If you only understand Spanish and read this post without translation, what will you gain?
Nothing.
Despite my good intentions, you’ll navigate to another website fast. There’s no chance you’d buy my products.
Okay, your business is probably not as awful as that. But you don’t need to be that bad to lose your website visitors.
You just need to be a bit bad and your competitors can poach potential customers right under your nose.
Every business wants to avoid this. But before you can do that, you have to stop writing words that your readers and potential leads can’t associate with.
According to the Nielsen Norman Group, users only have time to read about 28% of a web page during an average visit. Users want you to use their time judiciously and any other thing apart from that leads to a bounce.
This is where copywriting comes in.
What is copywriting?
Copywriting is conversational writing. It is a type of writing that uses your customers’ vocabulary to communicate with them.
Even though you can’t see your visitors, copywriting provides interactive content that grabs them.
This helps your business to build a connection with visitors. With your choice of words, they feel that you understand them and their problems.
By the virtue of this, you’re in a better position to solve their problems.
In a survey by Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs, one of the questions was about factors that contributed to B2B marketers’ success over the past year.
85% of them attributed a higher quality and more efficient content creation as the reason.
What are the major benefits you enjoy with copywriting on your website?
1. It improves the connection with your readers
When visitors come to your website, they’re looking to solve a problem. But one thing you’ll see on many websites is ‘robotic’ writing.
This is writing that is too formal and shows no empathy for your readers. Before you can solve your potential customer’s problems, you need to understand them.
Not only that, but you need to be able to write to your readers in a way that shows you understand their problems. When visitors read such content, they develop a connection with you as you end up sounding like a friend.
The basic rule of copywriting is having a conversation with your visitors to get them to take the action you want. Copywriting is not blatant selling. Copywriting is selling in a way that convinces readers.
They are allowed to come to the conclusion that they need the solution you provide, rather than forcing them to reach this conclusion.
Of course, copywriting won’t convince everyone. But it will help you to build a connection with your ideal customers.
2. You get your message across more effectively
With copywriting, you have to understand the problem you want to solve for your visitors. Likewise, you have to know the message you want to pass across.
What is the most important message your visitors need to get from your writing? What are the benefits your products or services will provide to your potential customers?
Effective copywriting requires that you remove the fluff within your content. When you visit some website pages and see the big grammars on display, you end up getting confused rather than convinced.
A confused visitor would rather move on to your competitor than buy your product or subscribe to your service. Because you’re not clear enough about what you can offer.
Think of it, how many people use these ambiguous words in their daily interactions? Will you use those big grammars if you’re explaining the merits of a business to your friend?
Copywriting is about giving a clear message of what you can offer. Companies like Uber are able to explain the benefits of their service in a simple way that even a seven-year-old child can understand.
When you offer an auto repair service and claim “our services are effective and result-oriented to give you the highest level of satisfaction.”
That statement raises more questions from the reader. How do you define effectiveness? What results are you talking about? What are they satisfied with?
You could have done better with something simple like you “service vehicles, troubleshoot them with the latest technologies, and make sure that vehicle owners can drive their cars more and extend their vehicle’s useful life.”
This is easier to understand for any vehicle owner. The aim of effective copywriting is to be able to present a message that your potential customers understand.
This way, they know what they’re getting when they do business with you. With this, you can attract the right customers for your business.
B2C marketers are also aware of this. That is why 72% of them are producing more content than they did a year ago.
3. Copywriting increases engagement
Have you ever shared a boring post? Me neither. People only share posts that are interesting and solve their problems. Likewise, they only comment on posts they are able to read till the end.
One of the side effects of effective copywriting is that you get more engagement from your posts. Copyblogger’s Brian Clark says that this is the major way of telling if your copywriting is good.
According to him, one foolproof way of knowing your content is bad is when no reader engages with it. Copywriting allows you to solve users problem or enlighten them on a particular topic.
When you achieve this aim, these readers will be willing to share your great work with their friends and also give you feedback through comments.
One thing you also have to know is that copywriting is not rigid. Many times, you may have to perform tests on your content to see what suits your visitors best.
However, the best way to get a high level of engagement in your post is to communicate well with your readers. Copywriting presents the right message and makes sure that your readers are able to get the information they’re looking for.
