How to Write Web Copy that Actually Converts

1. How to write web copy that actually converts: Hey, can we talk about your website for a minute? My guess is you either one have a website, but it's not converting the way you want it to, to don't have a website and just don't know where to get started or three. You built your own website cause you're a DIY. I Why kind of person And you know it could eat a little extra love. Well, you are in the right place. My name is Rachel and I help small business owners get all of their marketing in line. That includes their website, their social media, their contents, anything that pertains to their customers. We put it all in a nice, neat package. We really start to automate everything so they see the best customers coming back time and time again. And your website is a really big part of that. It's often your first impression to the world the first time that people get to see you and what you're all about. In this course, we're gonna talk about how copyrighting can not only drastically improve the user experience on your website, but also start bringing you some real conversions. As in, people will get to know you and love you and buy your stuff, which is the ultimate goal, Right? By the end of this course, you'll have the copy for your entire home page laid out. You'll know what you need and what you can probably do with that. You'll also be able to take all of those tips and tricks and transfer them to the rest of your website. Ready to get started. Awesome. I'll see you in the next video. 2. Module 1 - What is Copy?: Welcome to the first module and our course writing Web copy that actually converts whether you d i y a lot of your business marketing or you pay someone else to do it for you getting there, right message and words or copy put together So people actually purchase what you have to sell is no easy task, but with a few key tips, you'll be converting website visitors to customers in no time at all. And this module will be talking about what is essential and what you should not waste your time on. So let's get started, shall we? I remember the first time I heard the phrase copyrighting. My mind went straight to the legal side of things. Copyrights, patent offices, definitely not websites, e mails and brochures. So let's get it all out there. We are not talking about legal contracts were talking about words Copy Writing is simply the act of writing words and, more importantly, putting those words together in a way that clearly translates your message to your audience . When it comes to copy writing for businesses, it often moves into the realm of persuasive copyrighting, which is the art of selling through What's was even better is that when you master this skill of copyrighting, you won't feel sales. E. You don't feel smart me and you don't feel like you're selling to anyone who doesn't actually want your stuff. That's because they do want your stuff. You go from trying to convince people how amazing you are and how amazing your stuff is to having conversations about the things that you're passionate about with people who are genuinely interested. Quite the mental shift. Right now, I'm a little biased, but I found writing to be one of the most enjoyable tasks of my day. Putting words together to paint a picture of emotion or environment is a very satisfying skill set and highly useful in the business world. First, let's take a look at your home page. This is the place where most of your visitors get their first impression of you and your business of everything you have to offer and how to find you when they need you. Once we cover your home page, you'll understand how to take each of the tips and strategies we talk about in this course and transfer them to every other page of your website. Now if you haven't downloaded the project workbook, now is the time pauses video. If you need to and go grab it because we are ready to dig in. Let's start with something that might seem a bit obvious. You need to tell your visitors who you are. Are you a gym? Do you sell party supplies online? Are you a freelance graphic designer looking for work? If someone can't tell who you are within the 1st 3 seconds of landing on your home page, there's a good chance you've lost them forever. Are there exceptions? Sure, but my suggestion is that until you are established in your industry while you get your feet under you with products, service portfolios, etcetera, stick to air quotes the rules before you go breaking them. So pull up that workbook and write down who you are and who your businesses. What is the first impression you want to make to your first time visitors? It could be one sense or three. It doesn't matter. We'll refine the words later. For now, I just want to get you thinking in the right direction. Who are you and who is your business? A few things to keep in mind while you're putting together your who am I statement, you want to answer questions like, Are you online only? Do you offer multiple products or services? What is your past experience? What makes you different from your competition? This is the time to really talk yourself up as it pertains to your website. Of course, one. A bunch of awards. Great people love that kind of accreditation. Studied with someone famous, it's OK to name drop here as long as it's all true. So now it's time to write out your paragraph of who you and your business are. If you are your business, like Simonson