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There are many websites that don’t resonate with visitors because of how they are written. They're often filled with long blocks of copy and fail to highlight the most important points. When writing copy for your website, you want to avoid making readers feel like they're reading a textbook.
Your goal should be to write copy that encourages readers to take action and leads to more conversions. Before diving into tips on how to write persuasive copy that converts website visitors, however, let’s look at the difference between persuasive copy and promotional copy.
Balancing between persuasive and promotional copy
As a small business owner, you know that effective copywriting can improve your business's marketing and sales. Therefore, knowing the difference between persuasive copy and promotional copy will help foster lead generation as well as sales. When generating digital copy, it’s important to remember this difference:
- Persuasive copy: Copy that is intended to change the reader's mind and behavior.
- Promotional copy: Copy that is intended to entice the reader to take action.
The primary objective of both persuasive and promotional copy is to encourage a specific outcome or behavior, but persuasive copy should lead readers to a conclusion by changing their mind about a subject, while promotional copy should elicit an immediate reaction by enticing extreme emotion, such as a fear of missing out.
10 tips for writing persuasive copy that converts website visitors
Persuasive copy is tricky to write, especially for a business website. You need to get your message across with a limited number of words while keeping your visitors’ interests in mind. If you’re looking to generate persuasive copy for your business that converts website visitors, these writing tips will help you get started:
1. The "rule of one"
The "rule of one" is a technique that's often used in persuasive writing. Essentially, you should focus on a single idea when writing a piece of content, especially if you are writing a landing page for a specific product or service, rather than highlighting multiple things at once, which can confuse and overwhelm readers.
2. Provide useful content
To keep your audience on your page and encourage them to take the desired action, you need to keep them engaged and provide value through meaningful information. To do so, you should use content that is backed by facts and relevant data, which will help them make a decision about your products. You should also provide content that helps readers solve a problem or achieve a goal.
3. Command attention
Persuasive content demands a reader's attention and compels them to keep reading. Again, you should use relevant data, facts, and figures to pique the reader's attention and then give them a reason to read on.
4. Emphasize benefits over features
Persuasive content should focus on the benefits of your product or service, rather than simply discussing the features. By emphasizing the benefits, you are showing your audience why the product or service has value, which will lead to more conversions.
5. Speak to your audience, not at them
Make sure that the copy you write is persuasive, creating value that actually speaks to your target audience. Doing so ensures that you are speaking to the pain points of your audience.
This is not a good strategy for writing persuasive copy. Instead, you should write your copy conversationally to better connect with your reader. Use language such as "you" or "your" to put the reader into the conversation.
6. Cut the fluff
Filler content, or “fluff,” is usually used to fill space on a page. It does not add any value, and it is not useful to your audience.
Cutting the fluff out of your content is one of the easiest ways to make the copy more persuasive.
7. Break up content into digestible bites
The best persuasive content is often broken down into digestible bites that are easy to understand. You should avoid long paragraphs that are hard to read and understand.
8. Include social proof in your content
Social proof is a powerful persuasion technique. It is based on the idea that people are more likely to do something if they see others doing it. You can use social proof to convince your audience that the product or service you're offering is the best solution to their problem.
9. Have only one call to action
A call to action (CTA) encourages a specific action. If you include more than one CTA on a single page, your copy will seem purely promotional.
10. A/B test copy and make necessary changes
You should be testing your copy’s effectiveness once you are done writing. A/B testing is a simple way to do this, allowing you to see which copy performs best and to make necessary changes to the copy that is performing poorly.
Improve your website with tips and tricks from the BBB
If you want to learn more about how to write persuasive content that converts website visitors, visit the BBB's website for tips and tricks.
There, you'll find dozens of helpful resources that can help you write better copy and create a competitive website that will get you the results you want.
Check out the BBB business news feed for more!