Quick tips for writing web copy

  1. When considering your target audience for your product, write out an outline of who a typical buyer might be. Give that person physical characteristics, a personality, and buying traits. Then, write your copy to that person as if you were talking to them about themselves. This is a common writing device used by novelists and marketers alike. It works wonders.
  2. Visit places where your customers gather online, such as forums and newsgroups. Or read their trade journals. Study the conversations and articles you read. Write down words and phrases from these resources. Make notes about features they really seem to value. Address these notes and use the words and phrases in your web copy.
  3. Keep sentences short. They should not wrap more than once in your column of text.
  4. Use narrow columns. Two and three column tables, or DIV tags if you use CSS2, help make the text more readable on a web page.
  5. Pick up a copy of Time or Newsweek Magazine. Their text is written at a sixth grade level. For many software products aimed at a home audience, sixth to eighth grade is about the right level for writing copy.
  6. Use action words that seem to describe things your products do. Do not use the verb "to be" as in: is, was, etc. Better still, use verbs that convey some sort of sound. Sound is music to a reader's ears, so to speak.
  7. Focus on the benefits of your product to the reader. If your web copy focuses on the reader's needs, they will not feel insulted. If you focus on features only and how great your product is, this might sound insulting to the reader.
  8. Use the present tense at all possible times. This naturally makes your copy easy to read.
  9. Read through your finished copy aloud quickly—or have another person read through it aloud. If they can read it easily, that's what you want. If a word or phrase makes them pause and wonder, take it out or change it. If the word is short and direct, but makes people hang on the word more than your message, you have already lost them.
  10. Write how you talk.
  11. Use a compelling heading and then write a second heading that ties into the the first. Then, tie your first paragraph into the heading. Use compelling subheadings throughout your copy.
  12. The bigger the call to action, the more copy you should write. The more you want someone to spend, the longer the copy. Give as much information as needed to help the reader make a decision. Short copy is defined as 250-500 words; long copy has more than 500 words per page.