Most people think web articles and web copy are the same thing. Web articles inform, web copy sells. Both might do a little of both but they are not the same.

The most important part of copywriting is research and position.

The most important step is researching the target market and defining the purpose of the website. You can’t really be an effective copywriter without those ingredients. Then it’s the copywriter’s job to cater to that market and make a case that leads to a call to action.

If the navigation is not clearly outlined, you do that and then you fill in some bullet points about what you will put in each section. This is not fancy but necessary.

 An outline is not fancy but organizes the ideas and content.

When you define the market, strategy, write the navigation outline and fill in the details, you need to confer with the client to make sure you are still on the same page. Dive in and write it at this point and you might end up spinning your wheels.

If you are planning the navigation menu, choose 5-6 top level menu names and make sure that all future additions will fit in those categories.  I call these ‘buckets’.

Once you’ve done these steps, you start writing the pages based on your research and information from the client.

• Make sure you have a headline and subheads on the page. Nothing is more intimidating than a page that is a “sea of type”. Break it up and make it readable. The subheads need to be a summary of the page.Clear before clever. Make sure that someone who has never heard of you knows what you offer.
• Add some leading, that is line height or space between the lines above and below. In other words, not squishy. In css, this is called line-height.
• Don’t use micro type
• Make sure the graphic designer doesn’t write it in light gray on white or some other unreadable color
• Think of visuals and captions, bullet point lists and other ideas to pull out and put in a box on the page to break things up and highlight particular advantages
• Balance the story with the SEO. Write first, do the SEO afterwards. Then go over it and make sure you’ve not become a total SEO slave and that it still reads well.
• If it works, put some of the keyword phrases in headlines and subheads. Sometimes this is an easy integration

Last word of advice, don’t do a rush job with a new client who doesn’t hand off anything more than a brain dump. This is a recipe for disaster. Don’t cut out steps because you miss the opportunity to find out if you are on the same page. Clients often expect mind readers or that the copywriter is every bit as much up to speed after a half hour conversation and a single document when that is not usually the case. You need time to get up to speed.

Over the holidays, I slacked big time. I did little blogging. And I’ve just recently gone from windows to macbookpro so that took some time. I am a happy convert. I just could not make the leap to Vista. I figured since I would have to update all software for Vista, I might as well go Mac.

I’ll kick this off with a brief lesson on piranhas and their legendary bad rap.

During the season when these omnivorous South American freshwater fish have plenty of water in which to swim and feed, they are not aggressive. In fact, during this time they bite more in defense than offense, hang out in groups more for protection than for teaming up to take apart humans. They are a mere pest to fishermen most of the time because they eat bait. But they are ‘fraidy cats’, unlike the vicious and insatiable piranha you see depicted in the James Bond flick, Dr. No.

The usually docile and skittish piranhas, however, become more aggressive in the dry season when water, and as a result food supply, become scarcer. The more scarce the food, the more desperate and aggressive they become.  This is when they become dangerous and are subject fits of frenzied attack-like behavior on anything that resembles food. It is survival of the fittest.

This illustrates our economy right now.

The downturn is creating desperate people and I’ve noticed a real urgency in advertising and SPAM recently. It can change those who would not normally digress to unethical or illegal behavior. I call this the ‘piranha mentality’.

Why is this important?

In regards to your marketing message it’s more important than ever to establish credibility. If you’re on the edge ethically, you’ll dive in there with a message to massage the woes of the desperate however sensationalist it is. This short term approach doesn’t build long term equity in a business, however.

But you can’t ignore the state of people’s pocketbooks if your target market is affected. So you have to have some understanding and approach your marketing message with care. Should you have empathy? Should you go promotional? Should you explore other areas of potential?

You need to readjust your thinking.

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By Guest Blogger, Michael Andrew Spanel. Copywriter and so much more.

Early on, most of us are taught to return phone calls promptly, use proper grammar and style when writing a formal letter and to say “thank you” as a show of common courtesy. Yet, with the Internet, the ease at which people can now connect with others has also brought about a casual disregard for basic good manners. Allowing yourself to slip into bad email habits won’t just disappoint your parents or your fifth-grade teacher; it can also be very bad for business.

Bad Habit #1: Not returning emails.

No one likes being ignored. No one. Yet this is often the preferred method of avoiding a customer, associate or vendor when the primary contact method is email. Not returning emails is also how some busy business people think they’re being more efficient. Maybe, but it’s also rude and irresponsible.

By not responding to an email you’ve just told the sender, “You’re not important to me.” Worse, as an ambassador for your company, you’re creating a poor brand image. The World Wide Web is a small place and negative word-of-mouth spreads quickly. Indeed, thousands of chat rooms, forums and entire websites exist solely to trash companies with bad customer service.

Make it a rule to return all emails within one business day. The sooner, the better. If you’re busy or don’t have an immediate answer to a question, send a brief email explaining the situation and give a time or date when you’ll get back to the sender. Then, be sure to follow through. It shows you’re professional and your company cares. Auto-replies should only be used when you’re unavailable, because they’re too impersonal and generally ineffective.

Bad Habit #2: Forgetting a business email is a business letter.

Just like a letter, an email sends a message about you. It can create a lasting impression–-good or bad. If your emails are poorly written, full of typos or simply too casual in style, then you might be telling the person receiving it that you’re not very smart or polished. A sloppy email speaks volumes.

Without being overly formal or stiff in your email communications, always try to maintain the same standards as you would in a business letter. Begin with a familiar greeting, such as “Dear” or “Hello” to show respect and set a friendly tone. Use a colon if the message is strictly business; use a comma if it’s personal or informal. Finish your email with a standard sign-off, too. “Sincerely” and “Regards” are always reliable, reflecting courtesy and professionalism.

