Writing for the Web

3 Ways for online copywriters to optimize every page of copy they write.

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Three cogs representing three areas of web page optimization.As an online copywriter you probably focus a lot of attention on applying your skills as a copywriter, page by page.

Nothing wrong with that. I do the same. I always want each page of copy I write to be the best it can be.

But I also have to consider three other factors that will impact the performance of my copy. In other words, online copywriting is about more than just writing words that sell.

Here are the three other factors I pay attention to. Once I have addressed them all I can finally relax in the knowledge that the page ready to be published.

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Why a shared vision works better than a style guide.

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A shared company visionWork with any company of a reasonable size and you’ll likely be presented with a style guide.

Style guides for writers can be quite long. They give you instructions on the length of headlines, the use of images and other visual content, the number of words you need to write, the phrases you must use and mustn’t use, the tone of voice you should aim to achieve, and so on.

Honestly, they are a nightmare. A pain in the rear for any self-respecting writer or copywriter.

So why do companies create these ghastly guides? Well, they are aiming for consistency in the writing on their websites. They want everything to look much the same and to be written with more or less the same tone of voice.

Plus there is often some nonsense put in there by their lawyers.

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Power up your copywriting with causality, a strong narrative and a healthy respect for cognitive dissonance.

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Snack bars for copywriters.In my last post I wrote about the human obsession with causality, and how copywriters can use this weakness to their advantage.

Today we’ll move to the next stage and consider how causality is a building block of narrative.

I know…it all sounds weird. But keep reading and all will be explained. (And if you didn’t read the last post, you may want to read it now, before you continue with this one.)

Let’s work with an example.

Imagine you decide to invest in gold bullion.

Naturally, you are going to read all about the yellow metal, its ups and downs and the various forces at play that influence its price.

Then one day you read an article about price fixing, and about how gold prices are actually under the control of a shadowy force, comprised of international bankers and billionaire oligarchs.

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On judgment, causality and copywriting.

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bike and copywritingDuring the summer months, after work, I either take my kayak out on the river, or cycle for an hour along the local bike paths.

When I’m cycling I always stop at the same park bench for a rest at the half-way mark, exactly 10 kilometers from my home.

A couple of weeks ago a gentleman sat down on the bench next to mine and starting talking to me. He seemed to have an axe to grind about the number of Muslims living in Montreal.

To support his opinion, he told me a story about how he had seen a couple of Muslims sitting at one of the park’s few picnic tables that are specially designed and designated for people in wheelchairs. But when a man in a wheelchair approached the table, the two Muslims waved him away and carried on with their conversation.

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Introducing Author Platform 2.0 – A better website for your books and ebooks.

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Author Platform 2.0 for writersIf you’re an author, you probably have a website.

And if it’s like the typical author website, it’s what I call Author Platform 1.0.

In other words, it’s old-school, with 20 pages of content or less. Or to put it another way, it’s a brochure for your books.

And if you’re not sure what I mean by the word “platform”, it’s the word publishers use when asking you if you have an audience…a large group of people you can reach out to when it comes time to sell your books.

Back when I had my first book published in 2002, by McGraw-Hill, they were very keen to ask about my platform. They wanted to know I had an audience ready and waiting for publication day.

And back then it worked fine to create a ten-page author brochure online…Author Platform 1.0.

It worked.

But it doesn’t work anymore. For two reasons.

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Being “on-message” is the worst thing you can do.

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rob ford on messageIf you want to engage your readers, earn their trust and turn them into customers, the worst thing you can do is write content and sales copy that is “on-message”.

Online content and copy that is on-message has about as much power as a politician who has been overly trained by his or her media trainers and speech writers.

The outcome lacks all authenticity. It’s BS, and we know it.

I recently returned from a trip to the UK where the country had just voted to choose their representatives for the European parliament.

What usually happens is a win by the Conservatives or the Labour Party, with the Lib Dems taking third place.

This time, the winner was a new, upstart party called Ukip.

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