Define Your Goals
Before you put pen to paper to write your sales copy for your
website, be clear about your goals. We talked earlier about your goals
for building a website—pull those out and look at them again. While you
may be building the website to sell more cookies, as you start to look
at the broader reach of your message, your goals might change. Perhaps
you can put together gift baskets too.
Make sure the copy you are about to write targets those goals. And don’t forget to use all the keywords you just selected!
Sell the Benefits
Save the small talk for your next cocktail party. When it comes to
filling websites with words, beginners tend to lean towards what I like
to call the “cocktail party approach to website copy.” What do I mean by
this? Well, let’s pretend you’re at a cocktail party, you’re huddled
with a group of friends gabbing about everything under the sun, and
around you hundreds of other conversations are mingling with your own,
making the voices sound like a hum. That’s what it’s like to a website
visitor when you cram a lot of cocktail party copy onto your home page.
It’s confusing and it’s white noise. Chances are good that it will
result in a “click” signaling the party’s end, your visitor long gone.
Instead, write copy that speaks to your readers and tells them the benefits of your product. Sell the sizzle not the steak.
Make it Scannable
Remember that Internet users scan websites and that relates to how
you write good copy. When I spoke to Susan Gilbert, she told me about
the elements of good copy. “The Internet has made ‘brochure-style’
writing obsolete. Studies have clearly shown that people do not read
websites—they skim them. That means your copy must be written to be eye
catching, visually compelling and keep the visitor on your site.”
How do you write scannable website copy? By incorporating lots of
- white space
- bullet points
- highlighted and bolded words
- images
In addition, your copy needs to use simple words, short sentences and
include the keywords your site visitor probably used to find your site
in a search engine.
Stay On Point
You should distill your web copy down to the most important points
and eliminate everything else. You have less than a second to grab
someone’s attention.
Don’t risk overwhelming your reader. Remember, it’s not about you, it’s about them.
Use Captivating Headlines
Be sure to make your message obvious. Use headlines, lists and bold
text to convey your message. Spend some serious time really thinking
about a catchy headline.
What Do I Get Out of the Deal?
When it comes to sales copy, the WIIFM (what’s in it for me) factor
is more important than ever. I have already mentioned the importance of
selling the benefits when writing good copy. Then I talked with Susan
Gilbert and she emphasized this point: “People want to know what benefit
they’ll receive from buying your product or service. Don’t be shy—tell
them! Will they get free delivery? Will they make more money? Will they
look better? Although visitors may want to know you, the person, sales
copy is much more about telling them how their life will be better,
safer, happier and richer once they’ve bought from you.” Hopefully
between Susan and me we have hammered this point home.
Picking the Perfect Font
When it comes to a font for your website, it’s easy to get carried
away. Temptation might dictate that you use a fancy scroll or a really
bold font. Wrong.
The challenge with using unique fonts is that the person at the other
end might not be able to read it. When you land on a site that’s full
of that horrible Courier font (my apologies to all you Courier lovers
out there, this usually indicates that the site is using a font your
computer can’t read.
Sometimes, when people want to use special fonts, they’ll turn them
into graphics instead. But that’s good and bad. First, search engines
can’t spider graphics (we’ll discuss the spider factor later). And
second, it increases the load time of your website. The trick really is
to pick a font (preferably a sans serif) that’s both readable and
friendly to the eye, meaning that it doesn’t tire the eye the way a
serif font does. So, what’s the difference between the two? When a web
designer talks about a serif typeface, he means fonts like Times or
Century Schoolbook, where the characters (letters) have little accents
or curves. The small downward curves that appear at each end of the
cross on the top and the inverted curves at the foot of the letter are
known as serifs. “Sans” is French and literally means “without.”
Don’t Get Font-Happy
Do not overwhelm your site with a bunch of different fonts. It simply
takes too much work for the reader to process the different letters and
fonts. Nothing will send your visitors away faster.
*Excerpt
from Red Hot Internet Publicity: An Insider’s Guide to Marketing Online
by Penny Sansevieri, available now on Amazon.com
