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Improve Your Blogging by Understanding Copywriting

written by John Chow on February 11th, 2008

This post was guest blogged by Steven York of Seopher.com. They offer $40 off a review this month.

Copywriting. This word strikes fear into the heart of anyone who has little understanding of what it means; but had you thought that taking an hour to study it could improve your blog, net you more subscribers and therefore help you achieve your objectives?

What Is Copywriting?

Most people think copywriting is the process of writing content for someone else with very strict guidelines; word limits, tone, etc. Whereas this is true for professional copywriting it’s not even half of the story.

Understanding How Content Is Read

One of the most important aspects of copywriting is formatting. You can have the best content in the world but if it’s displayed in an unformatted lump it becomes very difficult to read - and on the Internet that means it doesn’t get read.

Use Useful Subheaders

When you’re writing your content you need to break it up into sections - although you probably do this naturally even if you’re not using subheadings already. This allows readers to scan down the page and gather an understanding of what you’re discussing. 10 subheaders gives you 10 chances to capture the reader’s attention - which is a much better prospect than just relying on the title.

Useful Subheaders As An SEO tool

Don’t forget that if you’re using subheaders, it’s a great opportunity to mark them up as h2/h3/h4/h5 (depending on your design) so that search engines can add more weight to them.

Remember That Sex Always Works

RYL Girls

I bet that sub-title got your attention. It’s well documented that using sex in a title, caption or quote captures readers’ attention unlike anything else. Don’t force it in; your content will become unreadable if you’re trying to cram it full of sexually suggestive statements (although that sentence itself is filled with it).

Shorter Paragraphs

People find it easier to read shorter paragraphs; reading 100 lines of unbroken text is a daunting prospect for a lot of users and many will just navigate away from your site - and that’s not what you want at all. So break your content up into shorter paragraphs (with useful subheadings too) to allow people to get the most from your content.

Understand most readers have an information requirement Once your content has slipped into your archive, search engine users will become your key demographic. Users from search engines will reach your content because they were told the answer to their question is on your page. These users need to find a specific part of your content, so making it as easy to scan is beneficial.

Be Careful About Your Wording

Good content doesn’t need to be challenging to read; after all most users don’t want to need a dictionary while browsing your blog. Furthermore, using deliberately complicated language can make your readers feel stupid for not understanding and that’s just going to alienate part of your demographic.

In Conclusion

Copywriting isn’t a scary concept, nor is it difficult to get a working knowledge of it; yet the gains from formatting your content properly can be massive. Have a look at Copywriting.com and this post on Copyblogger for a bit more information. Just don’t neglect it, excellent content has no value without someone to read it.

Affiliate Confession said on February 11th, 2008 at 6:23 pm

Good pratical advice. I can always use more info on how to write better copy. Shorter paragraphs are something I’ve been doing for some time now.

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Not John Chow said on February 12th, 2008 at 3:41 am

You may also wish to consult a book entitled “The Elements of Style” by Strunk and White. This has been the standard style book used by many Newspapers anc taugh tin journalism schools for many years.

Good consistent style is very inviting to the reader. it makes you sound like an old familiar friend!

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ViralKing said on February 12th, 2008 at 5:16 am

Great Post and Great girls (some of them).

I use headings in my posts on my new blog, but don’t use sub heading tags, so this is a great point I will try and remember! :twisted:

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Affiliate Confession said on February 12th, 2008 at 7:35 am

Yea, that one on the far left is kinda scary looking.

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Will said on February 12th, 2008 at 9:20 am

wait what did those girls represent? a game?

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Start Blogging said on February 11th, 2008 at 6:42 pm

These are pretty helpful tips. I hate when people write in one big long paragraph.

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SEO Optimization said on February 11th, 2008 at 7:22 pm

In paragraphs should be divided only if one sentence is slightly changing or going to change from the previous. Using multiple paragraphs even where it is not needed will not make anything special.

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Chitika Review said on February 11th, 2008 at 10:07 pm

Or the annoying cousin of long paragraphs - ALL CAPS. :lol:

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Frugal Dad said on February 11th, 2008 at 6:56 pm

Was there an article here? All I saw was a picture of seven scantily clad women. Must be something wrong with my eyes again (and yes, it certainly got our attention!).

