8 Copywriting Tips That Will Help Increase Conversions

At the end of the day, much of the user experience on your website—and across your digital marketing strategy—comes down to copywriting. Having the right message to accompany compelling visuals and a seamless experience is still vital to conversions. 

Simply, you can’t knock down good copy: it’s still the most effective vehicle for sharing your brand’s story and managing the customer journey. It’s how you tell customers about your products and services, and what they can expect from your brand. And it can be the difference between a visit and a conversion.

But, when was the last time you reviewed your website copy? Do you still have walls of text that customers have to read through? Let’s go back to the basics with these essential copywriting tips.

How Copywriting Impacts Conversions

SEO vs. Copywriting: Achieving a Happy Medium

With the universal focus on digital marketing strategies, many brands are also prioritizing SEO, so much that there’s a bad tendency to resort to keyword stuffing. With SEO taking precedence over good copy, there’s no shortage of pages with awkward phrasing, almost as if targeted keywords were added as an afterthought.

What this means is, you need to make sure that the content on your site is well-crafted. Whether it’s a blog or landing page, it has to lead customers along the sales funnel. Copywriting has to fulfill key goals, from brand awareness to decision-making and advocacy.

The Fine Art of Good Copywriting

In a nutshell, good copywriting provokes emotion, makes clear call-to-actions, and influences behaviours. It reads smoothly and convinces customers, all without making one sales pitch after another. Most of all, keep in mind that copywriting is part of the overall website experience, so the copy has to work with the site’s design and functionality, resulting in one cohesive brand.

Want more of these? Let’s dive into copywriting tips.

Tips for Effective Copywriting

Here are our top tips for copywriting. Find out how to drive conversions with copy that converts, provides value, and builds lasting customer trust.

1. Know who you’re writing for

In any writing, the number one rule is to know your audience. Before crafting any sort of copy, it’s crucial to get a good sense of who your brand’s target customers are. Find out their interests, shopping preferences, and what they respond to most through data and user personas. Use terms and a tone that resonates with them.

2. Figure out why you’re writing what you’re writing

Once you know who your audience is, the next step is to nail down what will make them care. With tons of competitor products and no shortage of offers and copy across the web, you need to figure out why your target demo should—and would—care.

Keep in mind that the ultimate measure of good copywriting is whether or not customers take a desired action. When writing, ask yourself, “who cares”? If you don’t or can’t even answer that, it underscores that you’ll have trouble enticing customers with what they read and taking action.

3. Keep it accessible

It’s not unusual for writers to get lost in their art—it’s a normal part of the writing process. But before putting it on your site, take a step back and see if the copy is actually readable. Remember that the more complex the content is, the less accessible it is to a wider audience. 

A common rule of thumb that many guides will tell you is to keep web copy to a grade 8—or even grade 6—reading level. Simply, avoid jargon and difficult words.

Here are some examples:

• Utilize vs. Use
• Examine vs. Test
• Beneficial vs. Helpful
• Require vs. Need
• Inquire vs. Ask
• And a lot more!

4. KISS

Keep It Short and Simple. There’s no substitute for short and simple. It’s less complex and more accessible. While it’s easy to get carried away while writing, keep in mind that brevity still works best.

It all comes down to reducing the burden on your audience. There’s less copy for them to get through, so they can move on to taking a desired action. Essentially, keep your copy “bite-sized” so it’s easy to digest while maintaining accuracy and consistency with your brand voice.

5. Focus on benefits

This copywriting tip may sound obvious, but we’re listing it because nothing beats it. After all, what can you write about that helps you sell if not all the product and brand benefits. But, you’ll be surprised how much they can take a backseat in favour of other key messages.

To fix this, start by thinking like a customer and their motivations. Write by answering what they can gain in the most concrete terms. Focus on what customers want and appeal to that, and you’ll definitely meet their needs.

6. Break up the copy

Here’s a bit of an outside-the-box copywriting tip: break it up. It’s a copywriting strategy that goes beyond copy, with positive effects on the overall design and user experience. 

Keep in mind that most customers only skim content on small screens like mobile, so make sure it isn’t such a chore for them to read. Building off KISS, try breaking up paragraphs into shorter chunks, as well as lists. Similarly, add images to spark visual interest and break up the monotony from walls of text.

7. Pay attention to microcopy

Most copywriting efforts are focused on the big things, such as banners, ads, and pages. But don’t ignore the tiniest details, like button texts and form labels. While your customers have spent the past few minutes looking at product descriptions or reading a compelling blog, ultimately, conversion actions can rest on what they click on to actually complete these.

For instance, use action verbs. Don’t just tell customers to “click here” or “learn more”. Give them a fulfilling action to look forward to through words like “discover” and “join”. Moving away from generic phrases allows you to better align copy with their goals and emphasize urgency so they will not want to miss out.

8. Scope out the competition

And finally, check out your competition. Find out what your competitors are writing and how they’re keeping customers engaged. Take note of their tone, word choice, and key messaging. Look at what CTAs they’re using. But, don’t just copy what they do. Instead, see why it works and try to use the same approach.

Craft Good Copy with Consultus Digital

The truth is, copywriting is a fine art. And like all types of art, it requires exceptional talent and a whole lot of hard work to hone. That’s why at Consultus Digital, we’re happy to provide copywriting tips—or even better, implement these across your site to improve the user experience. 

As a leading content marketing agency in Toronto, our promise is copy that converts, and fully integrated into your overall content strategy. Whether you need to refresh button texts and form labels, or you need new landing pages, blogs, and more, everything we do is rooted in effective communication. The result is a memorable, high-converting brand voice.

Need to up your copywriting game? For more tips on copywriting and implementing best practices in content marketing, get in touch with Consultus Digital.