Whether you're crafting a blog post, designing a landing page, or creating a social media ad, your ability to write copy that converts is crucial for driving online success. Writing copy that promotes action, informs audiences and solves problems helps businesses and brands to form lasting connections with their audiences. In this blog, we'll explore the art and science of writing compelling copy that not only engages your audience but also boosts your website's SEO rankings.
You don’t talk to everyone in your life in the same way, so why would you speak to your audience like they’re just one big group? Image if you spoke to your barista, partner and boss all in exactly the same manner? Things would get a little confusing. Effective copywriting begins with a deep understanding of your target audience. Before you start writing, take the time to research your audience's needs, preferences, pain points, and aspirations. What are their demographics, interests, and online behaviours? Are you aiming for a coastal crew who spend their days between the job site and the best beach break, or are you communicating with a corporate crowd, solving their latest tech drama? This knowledge will help you tailor your copy to resonate with your audience on a personal level.
Not only is it the first thing your audience sees, headlines play a pivotal role in SEO. Meaning, the more keywords you can incorporate, the nicer it’ll play with Google and those other pesky search engines that control your visibility online. Craft headlines that are clear, concise, and intriguing, that use action verbs, numbers, and questions to make your headlines stand out. No matter whether you’re selling a product, spruiking a service or delivering content, understanding the terms that people are searching for is a huge help.
Your hook should make readers want to continue reading to find the solution or answer they seek. That said, the information that they’re reading should be relevant - you don’t want to click on a recipe, only to have to trawl through the writer’s life story before you get to the information you’re looking for. Clarity is key to effective copywriting. Avoid convoluted concepts that may confuse your readers - you want to inform, not bewilder. Keeping your language simple and using short paragraphs or bullet points to break up long text makes it easy for your audience to skim through your content and find the information they need.
Products have more features than you can poke a stick at, and some of them are just downright confusing. But you know what isn’t confusing? The way that they help. People, and businesses have problems they’d like solutions to, issues they’d like to fix or voids they’d like to fill. So, when describing your product or service, emphasising its benefits, and the ways that it can improve your customers’ lives or business rather than just listing its features provides you with yet another way to connect with your audience. The same persuasive language can be used to highlight the value and advantages of choosing your solution as you’d use to sell the features of the product or service, but solving a problem is a much stronger way to connect with your audience than simply selling them a product.
While every piece of compelling copy should include a clear and persuasive call to action, they don’t all need to be straight sales. Hoping to encourage sign ups for your newsletter? Try something like ‘Intrigued? Leave your email below and we’ll send you weekly snippets of genius’ rather than ‘Subscribe to our mailing list below’. Whichever tactic you choose, to encourage your audience to make a purchase, sign up for a newsletter, or contact your company, the CTA should be prominently placed and encourage action - that is, make sure there’s a verb involved.
Some words are just better than others. In the case of SEO, phrases and search terms that have high volume and high relevance will help direct traffic to your site. Conducting keyword research can help you identify relevant keywords and phrases, allowing you to integrate these naturally into your copy - that means headlines, subheadings, and body text. Including things like meta titles, meta descriptions, and alt text for images can also help feed the algorithm and improve your SEO ranking.
The internet is a fickle beast. What worked perfectly yesterday might not even come close to ranking next week. Continually adding to and refining your copy helps to remind the search engines that you and your information are still relevant and up to date. A/B testing can be used to compare different versions of your content and determine which performs better, while user data and feedback can be used to stay updated on industry trends and allow you to adapt your copywriting strategies accordingly.
Crafting compelling copy that converts is both an art and a science. By understanding your audience, crafting attention-grabbing headlines, focusing on how you can help (rather than what you can sell), and optimising for SEO, you can create copy that engages your audience while creating meaningful connections.
Need a hand wrangling your words? Reach out to the We Think Digital team today.
