Good copy, or written content, gets more eyes on your business, generates consumer interest, and converts leads into sales. It’s an important element of any business website, so it’s important to make sure yours is up to par. However, there are a few common pitfalls that even experienced writers fall into now and again. Here are a few of those pitfalls, how you can avoid them, and what to do instead.
1. Be Efficient
Even in business copy, grandiloquence is one of the easiest traps for any writer to fall into. What could be said in one simple sentence can always be drawn out for too long. You might be tempted to include a line of copy that feels poetic and inspired. But if you’re not careful, vague writing can leave readers easily confused. You don’t want your reader to be wondering about what grandiloquence means when you could have just written fancy-talk.
Go back over any section of your copy that feels particularly wordy or confusing. Try to avoid overusing jargon or assuming readers understand complicated business topics. Prioritize semantic analysis by looking into the way something is phrased or the words being used. Word count isn’t the most important aspect of an article, despite what some marketers say.
If you can, have someone else look over your writing and point out what parts they feel confused or unsure about. As a writer, it can be helpful to have others check you as you can get lost in your own work. If you can’t rewrite it to be simpler, consider deleting it. Less is often more.
2. Write Clearly
Keeping your writing clear and easy-to-understand is one of the best things you can do for your copy. But it’s just as important to make sure your business’s offerings are also clear. As your business grows, it’s possible to forget your original values, purpose, and methods as they change over time. Businesses can get lost in trends, changes in leadership, or products and services beyond their scope. And these changes can get reflected in the copy you write, which can likewise become muddled and confusing.
Get a grip on exactly what your product or service is — remember to cover the who, what, where, when, why, and how. Each of these questions effectively lends itself to a particular kind of webpage. The what is your product or service description, whereas the who is an “about us” page. Even new product emails or newsletters should have every section focused on addressing one of these question words. If you don’t have a clear grasp on what you’re offering, you won’t be able to write clearly about it.
3. Stay On Target
Another common pitfall of business copy is neglecting to keep it relevant to a potential customer. Keeping your copy clear is a great start toward doing so, and your reader will appreciate it. But while clarity and relevance go hand-in-hand, they don’t always necessitate each other. What is important to you isn’t necessarily always as important to your customer. And, in fact, the way you write about what you find important could actually drive away a potential buyer.
Let’s imagine your business focuses on selling premium computer parts imported from overseas to avid PC builders. In this case, it’s a great idea to focus on describing the particular specifications of a new part you’re advertising. However, most people buying a luxury car don’t know or even care about exactly how it’s put together. Rather, they’re likely more interested in the features they can enjoy and the feeling they get from owning one. Always keep your target audience in mind when writing copy and keep your writing relevant to them.
4. Write With Confidence and Authority
When meeting a new person, you’ll immediately start to size them up on instinct. You assess their dress, health, background, and patterns of speech, making assumptions about who they are by the information they present. This is something your mind does without you even consciously realizing you’re doing it. The same is true of people who read your writing. People intuitively judge the character of a piece of writing as they read it, often without even knowing.
When making a claim, back it up with sources and examples. If you include statistics, make sure you’re citing other reliable sources that readers will trust. Even if you don’t intend to promote another publication, linking to or citing other websites tells readers that you agree with what they’re saying. Going back to the second suggestion of this article, make sure the organizations you cite make sense for your organization’s values.
Consumer confidence is one of the major wheels that turn the cogs of business and thus the economy. If you don’t instill a sense of authority and expertise in your field, a potential customer will feel less likely to buy. So air on the side of boldness rather than shying away from a particular idea or phrase. Write with commanding verbs at the helm of your sentence, rather than using spindly, meandering language. And grab your reader’s attention addressing them using second person throughout your piece.
Put It Together
Taking the copy on your business website from good to great will help improve your success rates across the board. It’s a skill that you can continually invest in and strengthen as your career develops. Good copy is efficient and clear — it gets to the point and doesn’t waste your reader’s time. Make sure that you’re addressing each piece of copy to the appropriate target audience, and write confidently. Combine each of these tips to help improve your copy tremendously.
