How to Make a Good Text Excellent? 9 Tips for Advanced Copywriters

The quality of your copywriting is a ‘make it or break it’ factor when it comes to audience engagement. The best copywriters speak for themselves. They have their own handwriting, a kind of imaginary detail of their brand that the discerning eye can detect in the copy that comes from their pen. The result is often a perfectly constructed text with meaningful content, without being distracting or even cheesy.

Most importantly, it can engage the reader. Secondly, and more importantly, it manages to hold the reader’s attention until the end. At the heart of any piece of writing is a core idea, which the writer should stick to and convey in a beautiful, yet readable and understandable form. How do you write a classy article without using textual cotton wool? These few points will take your copywriting to the next level.

1. You can be an intellectual, but keep the goal in mind

You want to persuade your readers of something. To do this most effectively, you don’t have to sound fancy. What’s important is that you stick to the basic information and deliver it in language that the reader won’t have to translate. Overly flowery language and words that the average reader would have to translate or look up in a dictionary of foreign words can obscure the point and divert attention elsewhere.

2. Avoid vague statements

Have you ever read words like significant, huge, amazing… but couldn’t imagine what they meant? That’s because the copywriter used vague, hard-to-understand terms. These statements unwittingly discredit the value of your copy. It’s easy to replace them with real facts and figures. They are more persuasive and give the text more plasticity.

Tip: Try to include specific figures in your text and don’t forget to cite the source. Doesn’t the phrase “you’ll achieve 80% better results on average” sound more convincing?

3. Brand journalism – what is it and why stick with it?

Every copywriter is a bit of a journalist. That’s why the term brand journalism has been coined and should be adopted by those who work with copy. Brand journalists should also provide verified and truthful information. They should help readers understand certain issues, ideally socially or culturally important ones. A copywriter’s copy shouldn’t just be about selling. It should add value, and you should be more informed after reading it.

4. Study more than one source

When you’re writing copy, don’t just rely on your own imagination. It makes a difference if the client asks you to review a particular product after you have tried it. But in any of the infinite number of other cases, you should ideally cite several sources. Remember that if you use information from a secondary source, you should also look for the original source of the information.

Tip: A text in which you cite multiple sources, specific data, statistics or claims is much more credible. Avoid cotton wool and give specific data instead.

5. Keywords are very important

Finding the right keywords may not be the most exciting activity for a copywriter, but it is an essential part of creating quality copy. Knowing what your target audience is actually typing into Google is half the battle. What’s trending in your market? What hasn’t worked for a while? What words should I be using to rank higher?

There are several keyword search engines out there. For me, the Key Word Magic search engine from SEMRUSH has proven to be the best. I simply type in my country and keyword and I can browse through the results with the highest number of searches. The tool even allows you to filter the results by multiple criteria, which gets you even closer to your desired result.

Tip: The left column in this tool allows users to view related keyword groups.

6. Excellent meta description will reward you

When searching, the title and meta description of an article are the first things a reader will see of your text. You should take care in their wording. Adhering to the rules when creating them, as well as in the overall formal editing of the text, is the alpha and omega. Separate the peroxus visually, use keywords in headings and subheadings, highlight parts of the text in bold or italics. Whenever you can, end a sentence and don’t use a conjunction. Concentrate on any metadata that can increase the organic click-through rate to your text, and on making Yoast (the text’s web-friendliness/readability indicator) glow green when it’s finalised.

7. Give your texts soul

Simply put, use an active voice in your text. This is one of the reasons Yoast will alert you when you enter text on the web. Passive sentences sound too formal. In contrast, active verbs make the text look engaging and conversational. Don’t be afraid to ask the reader a question and make them think about your text.

8. Call them to action!

One of the main goals of copywriting is to move the reader of the text further – usually to a specific product. If your readers came to the page because they were looking for informations, they might be interested in clicking through to a specific product. So far, we haven’t come up with a better way than a call to action (CTA).

From a copywriting standpoint, this can improve your copy’s conversion rate and ROI on your content. From an SEO perspective, it can improve your page views, reduce your immediate bounce rate, and send positive interaction signals to Google.

9. Check the competition

And finally, the ninth point – check if something similar with  the same informational value has already been published on your competitors’ blog. If so, try to take it as a challenge and approach your text more creatively and with a new idea. You might pleasantly surprise yourself at the quality of text you can produce.

Did you know…?

• Text is crucial for sales. Social media helps with brand awareness and definitely drives traffic to a page, but you need text to sell products. In the article, written by Steve Coombes from Awai.com,  stated that new copy can increase conversions by up to 64%. According to him, the click-through rate from email campaigns to text and then to product is more than 14% for each newsletter.
• A personalised call to action (CTA) is 202% more effective than a generic one. A copywriter should therefore know their audience intimately. Based on this, he or she will tailor the text to their expectations and needs (HubSpot).
• Up to 74% of readers pay close attention to commas and grammar. If you thought commas didn’t matter, I have to disappoint you. Nearly ¾ of all the people your text reaches will pay close attention if you use the wrong term or make mistakes in punctuation and proper direct speech. (RealBusiness)
• Readers actually absorb only 20% of your text. According to this template, that would mean that out of the 1140 words in my text, only 228 will get through to you. That’s why it’s really essential to highlight the important parts of the text in bold. (Nielson Norman Group)

Sources that inspired me: Danieldoan.net, Assit-o.com, Semrush.com, Alysonlex.com, Carminemastropierro.com