Turn Browsers into Buyers with Great Web Copy

By:  Renae E. Gregoire
The Write Idea
©2003

So you've got a website, and you're ready to tell the world about it. Before you do, review these tips and create copy that turns browsers into buyers.

Talk to Your Customers

Make sure to use the word “you” throughout your web site. Liberally. I’ve seen hundreds and hundreds of sites with copy that reads, “We serve our clients by developing high technology products and we make sure to meet the needs of our clients.” Does that sound like your web copy? Please change it! Immediately!

Whom are you writing to anyway? When your copy reads like that, it sounds like you’re telling a disinterested party what you do. It’s boring, and it doesn’t involve your reader at all. TALK to your potential customers throughout your site. Tell them, “We serve YOU by developing high technology products that meet YOUR business objectives.”

You can, and should, use this principle everywhere, even in the content on your “Services” page. Tell your readers what you can, and will, do for them. For example, “At XYZ Web Design, we’ll take your idea, and mold it and shape it to meet your customers’ requirements. Then we’ll create a unique design that helps brand your name, and build a complete site that’s a perfect fit for your company.”

Short and Sweet

Web browsers have short attention spans. Write in short, punchy sentences, and save the flowery and wordy prose for your next novel. Break your copy into short paragraphs too, maybe with only 3 to 5 sentences each. It's hard enough looking at a book filled with solid text—not to mention looking at a web page like that.

And if you’re confronted with a choice between a $1 word and a 25-cent word, use the 25-cent word. After all, there’s no sense telling potential customers that, “In the event of an unsatisfactory occurrence, we will be most obliged to remedy the situation as speedily as is humanly possible,” when what you really mean is, “We’ll take care of any problems that happen—quickly.”

Read through your copy and cut every unnecessary word, too. It’s easy to get carried away with adjectives and adverbs, but they add fat instead of muscle. Look at this sentence: “We’ll do a very high quality job at a really great affordable price.” See anything wrong with it? Start your editing by cutting each adjective or adverb. Once you’ve trimmed, your sentence reads like this: “We’ll do a quality job at an affordable price.”

Benefits, Benefits, Benefits

Tell your potential customers about the benefits of your product or service, instead of about the features. Like the founder of Kodak said, "We don't sell film, we sell memories." If you're selling a ladies hat, don't tell prospects about the wide rim and mesh material. Tell them how the wide rim will reduce the chances of skin cancer, and how the mesh will keep them cool on the hottest day. Benefits sell—not features!

Here’s how to uncover the benefits of your products or services. First, list all the features on one side of a piece of paper. If you’re a web developer, for example, the features you offer could be customized database design, Internet marketing services, and e-Commerce capable sites. Those aren’t benefits. Benefits are what your customers will GET from those services.

What will a customized database design DO for your customers? Tell them. Tell them how they can collect registration data and analyze it to make informed business decisions. Tell them how your Internet marketing services will drive targeted customers to their site—and increase their sales. And, tell them how an eCommerce capable site will increase sales by more than 50 percent because people are becoming more Internet savvy and many prefer to pay online.

Other Things To Know

• Use bulleted lists to break up long copy.
  
• It’s easy to read, and draws the eye down the page.
  
• See?

Try to keep your most important copy on the first half of the page. Many browsers won't bother to scroll down, so if you place good stuff that you want them to see at the bottom of a long page, they may miss it.

Write like you talk. Be conversational. If your web copy sounds like a legal tome or prudish stiff, the only readers you'll make contact with are legal eagles...and prudish stiffs!

Don’t count on your spell checker two catch you’re miss steaks. But don’t let it rule your copy, either. My spell checker hates how I write so I just ignore it most of the time. Spell check hates fragments. Like this. And this. But you know what? That’s how people talk. And that’s one of the keys to creating good, conversational, yet professional web copy that draws in your reader and makes them feel like you’re talking right to them—one on one.

***