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Affiliate Confession said on February 11th, 2008 at 7:45 pm

If you place the ladies below the bottom of the browser and then above the top you can actually read the article.

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RacerX said on February 11th, 2008 at 8:41 pm

Sex sells…and gets you dropped from Google :)

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Jim Karter said on February 11th, 2008 at 9:09 pm

Ya. But may be not-too-much sort of pictures can do the work. :evil:

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The Cyber Dojo said on February 11th, 2008 at 7:30 pm

Very useful info. I am not a native English speaker but even for me it was indeed easy to read the article. Thanks for the great tips.

Mr. Chow,
By the way, I downloaded your e-book and it inspired me a lot. Thank you very much. :razz:

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Nadz | MindBlogger Blogging Tips said on February 11th, 2008 at 7:33 pm

Not necessarily new, but structured practical advice.

I also, highly recommend Copyblogger.com if you want to have more experience in copy-writing. It’s so awesome.

Well done Steven!

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Seopher said on February 12th, 2008 at 1:19 am

Thanks, I too recommend copyblogger for things like this. Having a working knowledge of copywriting should make your writing easier for the reader to absorb.

Like I said in the article, you can have the best content in the world but if no one is going to read it, then why bother?

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RacerX said on February 12th, 2008 at 9:52 am

Even worse though is to have traffic and crappy copy!

You often only get a chance to convert to long term traffic once!

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Mike said on February 11th, 2008 at 7:49 pm

There is nothing worse than reading a long post with unbroken text. It just makes for boring reading. Make small paragraphs is a great tip. Thanks for the advice.

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Simon Lau said on February 11th, 2008 at 8:00 pm

some good advice, I didn’t know subheaders helped in SEO optimization

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Seopher said on February 12th, 2008 at 12:21 am

Indeed they do. Obviously the H1 should be applied to the title of the post, but correct use of the subsequent headings (h2-h5) will allow engines like Google to analyse more keywords against your content (because if they’re in a heading then they have increased value).

Correct markup and good formatting, win-win.

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Simon Lau said on February 12th, 2008 at 5:17 am

I’ll need to check my WP theme and config to make sure subheaders are used. I never bothered with them before

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Pete said on February 11th, 2008 at 8:12 pm

Good Post… Many Online marketers would do better if they understood the importance of quality copywriting. How many neebies are “sold” by copywriting alone ? Top marketers have understood this for a long time and their success is in direct relation to the quality of their sales copy. I just blogged about 472 Catch Phrases that will help you with your copywriting and retaining your reader till the end.

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patagoniacommunity said on February 11th, 2008 at 8:14 pm

John, I read the article about you in Entrepreneur and was inspired to push my blog further. Best wishes to you.

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David said on February 12th, 2008 at 10:47 am

I haven’t read this article yet…I’ll have to read it…

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Alex said on February 11th, 2008 at 8:17 pm

did you get this idea after seeing my blog or something? haha
No but seriously I need to implement this on my next postings because I think I have used like one subheading total in my whole blog.

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RacerX said on February 11th, 2008 at 8:39 pm

The most important part of copywriting is crafting good titles. the Second is speakingto your audience. If your are writing a Finance blog and you write like McMoney you aren’t gonna get very far. On the opposite side, if you write for a hip-hop newsletter and sound like Thurston Howell, well Lovey…you’re hosed.

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Jan Alvin said on February 11th, 2008 at 8:39 pm

You are write, reading a long paragraph without unbroken lines really makes the reader bored. Animated text coud also help, and some attractive and cool colors like green wich can make our eyes relaxed.

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Keith Lock said on February 11th, 2008 at 9:05 pm

Great advice…I needed a refresher in Copyrighting 101

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Mike Huang said on February 11th, 2008 at 9:09 pm

Wow! This is my read of the day :) Keep up the good work!

-Mike

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Jim Karter said on February 11th, 2008 at 9:11 pm

Small paragraphs with proper sub-titles makes it very easy to read and allows reader to grab it fully.

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Paul Glover said on February 11th, 2008 at 9:16 pm

Hi John,
Great article, short and sweet, with knowledgeable content.
Great job.
Paul Glover
admin@largeprofitwebnews.com

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MONEY BLOG said on February 11th, 2008 at 9:54 pm

Yes John, sex always does sell, haha nice post.

