User documentation is all too often written by programmers for programmers. It tends to focus on the product’s features, rather than the user’s tasks. Generally, programmers aren’t in the ideal position to be writing user documentation. They’re too close to the bits and bytes, and they’re too far from the user. To them, what the product can do tends to be far more important than what the user can do with the product.

It’s a subtle &ndash but vital &ndash distinction. Research shows that the key to effective user documentation is writing task oriented help. Even better, write your help according to the minimalist theory. In the documentation world, “minimalism” is a fancy word for a commonsense practice. In basic terms, it means write to your reader and keep it simple.

The theory itself has a lot of twists and turns. If you want to read a great &ndash but slightly wordy &ndash book on the subject, check out the book “Minimalism Beyond the Nurnberg Funnel”, 1998, edited by John Carroll.

In the meantime, if you can tick every item in the following checklist, you’ll be well on your way to usable online help that both your readers and your managers will thank you for.

Helpful Help Checklist

1. Base the help on real tasks (or realistic examples)

2. Structure the help based on task sequence &ndash Chapter headings should be goals and topics should be tasks

3. Respect the reader’s activity &ndash this is generally more about what you don’t do than what you do. Don’t waste the reader’s time by diving off into tangents

4. Exploit prior knowledge and experience &ndash Draw the reader’s attention to previous tasks, experiences, successes, and failures

5. Prevent mistakes - “Ensure you do x before doing y”

6. Detect and identify mistakes - “If this fails, you may have entered the path incorrectly”

7. Fix mistakes - “Re-enter the path”

8. Provide error info at end of tasks where necessary (rule of thumb, one error info note per three tasks is a good average)

9. Don’t break up instructions with notes, cautions, warnings, and exceptional cases - Put these things at the end of the instruction, wherever possible

10. Be brief, don’t spell everything out, especially things that can be taken for granted

11. Omit conceptual and note information where possible, or link to it. Perhaps provide expansion information at the end of the topic, plus maybe a note that there are other ways to perform the task/goal, but this is the easiest

12. Sections should look short and read short

13. Provide closure for sections (e.g., back to original screen/goal)

14. Provide an immediate opportunity to act and encourage exploration and innovation (use active invitations to act, such as, “See for yourself…” or “Try this…” rather than passive invitations such as, “You can…”)

15. Get users started quickly

16. Allow for reading in any order - make each section modular, especially goals, but perhaps tasks (definitely if they can be performed in different order)

17. Highlight things that are not typical

18. Use active voice rather than passive voice

19. Try to account for the user’s environment in your writing

20. Before writing anything, ask yourself “Will this help my reader?”

By building these practices into your documentation process, you’ll find that your online help becomes easier to write, shorter, and far more usable for your reader. What’s more, your boss will love you!

You’ve identified the benefits you offer your customers, but how do you turn a list of benefits into engaging web copy which converts visitors into customers?

Recently I wrote an article explaining how to identify the benefits you offer your customers (.divinewrite.com/benefits.htm). That article challenged business owners and marketing managers to think in terms of benefits rather than features when writing their web copy.

What the article didn’t discuss was how to actually write the web copy once they had identified their benefits. That’s what this article is about. (It even gives you a couple of templates you can use to make your job a whole lot easier!)

As a website copywriter, many of the projects I undertake are completely new websites. The client has some general ideas about what they’d like to convey, but they need someone who can fine-tune their message, and create web copy (and a web structure) which engages their readers. As a result, over the years I’ve developed a process for doing this effectively. There are four main steps:

1) Identify benefits

2) Identify how you deliver these benefits

3) Prioritise your benefits

4) Write the content

Although this article touches on step 1, it’s mostly about steps 2, 3, and 4.

STEP 1 &ndash IDENTIFY YOUR BENEFITS

Branding aside, most websites are about selling. Customers don’t want to know what you can do; they want to know what you can do for THEM. That means the first question you should ask is, “What benefits do I offer my customers?” This is usually the first step toward identifying the key message to be conveyed.

