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5 Copywriting Mistakes To Avoid
It’s rather difficult to generate objectivity about your copy if you are writing for your own website. However, you can go it alone, just be careful you don’t make these five common mistakes. 1. Your homepage looks like a content disaster zone. Words are everywhere, from the top navigation to way past the fold. Worst of all, a visitor has to read everything to figure out where to go next. Do a little research into SEO instead of stuffing your homepage with keywords. Ask yourself what you would want to see first when you visit your own site. This will give you a clue about what others want to see, too. 2. Your use (and abuse) of the exclamation point is alarming. Adding multiple exclamation points is unnecessary. Limit yourself to one exclamation point per sentence. Trust us, you don’t want your site to look like a teenager’s text message. If you use exclamation points everywhere, you are defeating the purpose of calling attention to something specific. Instead you are rendering the highlighted points useless. 3. You didn’t proofread your work Big mistake. Even if you think you’ve got it written perfectly, you have to read through what you’ve written before you publish. It’s not professional when there’s a mistake in your copy, especially when customers are considering buying your product or service. Mistakes make you look sloppy and careless. 4. You like to overuse the ‘ellipsis.’ What is an ellipsis or ellipses? It those little dots after words or phrases that signal something has been omitted that the reader can infer. Remember the “rule of three” when it comes to the ellipsis (singular) or ellipses (plural). Generally, ellipses should only come in sets of three (not four, not ten). Most people writing web copy won’t encounter a situation that requires a more complicated use of ellipses. 5. You don’t have any copy on your site. Ok, so this is an obvious one, but we had to mention it. So many sites attempt to sell a product, but don’t provide copy to describe it. If you’re going to have a website, you need to be able to update it with content to both help visitors and search engines find your website (for SEO). Don’t write very well and have no idea what SEO is? Hire a copywriter. If not, do your best to at least provide simple, error-free information about your product or service. Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com Sonja Jacobs is the Chief Creative Officer at The Cultivated Word LLC. The Cultivated Word is a creative copywriting and viral video production service. The Cultivated Word turns passive viewers into engaged audiences. |
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