Five Things All Good Copy Must Have

by Herman Drost

Have you ever visited a website or read an article online that didn’t make sense? If you surf the web you’ll find hundreds of sites that have written lousy web copy and therefore don’t convert visitors into buyers. If you’re copy is bad throwing more traffic at it is not going to improve your conversion rates. Good copy can transform the performance of your website.

Five Things All Good Copy Must Have

1. Attract attention

Boring copy will not retain the interest of your visitors. They are bombarded with messages all day so if your copy doesn’t stand out you’re not going to grab their attention. Your headline must stop people in their tracks so they feel compelled to continue reading. This can be achieved by asking a question, using action verbs (e.g. discover, get, how, etc) or making a controversial statement (ie "article marketing is dead.")

2. Make a promise

After leading off with a captivating headline, you need to follow up with a strong promise that helps the reader visualize the experience of all the benefits your product or service has to offer.

Good copy reinforces the beliefs your reader already has. The reader may not know all the details how everything works but knows it’s it’s going to be something great. Keep your reader’s attention by rewarding them with great content.

3. Lead readers to your destination

The whole purpose of good copy is to gently lead your readers to their final destination ie to sign up to your newsletter, purchase your product or service. If you wander away from the path you want to take them they’ll stop reading and go elsewhere. Each sentence must naturally flow into the next one.

4. Create a call to action

Successful copy needs to clearly convey the action your want the reader to take after they’ve read your content. Don’t assume the reader will go back to your navigation menu to click on the order button. Instead include it at the end of your copy or if it’s a long sales letter insert it several times within the content.

Tell your reader exactly what you want them to do, for example: "click here to get your free report." If your copy doesn’t convert, the reason could be you simply didn’t do a good job of asking for the sale.

5. Reward your readers

When retail stores want to get people back to come back to buy more items they offer incentives or rewards. For example they may take 50 percent off all items in the store for a limited time or offer a free coupon for making a purchase.

Do the same in your copy. For instance offer a free report in exchange for an email address. You can then remind them about new products, or send them valuable content every so often using a autoresponder marketing system.

After a customer buys from you, reward them with great service and a product that offers fantastic value. Show your appreciation by following up on them ie thank them for purchasing, ask them for feedback or if they have any questions.

You may not be able to master good copy immediately but by putting these five points into practice you’ll get better at it each time you write.

Herman Drost is a Certified Web Site Designer, owner and author of www.isitebuild.com Learn how to write and submit articles to generate and convert traffic into sales Visit: Article Marketing Strategies

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