Bad writing costs businesses in the United States, around $400 billion every single year. Yeah. You read that right. Also, according to SEO expert, marketer, and author Neil Patel, bad copy can hurt your SEO efforts. Ouch!
The words that you choose dramatically impact all your marketing efforts. Whether you’re writing ad copy, website content, social media posts, or emails, your copy has to sizzle. It must be engaging and persuasive. Without good copy, everything you do will fall short.
If you want to increase sales, it starts with your copy. Here are six quick tips to increase conversions and get you more sales.
Tip #1: Keep It Simple
You might feel inclined to wow your customers with an impressive vocabulary, flowery metaphors, or complicated technical jargon. Don’t do it. Great copywriting is conversational. It’s straightforward and punchy.
Still not convinced? On average, Americans read at an eighth-grade level or below. Plus, Google uses readability as a metric in ranking. If you write over your readers’ heads, they aren’t going to buy what you’re selling.
Tip #2: Write Directly to Your Audience
Good copy is about knowing what makes your customers tick. If you know your audience, you’ll be better equipped to sway them with your sweet, sweet words. Know who your target demographic is and do some market research. Understand their pain points, and then play on those pain points in your copy.
Also, talk to them. Don’t talk about yourself. It’s rude, and it’ll tank your conversions.
Tip #3: Make it Scannable
On average, people have an eight-second attention span.
Seriously, EIGHT seconds.
So, the chances of readers making it through your entire blog, email, web copy, or super long Facebook post are low.
Like, really low.
So, you have to hit the high points quickly, and make your text scannable (easy to scan and pick up the context). Do this by writing short sentences, including headlines, bold and italics, numbers, bullet and numbered lists, and more.
Do whatever you can to break the text up.
Tip #4: Keep SEO in Mind
Search engine optimization, or SEO, should still be a huge focus with your copy. Without SEO, no one’s going to find all this killer copy you’ve been writing. You have to use those keywords, but you must do it in a way that still focuses on the human reading it.
Don’t stuff keywords into text. Place them in organically and write for the people (not the Google Gods). Click through rates matter, and if you’re just keyword stuffing your meta descriptions like a Thanksgiving turkey with total disregard for engagement, no one’s clicking your links.
Tip #5: Remember the Call to Action
You can have the most incredible copy on your ad or landing page, but if you don’t tell people what you want them to do, they aren’t going to do anything. Generally, being bossy is frowned upon, but in copy, it’s necessary.
Think of copy like a sales call. Let’s say you had a salesperson on the phone. They’re pitching the benefits and schmoozing the lead on the phone. You can tell that the prospect is excited and ready to buy, but your salesperson, they don’t go in for the sale. Instead, they pitch and then wait for the person on the other end of the phone to make a move. That’s bananas, right?
Writing copy without a Call to action, or a CTA, is the same thing. Pitch the benefits, persuade them with your words, and then tell them how to take the next steps.
(As a quick aside here, be direct with your CTAs. Say, “Call us Now” versus “We’d love to hear from you.”).
Tip #6: Throw Grammar Rules Out the Door (Sort of.)
Your high school English teacher hates this advice, but in copy, grammar rules don’t matter as much. Use punctuation to your advantage. Start sentences with conjunctions. Break. Things. Up. Do everything that you can do to give your text impact and engage with your potential customers.
Now, word to the wise here, you can break a lot of rules, but not all of them. For instance, double-check that you’re using the right form of “there,” “your,” and “its.” People hate it when you mess those up, and they’ll be quick to point it out. Also, commas are your friend, so use them appropriately.
Get More Sales with Better Copy
Copy is the key to increasing conversions. Almost all your results hinge on how powerful your text is. If you use these six tips, you’ll be well on your way to better copy.
But don’t stop there.
Test everything you do.
Write several drafts for all your ads, landing pages, posts, flyers, emails, etc.
Then, split test them.
Then, rinse, repeat, and do it again until you’ve found the highest-converting copy.
Copywriting isn’t an exact science, and you’re going to have to learn what makes your target demo tick. Once you figure that out, you’ll get more sales- and you’ll have the added bonus of feeling like a copywriting genius.
Marla DiCarlo is an accomplished business consultant with more than 28 years of professional accounting experience. As co-owner and CEO of Raincatcher, she helps business owners learn how to sell a business so they can get paid the maximum value for their company.