That’s not to say that your website shouldn’t describe your products and services. You just need to make sure it describes them in terms of benefits to your customer.

But benefits identification is outside the scope of this article. If you’d like to find out more about how to engage your customer with benefits, go to .divinewrite.com/benefits.htm.

STEP 2 &ndash IDENTIFY HOW YOU DELIVER THESE BENEFITS

Of course, you can’t just claim to deliver benefits and stop at that. You need to support that claim. On your website, you’re going to need to convince your audience that you actually do deliver these benefits. Anyone can say they deliver benefits, but few can say it persuasively.

From step 1 you’ll have a list of benefits. Now you need to think about how you deliver each benefit in that list. This is where you start talking about features &ndash price, product highlights, distribution channel, competitor weaknesses, external factors, USPs, etc. It’s helpful if you draw up a table with one column for benefits and one for the features which deliver those benefits. (Click .divinewrite.com/downloads/benefitsfeatures.doc to download an example Benefits-Features table &ndash 20KB.)

You’ll probably find this process much easier than identifying benefits. In fact, you’ve probably got most of this information written down already… somewhere. If not, chances are you uncovered a good portion of it when you were brainstorming for benefits.

TIP: If you’re having trouble identifying supporting features, before filling out the table, try listing everything you can think of which relates to what you do and how you do it. Don’t worry about the order. Just braindump onto a piece of paper, a whiteboard, a Word document, anywhere… Don’t leave anything out, even if it seems unimportant. (You’d be surprised how important even the most insignificant details can become once you start assigning them to benefits.) If you start getting lost, think back to the question you’re trying to answer: How do you deliver your list of benefits to your customer? Once you’ve done your braindump, read through it and decide which specific benefit each feature delivers.

STEP 3 &ndash PRIORITISE YOUR BENEFITS

Now that you’ve identified all the things you COULD say, it’s time to figure out what you SHOULD say and where you should say it. This is where your benefits-features table comes into play. Read through your list of benefits and prioritise them according to how compelling they will be to your reader.

The reason for this? Priority determines prominence. The most compelling benefits will need to be prominent on your site.

TIP: Be aware that your list may include some benefits which everyone in your business category could claim. In other words, they’re not just specific to your company, but apply to the type of service you offer. For example, if you sell a Content Management System (CMS) for website creation, you may list “Greater control for marketing managers” and “Less expense updating content” as benefits. Every CMS vendor could claim these benefits, so you’ll need to question their importance. Will they differentiate you from your competitors. Generic benefits can be useful if none of your competitors are using them, or if you feel you need to educate your market a bit before launching into company-specific benefits.

STEP 4 &ndash WRITE YOUR CONTENT

So now you know what you’d like to say, it’s time to decide how to say it. This is about three things:

i) Subject &ndash What is the subject of your site; features or benefits?

ii) Structure &ndash How do you structure your site such that your customers will read your most compelling benefits?

iii) Words &ndash What words should you use to best engage your audience (and the search engines)?

The remainder of this article is dedicated to Subject and Structure. For further discussion of Words, see .divinewrite.com/webwriting.htm and .divinewrite.com/seocopy.htm).

Subject

What is the subject of your site; features or benefits? The answer to this question lies in audience identification. If your audience knows a bit about the type of product or service you’re selling, lead with features (e.g. processor speed, turnaround time, uptime, expertise, educational qualifications, wide product range, etc.). But make sure you talk about their benefits, and make sure the features offering the most important benefits are the most prominent.

Here’s a simplified example…

“Cool Widgets offers:

– Standard Operating Environment &ndash Significantly reducing the complexity of your IT infrastructure

– System upgrades which are less expensive to license &ndash Providing excellent TCO reductions”

In cases where you’re selling to an audience who knows very little about your product or service, lead with benefits (e.g. if you’re selling something technical to a non-technical audience).

