as soon as you write something it is cosidered copyrighted to the writer. There are certain legal advatages to actaully registering your material. Check out the link in my sig about copyright law. You will find a lot of useful links and information there. unless you are talkin about actual writing of copy, then PM me or do a search on this forum for freelance writers and you will find lots of people interested in writing copy for you.
Writing copy for a website is meant to give the website ower higher ranks in search engines by blending in keywords and key phrases into content. That's the short answer.
Copywriting is different from content writing. Content writing involves, well, the writing of content for websites. Generally, they are expected to be informative, as information is the fuel that powers the internet. Occasionally, they can be persuasive, as is the case when content is used to pre-sell a product. Copywriting, on the other hand, produces results called sales letters, or sales copies. Their purpose is to sell, plain and simple. There are many tactics employed with this method, too many to mention here. But I guess this is what the thread starter was referring to. There are 2 kinds of sales copies: 1. Basic copy. Runs from 4 to 7 printed pages. Tries to sell through the strength of the product. Novice copywriters will charge you $100 to $500 for this. Experts, those who guarantee results, will charge you $800 to $2,000 for their services. 2. Long copy. Runs from 10 to 20 printed pages, or even more. Puts a premium on psychology to condition the reader's mind to buy. Novice copywriters charge $300 to $2,000 for this service. Experts, again, those who guarantee results, charge $1,500 to $5,000. Or a lower amount, but would require payment based on your gross sales. Here are examples of basic copies... www.xsitepro.com (not an affiliate link) www.therichjerk.com (not an affiliate link) Here are examples of long copies... www.thewriterslife.com/bb/mef2 (might be an affiliate link, but it's not mine, I just googled it) www.trafficsecrets.com (not an affiliate link) www.copwritinguniversity.com (not an affiliate link)
Writing copy online and offline requires a lot of the same techniques. Most importantly, you need to immediately generate enough interest in the potential reader so that they will read past the headline. Create Credability For Your Product If your product or service is worth anything, let them know it! Testimonials Use Bulleted lists to prove a point! Try to stay away from all caps and exclamation points If you don't have credability there isn't much reason a person should pay for your stuff. Learn The #1 Secret The Pros Don't Want you to Have Actually its no secret and the pros are pros because they are good at it. Not becasue its a secret. You need to create an effective call to action. Make sure that the reader knows what you want them to do. Then make sure that they do it. Additionally, when you are writing copy online, you should consider making use of your targeted keyword phrases. And most importantly you need to make sure that they sound natural. A good trick is to read your copy out loud. When you have gotten it write (pun intended), let it sit for a few days. Come back with a fresh mind and pick it apart from top to bottom. Then when its all done again. Let it rest. When you can read your content outloud, it makes sense and it seems to do what you want, make it live. Its good to also test out a few different versions of your copy utilizing various techniques to see which ones hit and which ones don't. Different product and services require different approaches. Anything you can read is good. Use it to build your knowledge base. Save your junk mail. Analyze it. What did you like? What didn't you like? Why? What words and phrases jumped out at you? when you are going through the SERPS, which Titles do you notice first and why? When you flip through a magazine, why did you stop at that page? Why did you notice the add? Why did you turn by it? What made you stay longer? That kind of stuff is the most important part of the learning process. "the worst vice is ADvice" (another pun) it does no good to read a book if you don't know how to directly and effectively apply it to your own needs. It goes without saying, that the fewer words you use to convey your message, the better. (don't use sentances like i just did! the first 4 words and the 1 after the comma are useless to the message. And, as a result, have simply wasted your time as a reader. Which, one could imagine, is what i am currently and previously was doing on more than one instance in the very, unoptimised and visually flawed content above.) p.s. always spell check! p.p.s. post scripts are good attention getters too.
I would like to add, when copy writing ALWAYS proof read, the spell checker is great, but there is a huge difference between "the quality of our assets" and the "quality of our asses" lol proof read by reading the text out loud to yourself, or even better to someone else. You'll notice a lot of errors that way.
Neosite has done all of us a favor by taking time to write such a detailed post. Thanks, I love it. However, a small change of perspective: "junk mail" is not always the best way to write. A lot of "hypnotic" writing is putting a lot of words down that suck the reader along, but without ever telling them what they are promising. A lot of people have become sensitized to this, recognize this as a kind of thief-of-time and will be turned off to it. If you are selling products that can only be sold by this kind of hype more power to you, but often you only get a few seconds of a person's attention when they get to your site, so use it effectively by making it easy to recongize what you are about. best regards wiz
wow - Great stuff. I learn yet another thing today. (copywriting and content writing) going thru the threads here on a daily basis helps educate me. will need to upgrade my brain to handle all excess capacity
Upgrade my brain. That's hilarious. Sounds like Johnny Mnemonic. Hit Me! There are good copywriting tips at AWAI. It's an online university built to crank out professional copywriters. I have bought a couple books about copywriting, but haven't spent the money for the university. One good book is the one by Gene Schwartz. It's called Breakthrough Advertising. You can get it at Amazon.com here (not an affiliate link) Hope this helps you guys. This was my first attempt at a sales letter: Make Extra Money! Sell Your Web Templates.
I thought copywriting was rearranging pre-existing content to ensure it is picked up by search engines. I've been doing that under this name for customers - am I calling it a completely different name to what it is?
That is exactly what I am doing, or writing content to be picked up by the search engines. Take a look at that post about the republished book. That paragraph was written to keep you reading, it is great copy but it won't suck in the search traffic like my writing does and it won't sell the kind of products I sell. best regards wiz
This is really funny considering I just deleted three posts you ripped off from another site without giving credit to the original source.
Thank you for all the information! I've been struggling with copywriting for my site and this gives me some good starting points to work from.