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Last updated: Friday, June 15, 2007

Web Site Copywriting

So what is the difference between website copywriting and standard direct mail copy?

There are many things in common, but also many differences

Web Site Copywriting - testing the difference

Entire sales letters have been taken on line unchanged and flopped completely , so clearly there are differences.
Maria Veloso records some fascinating results in her book “web copy that sells” derived from her experiences of testing
web site copywriting results against direct mail letters for the same product using a massive mailing list.

Web Site Copywriting - what are the differences?

What are some of these differences?

Firstly the first fold of a web page is small - unlike a direct mail letter you cannot open it, turn it over -
you have no idea how “thick” the letters is.

Secondly with a direct mail piece there are no distracting menus.

Thirdly web users are more cynical about web content and need greater reassurance that an offer is not a scam.

But there are also positive differences

In web site Copywriting you can also engage the reader, you can ask the reader to interact with a website with questions and surveys

On a website too, you can customise the viewers experience in answer to the questions.

Web Site Copywriting - what works?

Experience says that :

First write an advertorial: People are resistant to blatant adverts

The best web site copywriting is an editorial with a title, followed by an author name

It is better to lose the “dear reader” from a standard direct mail piece.

Try to get the reader involved with surveys

Decide the purpose of each web page, and focus that page on achieving that goal

Narrow column widths work better in web site copywriting

Avoid too many colours - use occasional bolds and highlights for subheads.

Web Site Copywriting - The conflict between sales and SEO

It is well known, that the more options you give a reader on menus , the poorer the conversion of a sales letter will be.

Whilst not advertised , It is also well known, that even for the purpose of adwords or PPC now, single page sales letters are downgraded in the ppc algorithms.

So how can you resolve the conflict.

Jim Edwards makes some valuable tips for web site copywriting for minisites

So use a menu to ensure that the search engines consider that it is a proper website

But restrict the pages to those that do not distract from the single page sales letter theme.

For example -
- a contact page, with company contact details
- an FAQ page which answers sales objections
- an order page which still contains the key benefits

That way the search engines will consider the website a “real website”

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