Here’s the same simplified example, reversed for a novice audience…

“Cool Widgets offers:

– Reduced complexity of IT infrastructure &ndash We can implement a Standard Operating Environment for your organisation

– Reduced TCO &ndash We can upgrade your IT to systems which are less expensive to license”

Structure

How do you structure your site such that your customers will be sure to read your most compelling benefits? The answer is, keep it short ‘n sweet. And make it scannable. This doesn’t mean you have to cut features or benefits. You just have to structure your site to accommodate your message.

While every site is different, as a rule of thumb it’s a good idea to introduce your main features and benefits on your home page. Summarise them &ndash preferably using bullet points, but at the very least, clearly highlight them so that your audience can scan-read (e.g. bold, underline, colour, link).

Then link from each summarised feature or benefit to a detailed description. Try to keep each page to approximately 200-400 words. You may need several pages to detail all your features and benefits. (Click .divinewrite.com/downloads/pagestructure.doc to download a page structure template &ndash 29KB.)

TIP: In cases where you need to introduce features and benefits which are generic to your field (rather than specific to your offering), your home page is generally the best place to do it. From there, you can lead to a second page summarising the specific features and benefits of your offering.

Conclusion

Web copy is about far more than just clever words. It’s essential that you identify the benefits you offer your customer, and that you can convince your customer you actually deliver those benefits.

I hope that the guidance and tools provided in this article will help you on your way to engaging web copy which converts to sales.

Happy writing!

It’s no good having a creative, individual website with brilliant, informative copy if customers can’t find you on the internet. On the other hand, it’s also detrimental if you have a website that can be easily found (has a high ranking) but people become bored and alienated reading it.

Producing effective online copywriting is a creative process blending art and science in a balanced technique combining many different elements. This integration of disciplines is required to satisfy both the technical and the aesthetic objectives of a website.

Optimised online copywriting should ensure that your website is:

• highly readable to your viewers

• highly visible to the search engines, and thereby

• commercially successful for you.

Many people and businesses don’t have the time to actually write web copy themselves. A professional freelance copywriter can furnish you with keyword-rich, highly original web content to enhance and improve the quality of your website, with the aim of transforming more of your visitors into customers.

Rarely will you get a second chance to engage your customer’s attention, so your first shot must be formatted for maximum sales potential, catching the eye of the search engine robots as well. But not too much… If your copy goes overboard in favour of the search engines it can earn a penalty from Google that will negatively effect your rankings. Your website must always have the reader as priority. This makes more business sense anyway.

Search engines provide a way for potential customers to find you on the internet. People type a keyphrase or keyword into a search engine, such as Google, Yahoo or MSN (or one of the many other popular engines) and this returns a page of listings - web page suggestions for that particular phrase or word. Obviously, you want your website to feature highly in this list.

Optimised online copywriting specifically targets the words and phrases people are using when searching for a product on the internet (Search Engine Marketing (SEM), keyword research). You want to make sure your website stays at the top of the listings so people go to your website before others. With targeted copy in place, search engines are more likely to index your web site on page one, than if it does not include keyword-rich copy. This is an ever more important issue when dealing with Google, the leading search-engine today.

To rank highly in the search engines the words on your web pages should never be an afterthought, but should be included right at the beginning in the original design of your website. Content development is the most valuable asset web developers can utilise in the bid for productive, successful search engine optimisation and Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

Hiring a professional copywriter is a wise investment in your business future. Even if you don’t want to optimise your site you should make sure that the words on your site are reasonable, enticing, spelled correctly and artfully arranged to engage attention. Just because you can type letters or write some emails doesn’t mean you can write the copy for your website. The writing on your homepage is often the way people determine whether the website is a scam or the genuine article, good quality or a shabby affair. Your website’s credibility takes a nose-dive if the spelling is wrong, the grammar incorrect, or it just reads like bad, clumsy English. People will be disinclined to trust your content.

Within the search engines new technologies and algorithms are being developed all the time to make search methodologies smarter, more astute. It’s never a coincidence when someone types in a search phrase and your website is indexed highly on the page. Keyword rich online copywriting is a significant and critical component in gaining high rankings on the search engines.

