Exposed: Digital Copywriting Secrets

It’s important that your website has blow your socks off style copy that grabs attention and ultimately wins results.  But crafting hard working digital copy that sounds fantastic, and uses clever hidden persuaders, isn’t as straight forward as you’d think!  Although it was never classified as easy, it’s become more difficult as we wave goodbye to the hope of reusing the same copy on and off line.  Thanks to the persistent evolution of digital markets, there’s now a bold contrast between on and off line copy requirements.  For instance there’s SEO, page hopping, aesthetics, competition on the page, focused audiences and skimming to consider – and that’s just for starters!

Want to give digital copywriting a go? Don’t do anything before reading our top trade secrets…

Google Users Get Smart

Search engines are becoming slicker each day, as are their users.  When searching for content people are more precise with their search phrases ensuring they quickly find exactly what they’re looking for.  Think about how you search for and find information online, you’ll typically go to Google (or Yahoo/Bing etc), type in what you think you’re looking for, click a link in the search results, give it five seconds, evaluate.  At this point you’ll decide to stay on the page and read, or hit the back button and pick an alternative.  To keep potential customers on your site you must write what the reader is searching for – not what you think they are searching for.

Pretty as a… word?

Good design will enhance digital copy helping you to market your message quickly and effectively.  Poor design will mean your message is lost in the head ache of neon colours, hard to read fonts and poor layout.  Where html email campaigns, website graphics and banners are concerned, copy design (as much as copywriting) is important for securing high conversion rates.  You should give your designer clear instruction on the key messages and sub information.  Always check: font - is it legible and suitable, colour schemes – attractive and eye pleasing, and ensure that any images are not off putting or offensive.

SEO

Where website copy is concerned it’s important to consider the use of keywords and key phrases to ensure your site ranks well in the search engines.  To do this effectively you need become data driven using analytics and traffic reporting to firmly establish how your customers search for and find your site.  Take your research one step further by looking into key words and phrases that are associated with your business, particularly within your targeted reach.  Performing localised searches, or searches within your targeted reach will help increase your ranking as opposed to competing for global listings that have little relevance to your business.

Once you’ve finalised your research and decided on a number of key words and phrases, it’s time to become SEO savvy and get to work on your digital copy.  Read up on the latest SEO techniques but tread carefully - misuse can have a negative effect.  Be careful to avoid: overusing key words and phrases, copy that’s too short, copy that’s too long and using content from other sites – by breaking these rules you can encourage negative listings making it more difficult to increase your ranking in the long term.  As a general rule of thumb aim for approximately 250 words, push key words to the top of your copy, use related phrasing/terminology to provide valuable content and use internal hyperlinks.

Don’t be a ‘Copy Cat’

Be original, think for yourself and engage your customers using your brand’s personality.  Being a copy cat copywriter not only lowers your businesses credibility in search engines, but it also doesn’t separate you from your competition.  Use digital as the perfect platform for being just a little bit quirky (within reason of course), as online users almost expect a little bit of tongue and cheek.

Play with grammar but more importantly, get it right

Digital content can remain traceable for a long time so don’t ever make inexcusable spelling, punctuation and grammar errors (you don’t want make the same mistake as David Beckham).  Performing a simple spell check before publishing can eradicate the majority of your errors, or if it helps, print out your article and go through it with a red pen.  Poor SPG reflects badly on your business, making it immediately appear unprofessional.

You should definitely play around with grammar and use it to maximise the impact of your words.  Used correctly, grammar will guide the reader in the direction you had intended.  Simply adding a comma or explanation mark can completely change the meaning of a sentence and give it some added oomph!

At 10thstep we’re digital copywriting experts, get in touch today if you’d like some help creating compelling digital copy.