Acker, Tony Robbins, the personal brand, then this gets a little easier. You have a small store and a team of people. Stick with what you think your customer will be most interested in. If you're feeling restricted by a single paragraph, go for more. I'll give you a few tricks and how to pare it down in a later module. All right, that's it for this lesson. Take a little time and right as much as you need to describe your business in the next lesson will move on to your customers. Happy writing and I'll see you again soon 3. Module 2 - You Talking to Me?: welcome to module to So far we've talked about who you and your business are and what makes you special. Hopefully, you have a paragraph or two explaining yourself in your business to the world. Now it's time to focus on who you're actually talking to. Did a little voice in your head just yellow. But I want to talk to everyone I hear you, but tough love time. You don't actually want to talk to everyone. And here's why. Knowing who you are talking to plays a huge part in a successful, persuasive copyrighting. We've all seen the Pepsi or Mountain Dew as the show, a skateboard park full of 17 to 20 year old boys wearing similar clothing. Why? Because that's their target customer. They want that age group to relate and identify with their ads. I'm a middle aged woman who hangs out in yoga pants and chauffeurs her kids around. I don't care about sugary soda or skateboards, and that's okay. I am not Pepsi's target market. They would be wasting money targeting their ads to me and my demographic. I guarantee, when you get laser focused on who you help, who you want to work with and who you serve. You'll attract more of the right people, and those people will want what you have to offer. Maybe you've heard it before. If you speak to everyone, you speak to no one. People want to feel a connection with the businesses they give their money to. They want to feel hurt and taking care of this is true for dance schools, garden centres, photographers and every other business out there. When you do this next part of exercise, I want you to get super specific. If you could work with one person or one type of person over and over and over again, who would you want that to be? Do they dress a certain way? Do they have a certain income level? Are they male or female, or a certain age or even race? Do they use certain slang or industry terminology? Or they knew to everything you have to offer? They respond to a more formal voice. Do they wear yoga pants or helmet and Kneepads? More importantly, what problem do they have that you are able to self? If you pinpoint your ideal customer avatar, and what do you think they will need. You'll be leaps and bounds ahead of your competition. Your next task has two parts. Part one is write down everything you can about your most ideal customer. A paragraph is great. Five paragraphs air. Great. An entire story is great. Have fun with this exercise. The more clear you are, the better. Your copy will be in the long run. In part two. What does that customer need help with? What do they need you to come into their life and fix? What? Can you sell them to fix that problem? Don't think of it like what you can do for them. Think of it more as what problem do they need solved? The more you can focus on your customer talking directly to them in their pain points, the easier it will be to write copy that sells Now. This is not easy, but it's deeply important that you pinpoint your target customer and keep them in mind. When you write every single word of your copy, and as long as you keep your idea customer in mind, you'll be leaps and bounds ahead of your competition. All right, back to that workbook. Both of these steps are in your workbook, so just keep following along. That's it for this lesson. And before you move on, you should have a paragraph or more written about who you and your business are. The paragraph or more written about who your customers and a clear idea of what pain points you and your business himself. 4. Module 3 - Creating Your Elevator Pitch: Welcome back. Did you get through all of that writing? Hopefully, you had some fun with it. Now that you have all that background work done about you and your business in your customer, it's about to get a lot easier. Yep, at this point, you've already done the bulk of the writing. Now it's just a matter of organizing in the way that holds the attention of anyone who lands on your site. In the last module, I mentioned that the business is often try and talk to anyone and everyone they can. Just like you need to focus on your customer. You also need to focus on what your website offers, a guarantee that a website that has one single focus on the home page gets far better conversion rates than a site that has four or five messages. In an effort to not overwhelm your visitors were going to take this module to take the best of what you've written so far and create what is often referred to as an elevator pitch. If you only had 20 seconds in an elevator to explain who you are and what you dio, what would you say? All right, open up that workbook once again, This is where it all starts to come together. Your elevator pitch is a short statement that tells people about you and your business, who you help and how you're different than your competition. It took me months of tinkering and tweaking to get my elevator pitch to a place where I was okay with it. And honestly, as adults, we