Copywriting for Business, Online and Social Media: Part Nine
Think about it.
You're reading a magazine, even if you're waiting in the dentist's office or somewhere similar, because you're interested in the articles and stories.
It's the same with TV.
You're watching the news, a sitcom, a documentary or some other show.
With radio, when you're in the car, you're listening to the music, maybe the chat from the announcers or the traffic and weather reports.
Whatever it is you're doing, the aim of the advertiser is to cut into that activity and send you a message in order to try to sell you their product or service.
These messages occur during commercial breaks on TV and radio and with eye-catching ads on just about every page of a magazine.
Web Wordsmiths While advertising is of course very much a part of the Internet, people find their way to their destination online by the use of search engines.
Consequently, on your website you're not trying to attract a reader or viewer's attention while they're doing something else, as is the case with other media.
People reading your content have arrived at your site because they are specifically looking for you, or at least someone in the same type of business as you.
They're looking for something in particular and it's well-known that attention spans are limited when it comes to websites.
People want to identify very quickly that your website could be what they are looking for and that it's worth investigating further.
You don't have much time to make an impression on them so good web writing is crucial.
For the first time visitor to your website, your primary headline and all your subheadings have to answer these questions.
If you can convince them that they need to read more and then visit the other pages on your site, you'll go a long way to converting visitors into customers.
Web copy does a different job than newspaper writing, for example, where the ad at the side of the page is designed to distract the reader from the article they are reading.
On a website, you already have the customer's attention, but if you're going to hold that attention and convince them to read more, you need good web copy, which is where the professional web copywriter can help you.