In today’s hyper competitive marketing climate, consumers often rely on their personal connection to a brand’s message to assess its credibility and authenticity. In Your visitors will take only a few seconds to decide how valuable and trustworthy the content is and whether they should explore your business further.
Writing a compelling web copy about your brand welcomes new users and encourages them to keep coming back for more. Consider these seven tips when writing a web copy to be relevant to your potential prospects.
Know What Your Reader Wants
Your web copy must resonate with the audience. If your message sounds like it’s written for an entirely different group of people, they will leave.
This is why it pays to have in-depth knowledge of your audience’s preferences, pain points, and goals – all this information helps you craft a copy that connects with them.
Your reader does not care about you or your business – that’s just the cold truth. So things like your mission statement, company philosophy, and how long you’ve been operational… are mostly irrelevant. The reader is concerned with their own issues, and that’s what your copy should latch on to with pinpoint accuracy.
Writing a copy without this purpose in mind could be a waste of time and resources. However, this kind of understanding often requires in-depth research and quite a bit of introspection. It’s why we always recommend hiring a website copywriting service.
A professional who knows how to write a copy that sells can be a game-changer. It’s the kind of persuasive writing that gets someone to complete the desired action on your website.
Try to be Conversational with Your Reader
Persuasive copywriting is about being friendly and casual. Keep it fun and easy. Never try to envelop your copy with broad statements, corporate buzzwords, and technical jargon. This isn’t a good approach because of how bad it works from the point of view of conversions.
Instead, write as if you’re having a friendly one-on-one chat with your prospect and write as if you’re talking to them. A cursory look at Google trends for SEO will reveal that the search giant is pushing towards adopting natural language because of its user-friendliness.
It’s very helpful to have a picture of your best prospects in mind. This is why we recommend businesses identify all five stages of the customer journey phase. These are distinct phases in which your best prospects pass through before completing a desirable action.
Once you have the complete picture of your best prospects in mind, it becomes easier to write something (for each stage) that they are more likely to respond with.
Focus on the Benefits, Not the Features
Persuasive writing discusses benefits over features. For example, if you are selling mechanical keyboards, try to describe the advantages of using the keyboard before discussing its specifications.
Start a conversation about how the keyboard is easy on the joints or minimizes carpal syndrome, rather than regurgitating the feature list.
This applies to any product or service you have in mind. The way you write your benefits will show readers the value they will derive from using your product. This isn’t to say that features don’t have a place, they most definitely do, but the value you get from discussing benefits is irreplaceable.
Tell a Story That Matters
The content on your website should be compelling, not boring. The story you tell through your website should be informative, fun, and, most importantly, aligned with the reader’s goals.
Even if your readers expect some corporate jargon, you should write a copy that can capture their attention and keep them hooked until the very end.
For instance, if you’re selling a service, use case studies and storytelling to show how you’ve helped clients with your services.
There is a reason why storytelling has been such an important component of our lives for so many centuries. Leverage that power.
Use Urgency and Imply Scarcity
When it comes to copywriting, urgency works like this: you present visitors with a set of information or facts that convince them it’s in their best interest to avail your services or products – but time is running out.
This means that your consumer has to believe that buying now is the best possible option for them. One trick that almost always works is the scarcity mindset.
Provide messages on product and service pages about how much time remains before a particular discount expires. For example, “order now and get 50% discount before midnight!” or something to that effect.
Pro tip: Utilize social proof and actual real-time sales about real purchases by other customers to convince other people to buy your stock before it runs out.
Urgency is one of the most effective tools that can lead to desirable actions.
Use a Call to Action
A Call to Action (CTA) provides a visual cue to your user about what they should do next. Even if you manage to convince the visitor to buy your products, you’ll have a difficult time converting them into sales or subscribers if you don’t provide them with an easy pathway to your desired action.
The CTA should be simple, actionable, and helpful. It shouldn’t be a blatant cash grab attempt, Rather, it should serve as a guide.
When writing a CTA, try to tell the reader exactly what they should do next. Now isn’t the time to use corporate lingo or being vague. The CTA should be a simple, easy step that the reader can take right away.
Always Edit Your Copy – And Edit it Some More
Your first draft provides you with a structure to work with. It will be full of errors and conceptual problems. And that’s fine.
This is why you should return at a later date with a fresh set of eyes to re-edit the copy. When you edit your copy, do so from the perspective of the visitor and ask yourself if it is helpful.
If you think you can further improve the copy, go ahead and revise it. If you’re not a big fan of editing, feel free to ask someone else to do it for you. It could be a friend, your better half, or even a third-party service.
With the tips discussed above in your mind, you should be able to write a convincing web copy every time. Do you agree with our listicle? What advice will you give to your new writers? Let us know in the comments below.
