Web Copywriting - Keep It Super-targeted For Your Audience

Published on this site: December 24th, 2008 - See more articles from this month

Copywriting for the Web is a completely new form of copywriting. It's just over a decade old, so copywriters are still finding their way, with new "tricks", such as video and sound on landing pages, appearing regularly.

One of the major benefits of writing copy for the Web is the ease of tracking: you can know in minutes whether something works, or doesn't. Therefore, this heightens the onus on you to ensure that your copy works.

In this article, we'll talk about highly effective super-targeted Web copywriting - that is, relevant copy.

Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, especially in Google, rewards relevancy in your ads and landing pages. If you ignore relevancy, you'll be paying $10 per click. Compare this with highly relevant ads and landing pages, for which you'll pay 25 cents a click (depending on the keywords, of course.)

Relevancy has even more rewards - your site's visitors will stay on your landing pages longer. It's an open secret that the bounce rate for many site pages is 75 per cent. This means that 75 per cent of visitors stay on the page for less than a couple of seconds, before leaving. Relevancy and super-targeting ensures that visitors stay longer on the page, and increase your conversions.

So how do you ensure that your copy is super-targeted, and highly relevant? These five tips will help you to increase your conversions.

1. Write specific copy: generic copy won't sell
   
   Before you can write relevant copy, you need to know your audience. Learn as much as you can, by talking with your client, examining his offline and current online marketing materials, and also by doing your own research.
   
   If possible, use the product for which you're writing copy yourself. If this isn't possible, talk to users.
   
   You also need to research keywords, because generic keywords aren't sufficiently relevant: use brand names on your landing pages to ensure that you're relevant. In PPC, you usually can't use trademarked names, so be aware of this.
   
   
2. Tailor the copy specifically to your client and his audience
   
   Be creative and innovative in your copy, without sacrificing relevance.
   
   
3. What's the response? Copy without a response is DEAD
   
   Remember that your copy's goal is not traffic: it's conversions - sales. Therefore a page which gets 200 visitors a day and makes 20 sales is much better than a page which gets 2000 visitors and makes three sales.
   
   Although there are many possible reasons for a lack of conversions, usually the offer is the problem. Your client needs to make a good offer, and you can help with this. Study the offers competitors are making: your offer should be as good, or better.
   
   Some clients want to compete on price: this is rarely (never) a good idea. Steer your client away from this.
   
   
4. Is your headline an attention grabber?
   
   Remember relevance and targeting while writing your headline. Some copywriters become fixated on headlines, and while the headline is important, beware.
   
   Test! Try several different headlines. You'll often be amazed that a headline you considered weak wins the most conversions.
   
   
5. Check for disconnects between your sales copy and what you're selling
   
   Finally, read your sales copy carefully. Keep it honest. If there's too much of a disconnect between the promises made in the copy, and the actual product, your client is staring refunds in the face.
   
   So there you have five tips which will help you in all your Web copywriting. It's an exciting time to be a copywriter. Write copy which converts, and you'll attract more clients than you can handle.
   

Angela Booth: Want guidance to learn copywriting? Angela Booth's "Copywriting Master Class - Ten Weeks to Copywriting Genius" at
http://angelaswritingclasses.com/Class/copywriting.html helps you to start and run your own copywriting services business and/or write copy for your own business.