Recently, Google has been pioneering a new trend of intelligent search engines which are not attracted by mere repetition of words throughout the text, but which look for meaning, attempting to make grammatical sense of the information, trying to understand what the web page is actually saying. This is forcing webmasters to improve the content on their web pages or suffer the consequences. The old saying has never been more relevant: “content is king.”

“Can you give me some feedback on my website?” a life coach named “Kevin” asked his e-zine subscribers. “I just revised my site - -finally!”

Naturally, I couldn’t resist clicking over to see what Kevin had done. I knew Kevin was a thoughtful coach with a reputation for high integrity.

Kevin’s new site cried out for a re-makeover. He had paid a designer to get drop-down menus and a bit of flash. As a result, Kevin admitted, “I have no budget to pay a copywriter.”

Ouch.

After skimming a few pages of the site, I emailed Kevin. “Who is your target market? What do you offer? How are you unique?”

Kevin replied, “I asked for feedback. I don’t have time to answer a lot of questions. And everyone tells me the site looks professional.”

Okay. I can take a hint.

Sure, the site looks professional. But Kevin admits he’s in trouble. So far, he’s gotten nothing but compliments — no orders and no calls.

What can we learn from Kevin?

(1) Copywriters can save you money.

Often I (and other experienced copywriters) can save clients money on web design. Kevin didn’t need all those bells and whistles. In fact, some Internet marketing gurus claim they do more harm than good.

And Kevin didn’t understand HTML, let alone CSS. A copywriter might serve as go-between, translating Kevin’s requirements into web design language. Your web designer saves time - which translates into saving money.

(2) Copywriters help you earn money.

Reading between the lines, I discovered Kevin could be a stand-out. He has developed an innovative 5-step process to help clients overcome obstacles and take charge of their lives.

But Kevin doesn’t realize why he’s unique, so his website reads like five thousand other life coaching sites: vague promises of “take your life to the next level,” “discover what’s important to you” and “enjoy the work you love.”

Naturally I’m disguising the details of “Kevin’s” story, but I really don’t have to. Hundreds (maybe thousands) of sites sound just like Kevin’s.

(3) Copywriting is collaborative.

Like Kevin, my clients often think they can show me a few pages of a website and say, “Make it sell!” Copywriting requires energy and planning, whether you’re a do-it-yourselfer or a firm believer in outsourcing to a specialist.

My clients often invest many hours answering my questionnaire. As they write, they often realize there’s a hole in their business strategy. Or they’re sitting on buried treasure.

Until I know what Kevin wants to do with his website and his business, I can’t make realistic recommendations - even as a casual ezine reader. I need to evaluate Kevin’s copy in the context of Kevin’s own goals, target market and unique selling proposition.

Kevin could do this himself. But, like most busy business owners, he didn’t want to invest the time. And he wasn’t sure what questions to ask.

When clients hire me, we have the luxury (and fun!) of creating a marketing message that hits the target market squarely in the center of the bull’s-eye.

Bottom Line: Websites deliver messages. Without a message, a website is a calling card - nice when you have more business than you can handle.

Most of the time, revising copy brings traffic and sales. Websites typically earn back the copy investment with just a few new clients, not to mention saving energy and funds by avoiding a makeover to recover the makeover.

And one day you realize you’re not getting compliments… but you *are* getting sales.

I’ve been frustrated lately. It seems people just don’t get it. There’s lots of talk about SEO copywriting these days, but hardly any of it is on target. The majority of the conversations, posts and articles I’ve seen deal with topics like keyword density, allowable limits, over optimization and such. These people are making search engine copywriting all about the search engines. They are forgetting the fact that SEO copywriting is still copywriting.

What that means - generally speaking - is you are still writing promotional copy designed to cause a *person* to take a specific action. Your target audience (your site visitors) should come first. The elements designed to help the copy rank well absolutely come last.

What good is all the traffic in the world if your site copy doesn’t convert visitors into buyers? Not much. That’s why - when writing SEO copy - the human visitor comes first.

Unfortunately, SEO copywriting is getting a bad name because so much of what is being cranked out is repetitious babble. Most of these pages would never have made it on to a site, except for the fact that the site owner wanted to rank highly for certain key terms.