get sometimes but will at least get you to a place where you have something useful to put on your home page. Ready? Here's the formula I want you to use. I run fill in your business name and we help. This is where you put your customer description with a pain point that you wrote down with the last module in order to. This is what's gonna happen when somebody works with you or buys your product or your service is This is the outcome. This is how their life is going to be better because of you. Now, once you get the hang of this exercise, you can get more creative. But for now, let's focus on the main points outlined here. Here's an example of what my elevator pitch looks like for my business. I run the well balanced business, and I helped small business owners in the health and wellness industry customize and automate their marketing so they can attract and retain more of the right customers and get back to the parts of their business they love. Hopefully, that makes sense. I think you got it great. Remember, keep it simple. Keep it short, keep it concise. If you're having trouble, try narrowing down what you do and who you help. Often, these have it two biggest sticking points for business owners, especially after rating paragraphs in the last module. Sometimes it's hard to narrow that down to a sentence or two. Keep working at it. You'll get there, I promise. So now it's your turn. Grab that project workbook once again and create your own elevator pitch. When you're done with that, I'll meet you in the next module. 5. Module 4 - Creating Trust with Copy: in this lesson, we're going to talk about the know like and trust factor of every company that retains customers You can sell. Sure, but can you sell in a way that gets your customers coming back over and over again? You can build those relationships from Day one website. Visit number one an interaction Number one. Let's dive in, shall we? Once a customer visits your website or walks into your studio, they know who you are. Your next goal is to get them till like you. There are a number of factors that play into the like factor, the biggest of which is not coming across is pushing your sales. E. Put some personality into what you write and how you write it. No one reads boring Web copy. They have better things to do with their day. Every visitor wants to feel like you were talking directly to them like a friend, like someone you respect and like. Keep that ideal customer in mind while you write every bit of copy on your page and you'll be just fine. Slaying totally fine fragmented sentences for sure, as long as your spelling things correctly and have words strung together in a complete sentence. You're fine. Don't stress about it too much. And besides, you can always hire an editor when you have a bit of extra cash later on down the road. The third piece to this puzzle is the trust factor, and this is a big one. People buy based on relationships. They trust that the person selling to them is a good person with quality products and services, someone who knows what they're talking about. It's your job to position yourself as a resource through your Web copy through any blog's you publish or social media posts. Helpful customer service and answering the phone in a polite way. All help your trust factor. You know what else helps trust, factor, credibility, customer proof and you're clear promise of better things to come. Think back to your last large purchase. What was the first thing you did after making that purchase? Did you show it off? Did you want to tell your friends and family about what you just got? Car house, college degree vacations, all big ticket items, all worthy of being shown off? It's the same for smaller things, too. Even if you're coaching services training sessions are products don't cost thousands of dollars. You still want people to talk about them as if they dio. It's important to answer some questions ahead of time. Why would someone brag about you and your products or services? Why would they refer their friends to you? And why would they be proud to brag about how much they've spent with your business? There are three factors that play into the trust factor. These three things are easy to incorporate into your website home page. I mentioned them earlier, but let's dive in little deeper. The first is credibility. Sometimes you'll see this in the form of personal testimonials. Sometimes it's simply the degrees you've earned or any accreditations you have or the organization's you're a part of. No one will buy from you if you don't know what you're talking about, and it's up to you to prove that you do know what you're talking about. Even if you're just starting out might have to get creative. My guess is you have more qualifications than you realize. The second is a track record of the product or service. You're selling testimonials and case studies work great for this one. Any time you can get past clients to talk about a change or transformation they have experienced personally because of you and your products is incredibly powerful. And the third is the benefit of what you're selling or your big promise. What is the end result that your product or service promises? What is the transformation physically, emotionally or financially? Without that big promise, you won't be able to tap into the emotional side of your buyer. People don't buy because of logic they buy because of emotion. Your ultimate goal is to make people think that they need what you're selling. No doubts, questions or reservations people don't like being sold to. And the longer the Internet is around with all of the digital marketing techniques, the better your customer gets at figuring out when someone is trying to convince them of something they don't want where they don't need. All right back to that workbook again. Your task in this module is to write down five things that increase your trust factor. What sets you apart from your competition, what makes people brag about you or refer others to you? What makes people excited to pay you time and time again. And what is your one big promise? How will people benefit from working with you? All right, that's it for this one. I'll see you in the next module. 