Why good copywriting (and editing) matters
Your writing can make or break your website
27th February 2002
Whether it is a web page or a brochure or a mailer or a newsletter, your written words decide the direction and dimension of your enterprise. The written copy of your message can make or break your business. It can make your reader eat out of your hand, it can incite a Jihad against you, and it can be simply dry.
The Internet is a great leveler. Although the current spate of pay-per-click search engines has made the battle ground a bit uneven, it is still favorable to small, but innovative businesses.
It took a severe economic jolt to make these businesses realize the power of the written word — the copy of your pages that you put on the Net. For long its significance has been put on the backburner, and lots of breast-beating has gone into the cause of the «latest development technology.» Well, technology has its place, but what makes a customer do business with you is, the written message.
It all depends on the words you use, the way you use them, the combinations you use them with, and the way you decide when not to use them — it’s all about words.
Sadly, the small-sized businesspersons do not take copywriting seriously until its too late. 95% of businesses fail because they fail to convey their message. Their copy is not convincing enough.
Whenever you convey a printed message, you have an end objective. The sort of response it invokes hefts the success of the copy of the printed message.
The message that tells your customer about you and your product in a voice and tone that reaches deep.
The message that lays the bricks of the foundation on which the wall of trust is built.
At the core of your business success is the copy content of your message.
So what sort of copy is that?
* The one that touches the right nerve of your customer or client.
* The one that tells your customer that you and your product can be trusted.
* The one that makes the customer eager to do business with you.
* The one that talks to your customers as if you are talking to them directly.
* The one that tells your customers exactly what they should know to arrive at an educated decision.
* The one that elevates your customers to the level of clouds so that they see your world with the colors of a rainbow.
Ok, the last one sounds a bit unrealistic but you get what I mean.
Are there hard and fast rules for professional copywriting? Not at all. I often say that I can read between the lines — the words, the commas, the full-stops and the phrases — and make out what sort of person the writer is. We all have this quality, and we all go through such an awareness, but all happens in the subconscious. Your business needs a copywriter who can tap into that subconscious.