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Tinh said on February 11th, 2008 at 10:23 pm

I think shorter paras is good idea as no one esp. blogger would like to read a long article but “careful” wording seems does not work well with non-english speaking blogger like me, what do you think? :?:

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Joshua said on February 11th, 2008 at 10:50 pm

Screw short paragraphs!
I like short, sexy Asian girls!

:shock:

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Jim Karter said on February 11th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
Seopher said on February 12th, 2008 at 1:21 am

I’d like to point out John added the sexy picture himself, my original article was without busty asian girls.

I’m not complaining, just thought it was worth mentioning :mrgreen:

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Belive Blog said on February 12th, 2008 at 2:29 am

Hello Chow,

Images with sexy ladies always works to target the masculine public. Continue the great work.

Adriano Lopes
http://blog.belive.ws

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Sauce The Game said on February 12th, 2008 at 4:23 am

Great post, I would assume that good copy blogging is critical for getting a spot as a guest blogger, along with formatting the less the blogger has to do the better I would assume.

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Geme said on February 12th, 2008 at 5:47 am

Hi John, great article and nice girls in that picture :lol:

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Stephane Grenier said on February 12th, 2008 at 6:51 am

Great article. You used every concept you mentioned in full.

Do as I say AND as I do ;)

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Lipton said on February 12th, 2008 at 7:37 am

I’ll admit that picture made me click the post title in my RSS reader lol!

I pick the one short hottie in the middle :)

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Tom Beaton said on February 12th, 2008 at 8:32 am

Some very solid advice. Even the most seasoned pro should stop to consider these things and make sure they are ticking all the boxes.

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David said on February 12th, 2008 at 10:43 am

Lots of good advice I’ll have to keep in mind. Thanks!

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Katie said on February 12th, 2008 at 10:44 am

Thanks for all the great tips on Copyrighting. I never understood it until now. I totally agree with you that paragraphs that are too long can be annoying for others to read. I will take your helpful advice and learn more about Copyrighting.

Thanks again for your great Post :wink:

~Katie

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Political Blog said on February 12th, 2008 at 11:50 am

And be funny!

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Ty Brown said on February 12th, 2008 at 11:57 am

For the neophyte here…what does h2 and h3 headers have to do with how the search engines see your page?

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Saim Baig said on February 12th, 2008 at 1:02 pm

I just loved the part in which the pic is posted.

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olajide Adetutu said on February 12th, 2008 at 5:11 pm

Actually writing a better copy convert your traffic to sales better.But the most outstanding site that i have ever seen about copy is one crappy site that sucks in sales because of the quality of information it offers.

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olajide Adetutu said on February 12th, 2008 at 5:21 pm

I love the pics that was used as a bait.It was just like the crappy site I went to today.The site was something else.

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Make Money with Cashtacular said on February 13th, 2008 at 6:47 am

The best part about this post is that it effectively illustrates the premise being discussed. Very short paragraphs with headers for each one. It’s amazing how easy it was to read this compared to other posts. This is definitely something I need to work on.

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4ALL2ALL said on February 13th, 2008 at 8:28 pm

Beauty is best when shared. A great article !

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David Chew said on February 14th, 2008 at 3:21 am

That really works and if you promote it with pretty girl then most likely it will be famous.

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antioxidants said on February 14th, 2008 at 1:41 pm

Simple words indeed are better than complicated ones.

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Robert said on February 15th, 2008 at 6:58 pm

Thank you. This was so helpful. It is so true that blog writing needs to be simple, organized, short, and to the point. If you want to attract traffic, you need to make your content attractive to the average reader. Here I am, an English major, trying to write an essay, and all I have to do is simplify everything. Thanks for the information!

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Melanie Shebel said on February 16th, 2008 at 2:54 pm

I should consider putting a little more sex in my blog. I haven’t thought of that, but putting little innuendos as titles could help. I would, of course, need original photos, since I don’t feel right about taking stuff off of Google images.

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Syed Balkhi said on February 19th, 2008 at 4:06 am

forget all the advices the only thing that i saw in there was sex … :twisted:

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