Web Copywriting That Sells Tips

Overcome Your Online Shoppers' Fears

Many of us make our day-to-day, offline purchases at stores we know and trust. We also buy brands that we trust. Unless you have a site that is the online home of a huge store or brand, then you have some fears to overcome. Your visitors don't know you and they don't know how far they can trust you. They are not sure about the quality of your products, service or information. You need to keep this in mind at all times.

*Write in a way that builds trust, is reassuring, and overcomes people's natural fears.

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Make an Offer to Close the Sale

When it comes to making the sale, add a sweetener, make an offer. Here are some ideas:

• If you are selling physical goods, maybe offer free shipping
• If you are selling an e-book, offer a second e-book, free
• If you are selling subscriptions, offer some additional goodies or privileges
• If you are selling something time-sensitive, offer a discount for people who act by a certain date

*Sweetening the pot is a sure-fire way to generate more interest and business—give the people the extras that they crave.

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Be careful with 'Hard-Sell' Copy Online

You can sell as hard as you like in direct mail or on TV however, on the web, the ‘hard sell' won't serve you so well. People will become nervous and they will distrust you.

The Internet is a medium where trust is everything. For sure, make your product, service, or information sound compelling and interesting—but that doesn't mean you should drown the reader in hype.

Buyers online are a great deal more sensitive to ‘hype' and ‘b.s.' than they are when reading print—be aware of that. Make the sale, but use language that builds trust rather than attempting to force and bully action.

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Landing Page Design

The key to great design for a landing page is to keep everything simple and focused on the message.

The best use of design on a landing page is to make sure it presents the headlines, text, offer, and call to action simply and clearly.

*It's also important to position the product or hero shot carefully, so that it draws the eye into the core message and not away from it.

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Writing for the Internet: Use active verbs in your sales copy

This is an oldie, but a goodie (and it applies both to offline and online copy). If you want someone to do something, use an active verb at the beginning of key headings, paragraphs, links, and calls to action. Here are some popular examples:

• Sign up now.
• Download your free white paper.
• Subscribe here.
• Buy now.
• Choose from these three items.
• Find out how to get started.
• Discover the secret to...
• Solve your problems with...
• Start here.

One of the secrets to effectively writing for the internet is to spell things out for people. Unfortunately, not everyone can figure out how to do simple things without directions. Be assertive and explicative and you are likely to see more results.

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Make Money Writing: Learn From the Rich

Learning the skills of direct mail copywriters is one thing but learning from those who have made millions of dollars through direct sales is quite another. Sometimes you can find an entrepreneur who has made a fortune with a particular product or service, and has written his or her own copy. In other words, you get insights not only into the copywriting itself, but also into the mind of a famous entrepreneur.

Monthly Copywriting Genius features both direct marketing copywriters and copywriter/entrepreneurs. Some months you get to see an example and read an interview with a copywriter and, another month you'll get to experience the inside view of copywriting and marketing through the eyes of an entrepreneur.

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Write short sentences

While all content online should have shorter sentences than you would find in print, when you get to the point of making the sale, write even shorter sentences and paragraphs. Why?

• You want to keep the pace fast—you want that person to make a purchase, subscribe, register, etc. and a fast pace in your writing creates momentum in the reader

• When site readers get close to achieving their task, they tend to skip any further text and go straight to the form and start completing it (that's why in some site's shopping carts you will see text in red, or even flashing text)

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Make it Easy for People to Buy Online

Want to know one of the key secrets of writing for the internet? Whatever you are ‘selling', even if it is a free newsletter, make it easy. If you want to get a decent conversion rate, you need to make it really simple for people to complete the task (this means that the process shouldn't require long explanations or lines of small print). If you find it hard to write the copy in a very simple way, then maybe the process itself is just too complicated.

If the process takes five clicks, see if you can rebuild it so that it takes just three, if it takes three, maybe you can do it in two, and so on. Once you have simplified the process, make you copy very clear, very simple...and make it sell.

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