different ways. Some of us prefer to read the entire article and genuinely try to understand what it is talking about; others will simply skip to the point or look for the information they want, and others will skim-read the entire thing before clicking off. You can take advantage of this as a writer by providing multiple entry points for readers who are skimming or skipping through your page.
Entry points come in various forms from; embedded videos, emboldened titles, and BIG text. Anything that will cause a reader skimming or skipping to stop momentarily and focus on the part of your page that stands out. The bullet points for this page are a great example; some of you reading this probably didn’t read the opening paragraph and went straight to them.
5 – The Power of a Great Header
Many writers underestimate the power of a gripping and intriguing header, even though it sets the groundwork for keeping your reader engaged and interacting with your content. Headers come in all forms and sizes, but the principle stays the same: to get the reader engaging with the content behind it.
Examples of effective headers:
- How ‘deep work’ has taken over the copywriting community and produced million-dollar sales pages in less than 4 hours.
- Why this one simple trick has generated MILLIONS for crypto-enthusiasts and wall-street traders alike.
- How one YouTuber went from 0 to 10,000 subscribers in less than a month PLUS an in-depth interview where he reveals actionable steps you can take to do the same!
- Why you should aim for a stay-at-home job – Ex-accountant reveals hidden tax secrets that will save you over £1k this year.
- Retired M.D reveals the SHOCKING secrets about nationalised healthcare and why you should switch to private TODAY.
Conclusion
Copywriting is a complex and misunderstood process that takes years to develop but not long to become successful. Even the newest writers amongst you are already moving ahead of your competition using the five bullet points in this blog post. However, it’s important to remember that the bullet points in this blog are not ‘absolute’.
The rules of copywriting are constantly changing. As the internet moves forward into new advertising opportunities or blogging styles, those rules will continue to change. To increase your skills even further, check out some of our previous blogs.
