Rules for Great Web Copywriting

Copywriting is the art of creating clear nonfiction prose for specific business and communications purposes - like advertising, sales copy, press releases, and similar items. Much of the writing you’ll find online is simply copywriting that has been adapted to the special needs of the Internet.

For the best web copywriting, follow these guidelines.

1. Have a keyword phrase in mind. Without knowing exactly what you want the search engines to target, you don’t even have a plan. Everything else hinges upon this critical phrase.

2. Write a fantastic title. Your title should have your keyword phrase in the beginning, and it should be short, no more than six to eight words. It should both clearly describe your article and also be original and catchy.

3. Write a great short description for the metatag. Sure, metatags aren’t used anymore for listing placement, but they are used in determining what your page is really about and to insert a description for many different search engines. Your description metatag must contain the keyword phrase, and give a short (less than 20 words or two text lines) introduction of your article.

4. Clear writing with short paragraphs and short sentences is vital for the web. Jakob Nielsen, the great usability guru, long ago stated that people looking at computer screens have much shorter attention spans than those looking at paper. He suggests that paragraphs be kept to about three or four sentences, that sentences be simple in structure, and that text should be broken into bullets and numbers.

If you find that you are writing long paragraphs, stop and make them shorter. The same thing applies to sentences.

People want facts. Don’t be artsy or write a bunch of fluff. Get to the point, and omit needless words.

Come to think of it, S&W is a perfect reference for style in web copywriting. Read it. You can find a free copy at Bartleby.com.

6. Standard rules of grammar and spelling apply. No kittehspeak, no hacker, no text shorthand. Proofread everything, preferably reading backward line by line to catch all your errors, and for goodness sakes spellcheck. You’ll probably have an occasional mistake, but minimize them by editing well.

7. Use the inverted pyramid structure popular with journalists and newspapers. Just like with newspapers, people seldom read all the way to the end unless it is very, very interesting. Get your facts in upfront. They will be skimming the rest which is why bullet and number lists are so popular - they are very skimmable. If you start with your most important fact first and work downward to the least important, you will be successful in communicating the most essential before the person starts skimming.

8. For sales copy, start with a compelling question. Because online readers don’t read from beginning to end, you absolutely must capture their attention at the beginning. A great trick used by fiction writers is to start with a question the reader desperately wants answered, then don’t answer it til the end. The trick is keeping the reader moving through your text in order to get to that answer. If you figure out how to do this well, you can break every other rule above whenever you want.

Learn tips for marketing an online business, or how to start a home based internet business. Visit the website marketing tips blog at http://www.nitromarketing.com/blog

- Kale McClelland