6. Module 5 - Don't be Clever: Welcome back way air definitely on a roll. Hopefully you've been keeping up with the workbook. If not, I highly suggest going back and doing the work it will help. All of this makes a lot more sense and come together more cleanly if you're actually digging it in doing it. Each module as it builds on the one before today, we're gonna talk a bit about your personality and how it might actually be kidding in the way of your sales. Admittedly, this is a tricky line toe walk, because what makes you stand out is often your voice, your personality and your expertise. I said it. Just a few modules back. What makes people like you is your personality. So what is the point of getting rid of all that? You. Why would you ever compromise that individuality? To make a buck because you might not be as funny or as clever is you think you are sorry. I see it all over the place. Mostly blawg articles and ads and other things that have big headlines. The marketing pieces that depend on minimal attention grabbing copy and that make you do a double take another name for it Click bait. Oh, I'm only gonna say this once if you want to increase traffic, but have super low retention rates. Feel free to be clever, sillier, shocking with your marketing copy. But if you want to build a sustainable business based on trust and honesty, and build yourself as a resource where your customers will come back time and time again, stick with the structure. Make sure your headlines air short into the point. Tell people exactly what you are offering. Don't confuse people or turn them off with a vague or confusing language. And that's it for today. Short and sweet. No Clickbait. Your task is to start a list of headlines that you see online or TV that fall into both of the following categories. Concise and honest, this is where you get exactly what you expect and click bait. Well, you didn't get what you expect. I'll see you in the next module when we talk about how to write headlines that are guaranteed to convert 7. Module 6 - Headline Hacks: half the battle is getting people interested enough to click on your link, stop in your office or call in book an appointment no matter if you're writing a blogger. Article two bit. Build credibility, keeping prospects on your website for a few extra moments or placing an ad in the local paper. You need to grab attention, and you need to do it fast. Knowing how to write a successful headline is essential here. A few tips to maximize conversions every single time. Benefit based headlines are key. People want to know exactly what's in it for them all the time. All the time. People are busy and have a constant barrage of information. Thrusted them 24 hours a day. In order for you to make someone pause and take note. You need to solve a problem, answer a burning question or offer something that will make their lives easier. How to lose £50 in one month without feeling hungry? Get your kids to sleep through the night in less than a week and enjoy your spouse again. 15 ways to get organized in the new year and finally get that promotion. You deserve all of these air clearly focused on one single benefit and have a big promise to every headline. You right must be unique. Even if you're offering something that a 1,000,000 other people are already offering, you must find a new angle. How's your offer? Article Freebie class elixir Better than anyone else's. And how do you capture that in a headline list? Articles. Cliche For a reason. They work. Top 10 reasons Why three Things You never considered about 77 recipes that promise to. It's a tactic that is used everywhere because it works. Come up with a few ways. You can add numbers to your promotions, copy and articles and watches. People are instantly attracted to your words. Did you know that studies show that headlines of numbers tend to generate 73% more social shares and engagement? Make sure you keep your headline short into the point. The best headlines convert using eight words or less. Now that's a metric to strive for. After writing hundreds of headlines for now, do what you can to keep them clear, concise and benefit focused. Speaking of writing of hundreds of headlines, you need to write more headlines. I never write less than Ted headlines for any block posts or promotion I create. And if I would take my own advice ad right between 30 and 50 the more you write, the better your headlines will be. You cannot write too many headlines, and I guarantee just when you think you're out of good ideas is about the time that that killer headline reveals itself to. So your task for this module is to pick something you've already written or promoted and right no less than 15 new headlines. 