Copywriting

Where do I click?

Web users aren't reasonable. They don't need to be, since your competitor's website is just a click away. They won't read your fine-spun copy. They'll ignore your witty turns-of-phrases. They scan for what they're looking for and click on the first promising link they find. Copywriting for the Web is all about getting to the point.

Not every site can be fright-wig bad.

There's no need to travel far to find bad Web copywriting. What makes it bad? Vincent Flanders (the Web pundit) talks about self-indulgence and about the overuse of buzzwords and clichés. But, to qualify for fright-wig status requires special talent. Sometimes it's just the right combination of militaristic analogies, inverted sentence structures, and messianic tone. Here are some of our favorites:

• A development company wants to blow up things.
• A financial company has a grammar meltdown.
• A technology company releases acronym soup.
• The Oracle speaks!

Why professionally-written copy is important

Good copy is your site's first defense against the What-Do-I-Do-Now Syndrome. When users get confused, they leave. This is especially true for your site's homepage, where clarity and scannability are crucial.

Good copy informs, entertains, and inobtrusively leads the user to the call-to- action, where the sale, lead, or contact is made. It converts visitors to customers.

Credibility has been cited as one of the top-ten reasons why Web visitors don't buy. Web users can't see the "face behind the curtain," and have little to rely on to establish a site's integrity. Grammar blowouts and dubious marketing claims most often result in click-aways (lost visitors).

“Credibility can be increased by high-quality graphics, good writing, and the use of outbound [external] hyperlinks. Links to other sites show that the authors have done their homework and are not afraid to let readers visit other sites. [...] Users detested 'marketese', the promotional style with boastful subjective claims ('hottest ever') that is currently prevalent on the Web. Web users are too busy: They want to get the straight facts.” — Jakob Nielsen, Web usability guru.