Often, small business owners have to wear many hats—from marketing to accounting and all areas in between.
This also includes copywriting, and for someone that has not been working towards writing as a career, copywriting can be tricky. There are strategies and tricks of the trade that help many copywriters create successful and compelling copy.
If you find yourself handling the bulk of your business’ copywriting but aren’t comfortable with the task just yet, here are three common mistakes to try to avoid.
Separate Your “Selling” from Your Content: Informational content and sales content should be kept separate. While it is important to keep your site updated with fresh content, you don’t want to dilute the meaning of your content by loading it down with sales pitches. If you’re writing a sales page with heavy sales copy, that’s fine…just don’t mix it in with an informational article. Before you start writing an article, you should already know which category the copy is going to all into: content or sales?
Make Use of Subheadlines: A lot of novice copywriters will often leave out subheadlines from their articles. However, if you are writing an article that is longer than 200 words, subheadlines should be sued when appropriate. These are second tier headlines that help segment the page for the reader.
Most online readers scan pages quickly and use subheadlines to “map out” a page. More than that, subhead lines will also help you tremendously when it comes to outlining your copy. In terms of keeping a reader interested, subheadlines are just as important as headlines.
Keep It Simple: Remember, you are writing engaging copy that is quick and interesting for readers. You are not writing the great American novel here. A lot of what you learned in college is going to be tossed out of the window. You want short sentences, quick and to the point. Paragraphs should also be short; while there is no 100% agreed upon formula, most people try to stay between3-5 lines per paragraph when writing online.
Remember…the more you write copy, the better you will get. Look around some of your favorite sites and take notes on how their copywriting is crafted. Keep at it and you’ll be writing engaging copy every time you sit behind the keyboard!