15 15 Try and make every headline a little more clear than the last play with new angles, new benefits, new language. Add adjectives or punctuation. That's it for this module. I'll see you next time. 8. Module 7 - SEO and Keywords: if you're a brick and mortar business, there are a number of ways people can find you walking by word of mouth, newspaper ads in person events. But when it comes to the online world, things are a little different. There are millions of websites out there that we never see. Why is that? Because when we enter words into Google or Yahoo or being those search engines are designed to give us exactly what we're looking for. Which means when people search for your type of business or product, they better be able to find you. What can you do to make sure you are found s CEO or search engine? Optimization is a really good start. What is S E O s e o stands for search engine optimization basically means you do everything you can to make sure your website is screaming. I'm here. Come look at me. Well, I'm definitely not an S e o wizard. I do have a few tips that pertain to your copyrighting that will help push you toward the front of that Google line. Pick relevant keywords and use them. If you're a hair salon, make sure you use the words hair salon on here website as often as possible. If you want to be known for knitting, use the words knitting on your site as much as possible. If you offer massage services and foot detox vacation use, the phrase is massage services and foot detoxification on your side as much as possible. It's also important to consider what people might be searching for that are not industry known terms. If you specialize in Ricky healing, you might want to use other key phrases like natural medicine, natural healing and alternative medicine throughout your site. This will help Google get you in front of the right people at the right time. Seems simple enough. Well, there are some limitations. Search engines like Google have gotten really good at telling when someone is keyword stuffing or using key words over and over and over on their site that don't really make sense. Honestly, it's best to pick 5 to 10 keywords that you'd use in normal business conversation and include them where it makes sense. Not sure what other phrases might be most popular. Check out this keyword research tool from eight drafts. There's also a link in your workbook, so If you are interested, pop on over there and take a look and click that link. Here's the next tip. Publish often. This is where the content marketing mission of my life comes in. When you publish off in Google sees that you are an active, working, determined machine of business. You're a business owner who's building credibility and you're determined to be seen. And you will be rewarded by Google for that, Whether you're posting photos or blogged articles or video tutorials, case studies or even just new customer testimonials, Google sees these updates and says, yes, push them up the list. Fresh content also gives people a reason to keep coming back to your site time and time again, so it's kind of a win win. It also gives you great content for social media promotions, which is not something we're talking about here but is, you know, just one more added bonus. You know those extra settings that show up when you upload a photo to your website. Those are another great place to include your keywords. Search engines. Don't just look for keywords in your public face and copy. They also look on the back end and in the code that everybody else might not see. Take advantage of this and add your keywords when relevant to your images. Always, always, always keep in mind that it has to be relevant. All right, that's it for this module. Your task is to make a list of your top five keywords for your website. You can then take a look at your home page and try and find a way to incorporate as many as possible into that one page. Make sure you still remain conversational, though. Don't just start putting. He worries everywhere all willy nilly, trying to get him in. And then, if you need some extra help, go back to that age refs link I gave you. It's also in your workbook. Alright, happy optimizing. 9. Module 8 - Adding Emotion: now that we've talked about headlines and we've talked about keywords and we've talked about forming a focused message, it's time to talk about tapping into the emotional side of your visitors and readers. Some of the organizations that are really great at grabbing your deepest emotions are those who raise money for Third World countries. Whether they're asking you to feed starving Children help build schools response or small business growth. They're great at using the power of words. How do you tap into the emotional side of your readers so they're driven to action? According to the German philosopher Friedrich Meaty, There two ways that people know things intellectually, where all intellectual knowledge comes from our education. We're taught that things are a certain way and eventually come to accept. This understanding is the truth. Experiential knowledge comes from both what we do and what we've seen Done. Emotionally driven copy taps into the experiential side of knowledge, where people feel like they know something so deeply in their soul that they're drawn to action. It's crazy, powerful and not all that difficult to dio included in your workbook is a list of words