When PTC, a software company, decided to publicize their new set of computer-aided design software suite, they turned towards content marketing.
They decided to create a microsite which was called Creo. The aim of this website was to give more details about their upcoming software, through content that would engage potential customers.
This was to make sure there was enough momentum when the product is launched. By the end of the month when the software suite was launched, the microsite had gotten 100,000 visitors and 70% of them were new to PTC.
4. Copywriting improves SEO
A major part of the basic foundation of SEO is providing the best user experience possible for your website visitors. When you provide the best user experience for your visitors, you have obeyed most of the rules of SEO.
There are many on-site optimizations you need to do on your website and one major aspect of that is your website content.
One of the major determinants of whether you rank for a search term or not is having relevant keywords to searchers’ queries.
How does copywriting improve SEO?
When people search on search engines, they often use words they’re already familiar with in their daily interactions. If you implement copywriting on your website, you’ll naturally use the conversational terms that searchers use when searching for your service or product.
With the constant increase in voice search, copywriting is becoming even more important for SEO. For voice search queries, searchers talk to their devices and ask questions like they would ask another human being.
In 2015, about 20% of searches on Android devices were voice searches. Voice search is even more important because most people perform local searches through this medium and are usually ready to buy in a short period of time.
When writing for your website, you have to note that there are many words in the English language that may perform the same function. Meanwhile, your target audience probably uses one word more than others.
For instance, if your ideal buyers are Americans and you have important keywords like “behaviour” and “personalise” rather than “behavior” and “personalize,” you may end up losing a lot of organic traffic because of this.
Copywriting ensures that you use your customers’ language and their vocabulary. Through this, it is easy to use the words they would put in search engines when they need your product.
After launching a new customer service, Rental History Reports launched a blog to address the concerns of its customers. They also targeted keywords and phrases that their customers were likely to use in a search.
By the end of 6 months, organic traffic to their blog had increased by 400% and page views per visit increased by 260%.
5. Copywriting leads to more sales
If you sell a product or service, most parts of your website are designed to achieve the ultimate aim of getting a visitor to buy your product.
Today, due to the popularity and easy accessibility of the Internet, people perform extensive research before they end up buying a product.
According to Nielsen, 85% of consumers usually check trusted expert content like articles and reviews before they decide to purchase a product.
How does copywriting help you to sell more?
With copywriting, you explain the benefits of your products rather than glorifying specifications. You’re able to tell your visitors in simple terms what your product’s specifications will achieve for them.
A Demand Gen Report claim that 47% of buyers viewed 3 to 5 pieces of content before talking to a sales rep.
When potential buyers are able to imagine how your product will affect their daily lives positively, they become more receptive to your offers.
A HubSpot report found that 57% of companies with a blog have acquired a customer from their blog.
Another way copywriting help you to sell more is by showing visitors the full details of their problems and what it’s costing them or their businesses.
Conclusion
To reach your customers and communicate more efficiently with them, you need to have a copy on your website that connects with your readers.
Like a traditional salesman, copywriting can help to convince your website visitors of the merits of your products and why they need to buy it.
Furthermore, good copywriting is not as “salesy” as your salesman and can improve trust in your business.
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Do you want to connect better with your website visitors to get them to buy more of your products? But you find copywriting difficult and stressful? I can help your business. See how.
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Samuel writes long-form guides to help businesses and entrepreneurs achieve better results from their marketing activities. He also writes for marketing and SaaS companies that want more leads and customers. Get in touch with him to discuss your content needs.
It is amazing what reading does to the mind. Amazing write-up with in-depth research, good job Olumide.
Thanks. The duty of a website owner is to persuade visitors to become customers with effective copywriting.
Yes, I remember Pedro of LeGrove mentioning the same thing. He had made observation that most of those who visit the blog still do everyday for more than 8 years. Funny, I was still thinking I was addicted to LeGrove(read almost everyday for the last 7+ years). I guess you will be providing a new addiction😀😀
I hope I can keep you addicted 😉
Thanks Olumide for this beautiful and comprehensive write-up. Like you said, copywriting is a fundamental tool in the sales’ arsenal of a business. Without good copywriting, the business is missing lots of positive shorts. Thanks again for this enlightenment.
Thanks for your comment, Richard! I agree with you, copywriting is becoming even more important due to the internet. Glad you got enlightened by this post.