Writing for the Internet > Writing and Copywriting > Tutorial Step 1: Quality of Copy

Writing and Copywriting Tutorial - Step 1: Why The Quality of Your Copy is Crucial

How to make sure everything you write is top-notch.

Copy is your number one tool for communicating with your online customers. It isn’t your only tool, however, it is still your strongest. Your online copy has many jobs as your primary communication tool. It must:

1. Sell
2. Offer benefit
3. Inform
4. Present an image
5. Set a tone
6. Entertain
7. Appeal to the search engines
8. Draw traffic
9. Generate links
10. Promotion
11. Marketing

And much more ...

How do you make sure your copy is top notch?

Great copy is conversational. Conversational style is how you might talk to your friends or how you’d sound if you were writing a letter. Conversational style uses the word “you” often and speaks in a friendly tone to your reader.

Writing conversationally, is actually fairly easy to accomplish. Simply pretend you are indeed writing a letter to a friend or explaining a concept to them. When you’re finished with your copy, take a step back and read it aloud? Does it sound friendly, helpful, and easy to understand? If it does, you’ve accomplished your goal.

Conversational copy also:

* Uses slang and colloquialisms where appropriate. If you choose to use slang, make sure it is something that is common and will be understood by a variety of readers around the world and not just a phrase you hear in your particular neighbourhood.

* Uses fragmented sentences for impact. Now!

* Uses short punchy sentences. Shorter sentences are easier to read.

* Doesn’t use complex language, jargon, technological terms, or complicated language. You want your reader to be able to understand your copy easily and not have to refer to a dictionary to understand what you’re saying. It is a common practice to try to keep your copy at an 8th or 9th grade reading level.

Great copy is professional. Just because you’re writing conversationally doesn’t mean you’re free to get sloppy. Your copy must be professionally written. This means:

* You use punctuation properly
* Your copy is free of typos and spelling mistakes
* You generally use proper sentence structure.
* Exclamation marks, all caps, and too many graphics lessen the credibility of your copy.

Great copy offers a benefit. No matter what type of copy you’re writing, blog, article, e-book, review, sales letter etc…it should offer a benefit to your reader. How is your reader’s life going to be changed after reading your copy? What information will they learn? What problems will you solve? Before you sit down to write anything, take a few moments to determine the benefit of your copy.

Great copy appeals to the emotions and entertains. One great way to do this is to include a little personal story or information. It’s much more fun to read an article that you can relate to than an article that feels separate. For example, if you’re writing an article about training a dog, sharing a little story about your troubles may add some humor to the piece and demonstrate that you really do have credibility and experience on the topic.

While all copy forms have some similar traits, each type of copy has its own special needs and function. For example a sales letter sells, an e-book informs, a blog can entertain or inform. Next, well examine how to write the most intimidating type of copy - sales letters.

> Highly Recommended: Free Ebook by Dr. Ken Evoy – Make Your Words Sell, The Simple Art of Persuasion – Is a must read for anyone who wants more sales from their business.

Next in our tutorial: --> Writing & Copywriting: How To Write Your Own Sales Copy