So, in the interest of salvaging the good name of search engine copywriting, before it’s too late, let me offer some guidelines.

SEO Copy Is:

• first and foremost - written for the visitor.

• unique and purposeful.

• natural-sounding - it flows.

SEO Copy Is Not:

• written exclusively with the engines in mind.

• mirrored, adjusted or altered to create new pages by simply changing keyphrases.

• stiff, forced or overly repetitive.

The Dos of SEO Copywriting

When writing SEO copy, you’ll want to:

• understand who you are writing to.

• choose what the focus of the page will be.

• create a plan outlining the message you want to convey.

• decide how best to communicate that message to your particular target customers.

• choose which keyphrases will be incorporated into the copy.

• make sure those keyphrases work well with the page and the planned copy.

• incorporate keyphrases as you write (not after you write), so they flow naturally with the planned message.

The Don’ts of SEO Copywriting

When writing SEO copy, you should never:

• create a plan based solely on how to rank high.

• replace *every* instance of a generic term (car) with a keyphrase (red, convertible car).

• add pages of copy simply to appease the search engines.

• rely on useless keyword density ratios and formulas.

• shove keyphrases in everywhere possible. (No, it won’t get you banned, but it will sound completely ridiculous!)

SEO copywriting is not the process of writing exclusively for the search engines. It is the process of writing copy to appeal to your visitors, while including elements to help the search engines and your visitors understand what the page is all about.

If you remember who truly makes or breaks your site’s success (your customers!) and focus on them, you’re sure to create SEO copy that rings true.

Web site copywriting is special method that allows the companies to advertise and promote themselves. In today’s highly competitive and ever-changing online environment it is not enough to rely on the texts alone. One should combine the knowledge of offline copywriting with online realities.

Professionally written web site copywriting is one of the most significant and important elements of your web site. It is widely regarded as one of the most effective ways to communicate with your potential customers, retain old ones and attract new clients. In the developing of your web site you should understand that web site copywriting is one of the most significant elements of your marketing strategy. It is used by many companies to promote their businesses and services. It is widely regarded as one of the most efficient tools in the developing of online copywriting process.

How do people get on your web site? How do they find the site of your company? Certainly some of them already know your company and some of them might visit your web site because they have read advertisement about your company. However, most of the visitors visit your site by the results of search engines after they put search terms they are interested in into the search engine boxes. Once the visitor has come to your web site you should try to grab his attention immediately. One should remember that most of the visitors do not have much time to read the whole text of your web site, the bulk of them just skip your text through. That is why one should develop trustworthy and reliable connection with the visitor right from the start. This is a prerequisite of transforming him into your potential client. If the visitor is not interested or not impressed with your text he will be impressed with the text of your competitor.

Try to be precise, coherent and communicate with only one customer at a time. One should be engaged in direct dialogue with your customer. Individuality is what matters. By emphasizing that you speak directly to a person you might make your message more custom-oriented. The most successful web site copywriting copy is the one written based on the marketing research of your targeted audience. That is why the services of marketers who can evaluate the competitors of your market, as well wishes and expectations of your potential customers must used in conjunction with the development of well-written copywriting copy.

In looking back on the nearly four dozen aspiring copywriters I’ve trained and mentored over the years and asking which personal qualities posed challenges and roadblocks and which enable beginners to carve out a lasting niche for themselves, I have zeroed in on four key skill areas. To build and sustain a copywriting or marketing consulting business, you need to be or become good in these four competencies:

1. Writing. To develop persuasive written materials, you must learn to meld creativity, which involves being able to put forth fresh ideas, concepts, phrasings and images, with proven formats - structures for sales letters, brochures, press releases, home pages and so on that embody techniques that work.

If you learn only the latter, your work comes across sounding formulaic and hollow. It can attract clients and produce results, but only to a limited extent. Perceptive clients will notice that your projects tend to come out much the same. They’ll conclude that you’re either still in the apprenticeship phase of mastery or that you lack the problem-solving skill they need to get the kinds of results they crave.

