Content writing · 9 Nov 2017 · 2 min read

Writing web copy that generates sales

Getting thousands of visitors to a website while generating almost no sales is a common problem, and it usually comes down to not knowing which words actually move a visitor toward becoming a customer. Web copy has to match the audience it’s written for: formal, jargon-heavy language aimed at a sophisticated audience reads fine to some visitors and drives others straight to a competitor who’s a click away.

Look at your copy honestly

It’s worth taking a hard look at existing web copy rather than assuming it’s working.

• Does it hold a reader’s attention? If the opening lines aren’t written with the customer in mind, nobody makes it to the call-to-action button at all, no matter how good the offer behind it is.
• Does whoever wrote it actually understand the audience’s buying habits? Most web copy underperforms because it was written by someone who never put themselves in the shoes of the people meant to read it — the features, benefits and hesitations that matter to an actual buyer.

Get organised

A few questions worth answering before writing a word:

• Are visitors looking for specific information? Traffic isn’t the goal — conversion is. Content should answer the real questions a prospective customer already has, which takes research into what those questions actually are.
• Do buyers gravitate toward specific keywords and phrases? Someone shopping for an elliptical trainer, for example, is often subconsciously drawn to phrases like “cross training,” “low impact” or “calorie burn rate” — the language a serious buyer already uses.

Ask for the business

Most readers won’t make it through an entire page of copy, so a call to action after every strong point matters more than one buried at the bottom. Generic phrasing works, but something specific to the business works better — a travel company, for instance, might use “plan my tour” or “ask for a custom itinerary” rather than a generic prompt.

There’s no harm in being critical of a web copy’s structure, sentence choices and word choices. Doing that honestly, and revising accordingly, is what actually improves it over time.