that I want you to study the next time you write your copy that's intended to tap into the emotional side. Take one or two of these words, and right to that emotion. In some cases it will be as easy as using the words included. Other times, though, it makes more sense to be inspired by a word or two. If people haven't experienced your products or services themselves, you need to show them through words, images and credibility, so they not only know things at an intellectual level, but also an emotional level. I highly suggest practicing this a few times. Try taking a paragraph on your website or a blogger article you've written, selecting one of the words on the list and rewriting that paragraph to evoke that emotion and then pick a different word and see if you can rewrite the paragraph again to evoke the new emotion in the morning practices, the better you get. It's definitely a powerful tool. Once you get the hang of it, that's it for this model. See again soon 10. Module 9 - The Customer Journey: we've covered the words and the writing portion of your homepage pretty extensively, But now it's time to look at intention. When someone lands on your home page, the first thing you should be asking is, what do I want them to do next? Perhaps you want them to call you to make an appointment. Maybe you want them to read a blogger article or two. In some cases, maybe you have a free template or a guide to give away as an incentive to get them on your email list. No matter what that action is, you must make it clear to your prospect what you want them to do. Next and again, this might have seemed like one of those obvious things. But don't forget to ask them if you have a pop up box, a sign of form or a link to click. No matter if you have a separate tab, a download button or a music file, no matter what you want them to dio, don't forget to include the words asking them to do it. Actually, write out the words short and direct is best. Don't say Hey there, new friend. Why don't you just click this pretty orange button and get my free report on gut health. Show a picture of the report and add a button that says, Download me or I want that. In general, people put far too much copy on their website, and it pains me to say it because I am at heart of writer and I get it. You have a lot to say. You're amazing. Your business is amazing. Your products are amazing. We started this course with me, asking you to write paragraphs upon paragraphs of copy. But above all, you want to make sure your words aren't getting in the way of your prospects. Taking action. If you can write a paragraph using three sentences, don't use five. If you could write a sentence using 10 words, don't use 18. Your message will become cleaner. Your copy will be more effective and your traffic will increase. Guaranteed. There's a section in your workbook that talks all about your customer journey. Pull it out, fill out the section and I'll see you in the next and final module, where we wrap up this entire course. I'll see you soon 11. Wrap Up and Thank You!: well, we have come to the end. Hopefully, you've learned something in front, some clarity around your home page. Let's take a moment for a quick recap of everything we've discussed. Copy is everywhere. Study every social media, post ad article and commercial you see and take note of what works and what speaks to you, right? Like you speak. Don't worry too much about formality. Keep it conversational. People don't like being sold to, but they do want someone to fix the problems. Focusing on your customer avatar and their needs, wants and desires helps narrow down what you should be saying. Stick to one key message per article. Blawg ahead and Web page Because if you overwhelm your prospects with options or tasks, they're not going to know what to do first and often that means they do nothing. Also, practice practice writing headlines there, the gate to all of the good stuff you offer. If you can get someone to click on a link because of your headline, you are golden. Be clear and concise with the writing and take tone, voice and slaying into consideration. It came really help you out, and it can really hurt you if used incorrectly. Also, don't forget to use emotion in your writing when possible, even if you're not trying to convince people to adopt Children or send money for 1/3 World country. Emotion is key people by because of emotion, and the final lesson is that ultimately there are no rules. Well, there are guidelines and templates that have been proven to work in the past. There will always be someone who has huge success going against the norm practice, test and keep writing because there was no greater sales tool than the ability to write Well. Now, don't forget to complete those workbooks and upload them. Is your class projects? We can see all of the amazing work you've done, And please don't forget to rate and review this course so others can get a better idea of what they're in for. So that's it. Thank you so much for hanging out with me if you're interested in more marketing tips, business strategies or just some accountability and motivation, top on over to my website in the well balanced business dot com. You'll find my social media links, some free downloads and a free mini course called small business clarity that shows you how to develop your branding and voice. So you stand out from your competition. That's it. Thanks again. Hopefully, I'll talk to you soon.