Persuasive Copywriting 101

By Mitchell Harper

Introduction

As a web site owner, the sole purpose of your web site is to sell your products or services. Even though the Internet is an extremely interactive medium, it’s still the words on your web site that will make or break you.

In this article I’m going to share a few tips on how to turn your web site into a persuasive sales machine. We’ll look at a few examples, and, using the tips I outline in this article, we will also come up with a list of guidelines that you can use to write your own persuasive copywriting to sell, sell, sell!

Visitor Psychology – What’s In It For Me?

Your visitor doesn’t care about you. They don’t care that you’ve spent $50,000 building the latest release of your widget. They don’t care that you have a nice company logo and a neatly designed web site. Oh no. When anyone visits your web site they have one question in mind, and that question is:

“What’s in it for me?”

The one and only purpose of your web site is to sell. And to make sales, you have to answer this question for each and every visitor that comes to your site. The best way to answer the “What’s in it for me?” question is by relating to your potential customers through the benefits of your product.

Features VS Benefits

If your want your web site to be a 24/7 sales machine it’s absolutely critical that you can translate your products list of features into benefits. Benefits sell because they appeal to peoples emotions. Features do not. For example, look at this feature list for one of our products, ArticleLive:

1. Keyword rich URL’s
2. Built-in contact form
3. Easily add Google AdSense ad’s
   

Pretty boring, huh? Now let’s translate this list of features into benefits:

1. Keyword rich URL’s: Improve your search engine ranking by including the title of your article in its web site link. It’s a well known fact that all of the major search engines prefer web sites with keyword-rich links.
   
   
2. Built-in contact form: Make it easy for your web site visitors to contact you using ArticleLive’s built-in contact form. No more messy “do it yourself” HTML forms!
   
3. Easily add Google AdSense ad’s: Profit from your knowledge and writing skills by placing Google AdSense ad’s alongside your articles. ArticleLive makes it easy to insert AdSense code wherever you choose.
   

As you can see, I’ve bolded the main benefit of each point. I’m sure you’ll agree that the benefits list makes ArticleLive sound much more appealing than the boring feature list.

Social Proof

Next time you’re out and about, try this:

Walk up to a public crossing where there are a set of traffic lights. When there’s no traffic (make sure you double check), walk across the road before the walking man goes green. If there are other people waiting at the crossing with you, 9 times out of 10 they will also start walking. This is an example of social proof.

Here’s another example:

On a Monday or Tuesday find a relatively quiet restaurant and have lunch there. Instead of sitting inside, sit at one of their outdoor tables. Over the course of your meal I guarantee at least 5-10 people will come into the restaurant and order their lunch on what would’ve normally been a quiet day for that particular restaurant.

These are just 2 examples of social proof that Eddie and I have noticed when we’re out and about. Social proof relies on the concept of “if he’s doing it, then it must be good, so I should do it too”.

The best way to implement social proof on your web site is via customer testimonials or referrals. By showing your visitors that people have already purchased and are using your products or services, you eliminate most of the pre-conceived doubt and skepticism they carry about you and your company, and believe me; everyone has doubts, even for the best of companies.

Headlines

The subject of writing a good headline could fill a book in itself. There is no right or wrong way to write a headline, and you should always test different variations of your headline because if you have a weak headline very few people will continue reading, thus resulting in lost sales.

The best way to come up with a headline is to put you in your visitor’s shoes. Ask yourself “If I were one of my potential customers, what words, features, benefits, etc would make me want to keep reading and eventually order my product?”.

I’ll give you a few tips to get you started on writing or rewriting your own headline:

• Social proof headlines work well. Use phrases such as “Who else wants to [have whatever your product does]”, “Learn how thousands of people have [done whatever your product does]”, “Here’s how to [get the benefits your product provides]”, etc.
  
  
• Your headline should stress the top benefit of your product. It should be short and to the point and should make visitors want to keep reading to learn more.
  
• Avoid head lines that sound too good to be true or include too much hype, such as “With only one hour a day you too can become a home-based-business millionaire in only 4 weeks”.
  
• Research. Look around the Internet for headlines that grab your attention and copy their format, or think back to recent purchases you’ve made online and note down the headline or web content that persuaded you to buy and use it on your own site.
  

Formality Not Required

Any good business owner should think of his customers as extension of him and his company. I know that when I answer emails from our customers (and I answer at least 50 a day) or if I’m writing sales copy for our web site, I structure my sentences as if I’m talking to a close friend. I find that formality in web copy, email or phone conversations only adds awkwardness, so I try to avoid it.

Sure, if you’re an enterprise-level company formality is a must, but most people buy from small companies because they prefer personal interactions and appreciate the attention to detail. Here’s an example of what I like to call “stiff” copywriting:

The new version of Interspire SendStudio is ideal for email marketers. It includes dozens of new features perfect for anyone looking to start and maintain an email marketing campaign.

Bland, boring, no benefits, and it doesn’t speak to the visitor. Always try and use the word “you” as much as you can, whilst refraining from using your company name or references to your organization as much as possible.

Here’s a partial reworking of the stiff copywriting from above:

Are you looking for an email marketing solution that will increase your revenue, put you 10 steps ahead of your closest competitor *and* make your clients worship you?

If so, SendStudio is for you. We understand small businesses like yours and have built an affordable email marketing solution…

I’ve bolded the references to “you” or “yours”, and I’ve colored the benefits red. This is just a simple example, but I’m sure you can see what I’m getting at. Remember, they don’t care about you or your company. They only care about what’s in it for them.

Bullet Lists

It’s not easy to read paragraphs of text on a screen. You need to break up your copy as much as you can. One of the best ways to catch the attention of people who simply scan over your web site is with bullet points.

Consider this paragraph:

WebEdit makes it easy to manage an entire web site from one location. You can update your web site at any time using only a PC. You’ll also save time and money and be up and running in less than an hour!

Now let’s reformat it with bullet points:

WebEdit makes it easy to…

• Manage an entire web site from just one location
• Make updates at any time, from any internet-enabled PC
• Save time and money and be up and running in under an hour
  

Deeeeelish! As you can see, it’s much easier to read a list of bullet points than a paragraph of text. Did you also notice the ellipses (the three dots) that I added after the opening sentence?:

    WebEdit makes it easy to…

This is another copywriting trick you can and should use. It says to the reader “HEY! Keep reading, there’s more information below”. As a rule of thumb you should use it to lead from headlines into your introductory paragraph, as well as every 3-5 paragraphs, just to keep the reader focused.

Things to Avoid

Before we wrap up, here’s a list of things to avoid when copywriting for your web site:

• Massively large fonts. Don’t make your headline massive just because you saw it on another web site. It’s true that a killer headline will make or break you, but when you can read the headline from the other side of the room it’s too much.
   
• Avoid text background colors. I’m sure you’ve seen text like this all over the web. While you may think it’s attention grabbing, it’s really just annoying and there’s no proof it actually works.
   
• Don’t underline for emphasis. Underlines are reserved for links and links only. Do not emphasize a point like this. It’s ugly and confusing for visitors to your web site.
   
• Be a man of your word. If you promise a 30-day refund, do it. Why not post testimonials from customers who have had refunds on your site to prove to your visitors that you will courteously honor all refund requests? We recently posted some refund testimonials on our money-back guarantee page and it works really well. You can see it here.
  

Conclusion

Well there you have it. My persuasive copywriting tips. Sure I’ve only skimmed the surface but I’m sure you’ve come up with at least one idea for something you can change on your web site.