Most importantly, proofread what you’re about to send. Sure you’re in a hurry and have more important things to do, but take an extra minute to carefully check spelling, punctuation, clarity of content–-everything. You may be a card-carrying Mensa member, but if your email is full of mistakes, the reader will assume you’re a high school flunkout. Whenever possible, ask someone to read your email before sending. A second set of eyes is the best way to catch errors.

 Bad Habit #3: Dropping your manners.

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 A new copywriting board that has emerged with the closing of Fortin’s copywriter’s board.  Started by Bruce Wedding, you’ll find a lot of very good direct response copywriters and IMers. Good marketing and selling information. If you want a sales letter written or want to be a sales letter writer, this is the spot.

http://copywritingboard.com/index.php

The forum below has more article and content writing references than actual copywriters but it’s a good resource for those in the business of writing on the internet.

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=86
Michel Fortin closed this popular copywriter board. I can understand as forums can be a pain. People are petty and staying a step ahead of the spammers is exhausting. But I wish the posts were archived even if they were locked for further comment because there was so much good information on that board.

http://www.copywritersboard.com/

If you know of some good writing and marketing message boards, post the links. The warrior forum is known for it but I’ve found it hard to login that board and am tired of getting a new password on every visit.

After looking at stats for years, I’ve come to the conclusion that the dashes or hyphens are a good thing.

When to hyphen, when not to hyphen

If you are choosing a url that people will have to type in and you have more than one hyphen, you’re going to end up sending people to the competition’s website.  What I’m saying is that if you have a brick and mortar store and you expect customers to go from your ad to your website, brick-and-mortar-store.com is going to pose a cerebral challenge.

So in short, if your name is over 3 words, dashing is not a good idea if you are expecting people to type it in.  But it will do pretty well in the search engines. On the other hand, if you are just our-store.com with one hypen, they might just do that from a business card if you make the - large and obvious enough.

If you are mostly internet, and your traffic comes from the internet, then hyphens work better than underscores. People can click on a link instead of typing it in so you eliminate their human error.  However, if you used underscores in the past on html pages (i.e. yourstore.com/my_page.html) and you’re thinking of going back to change them, you risk losing rank you have established. It probably doesn’t hurt you if the page is established and been up a while. But you’ll want to go with dashes for new pages. But again, if your site is already indexed, this isn’t going to be a huge barrier. This is mostly advice for new sites and new pages to help push you up faster.

You could duplicate one page with underscores and make one with dashes just to experiment. Why not?

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 The following is a guest post by  Dan Massicotte, aka Mr. Positive.

Most e-books measure up to the sales letters that are written to sell them. 33 Days to Online Profits however takes it a step further. I followed the day-by-day guidelines expecting to make hundreds of dollars with my product.

Unfortunately I did not follow through with my e-book. Still, Yanik Silver’s book opened many doors regarding internet business and marketing that I never would have known about otherwise.

33 Days is at least 95% about marketing, which is a key component to internet business.

No traffic = No customers = No sales = No business

Ezines

Yanik’s approach to article marketing is very simple. Write one good quality article that informs the reader. Submit it to a few online ezine databases like ezinearticles, goarticles, articlebase and article dashboard and give them some time.
However upon taking his advice I discovered that some people write hundreds of articles to establish credibility online and create long-term traffic to their website. Robert Plank, a marketing PHP guru led me to his website from an article he wrote on ezinearticles.com about how to sell a written report. I’m probably one of thousands.

Auto Responders

Probably the most popular auto responder is Aweber. Aweber costs a mere $14/month allowing you to capture some of the readers who come to your site. If your sales letter has a conversion rate of 4.5%, then 95.5% of your customers could be leaving your site without any incentive to come back.

To increase your conversion rate, Yanik encourages you to install this e-mail capturing system so you can continue building a relationship with a prospect until they are ready to buy from you.

Ever hear someone say “I made $45,000 in three days!!”? This is usually because they had an e-mail address list of 2000 contacts they built a relationship with over time. The best time to set one of these auto-responders up is now.

(note: by blog owner. Other email reviews here at the bottom of the page.)

Value

The value you add to your product is what will make your customers decide whether they will ask for a refund or not. While this is a topic that is covered lightly, in proportio to everything else in ‘33 days’, it is vital for the long run. I did not make any profit with my ‘muse’ a few months ago. But I set the ground work for the next 100 projects I will be doing.

Yanik’s “34 Rules for Maverick Entrepreneurs” puts as his second point:
“Strive to create 10x – 100x in value for any price you charge. Your rewards are always proportionate to the value you provide.”

I’ve heard Tony Robbins say this many times before as well: The only way to get a lot of meaning out of life is to add more value to other peoples’ lives than everyone else is adding.

Yanik Silver’s blog can be found here.

Guest Author Bio: Dan Massicotte is perhaps the most positive oriented individual you will ever meet. You can learn more about him on his website: http://danmassicottespositiveliving.com/ Join his newsletter to be informed of new articles and major website developments.

A lot of people will make you think it is some mysterious process. And while it’s not a top secret process guarded by guys named Lug Nut and Knuckles, it is not all that easy to pull together. However knowing what it means will help you move toward that goal.

Basically, branding is creating your blog, website, stationary, business card, direct mail, ads, web mails, brochures so they all work together to send the same marketing message. All of those elements also need to have a consistent look; meaning the same logo, design and colors.

Branding makes your product/service recognizable. People are comfortable with what they know and that’s what branding does for you. If people are more comfortable with something, they are more likely to buy/pay for it. They are less likely to be comfortable with the unknown and they are harder to bring to the point of sale.

It’s a very simplified  explanation, but there it is in a nutshell.