And on the other hand, if you depend too heavily on creativity, you fail to use the little devices, turns of phrase, formatting tools and finishing touches that help improve response. I see this weakness in a lot of my beginning students - which is fine, because any halfway decent copywriting training course, whether live or canned, can remedy this shortcoming.

To achieve the ideal balance between creativity and the tricks of the trade on your own, you’d need great instincts and loads of practice. Top-notch mentoring, with frequent feedback from an experienced master, is a surer and faster route to finding your feet as a copywriter.

2. Pleasing clients. I’ve seen people who have no trouble with #1 flounder or become miserable because of this essential factor. Again it’s necessary to strike a balance, this time between doing great work and making sure that the person or company paying your fee is satisfied.

Without knowing how to please clients, you can turn out terrific copy and have clients refuse to pay, or pay up but never come back. It’s crucial to be able to listen to the client’s goals, to keep those goals in mind while shaping the work, to explain what you’ve done and why, and to talk through differences in perception so that the two sides eventually see eye to eye.

This skill did not - does not - come naturally to me. I have learned this painfully and repeatedly, by overlooking or forgetting it, analyzing what went wrong and resolving to do better in the future. Sometimes the error here is in accepting projects where the client’s expectations are at odds with the way you think things should be done. Sometimes there’s not enough communication with the client and education of the client away from what you see as wrongheaded ideas.

While this factor still goes awry for me a few times every year, most of my projects go well because I attract plenty of clients who love the way I do things and respect my opinion where it differs from theirs. If you build a strong enough reputation, clients tend to listen to you - though not always.

On the other hand, I’ve seen plenty of beginning copywriters as well as colleagues with years of experience struggle with the opposite side of this balancing act. They know how to please clients but in doing so, they make themselves unhappy.

For your own sanity, you need to be able to set firm boundaries - ground rules, policies and things to say when clients become unreasonable in their demands. If they demand rewrite after rewrite, insist that their ignorant ideas are superior to what you know, expect you to chitchat endlessly whenever they feel like calling or otherwise drive you nuts, you must be able to head off these problems, negotiate solutions and disengage.

Having trusted colleagues to discuss problems with, an online or in-person peer group or a coach help immeasurably in finding your way with pleasing clients.

3. Business skills. How much should you charge? How many clients do you need, and how can you find them? What if your sure-fire marketing tactics fail to bring in clients, or bring in more than you can handle? What if clients who say they loved what you did don’t pay?

No one is born knowing any of this stuff. With guidance from people who are running or have run a successful business, you can learn key business skills. If you’ve run any other kind of business before turning to copywriting or have watched successful entrepreneurs up close, you’ll probably find this skill area easy.

Years of membership in the New England Women Business Owners organization and my prior experience as a freelance writer for national magazines taught me how to be tough with clients when needed, charge what I’m worth, keep on trying when I felt I was on the right track, regroup when necessary and avoid dumb business decisions most of the time.

One of the most common business challenges I’ve seen for aspiring copywriters involves money issues. Charge too little, and you may be working very hard, have loyal clients and yet not be earning enough to sustain yourself (or your family) over time. A support group or mentor can help you battle the inner demons that keep you from raising your rates, whereupon almost always you discover that the best clients don’t mind paying more, and you feel happier about the business.

The second most common business challenge involves perseverance. If something doesn’t work out the way you’d hoped, do you retreat in hurt and disappointment, or do you simply try something else? I’ve watched a couple of people jump into the copywriting business with supreme enthusiasm and then brood obsessively over every minor reversal. Unfortunately, this type of person isn’t suited to self-employment. If you give up or feel overwhelmed easily, then you may be better off working on salary for an employer.

4. Discipline. To earn a living writing copy for others, you must be able to manage deadlines and details. By deadlines, I mean not only the obvious point that if you’ve promised that a project would be finished by June 30, it must be, but also the less obvious point that you need to be able to complete top-notch work in a reasonable amount of time.

If you can reach excellence only painstakingly or through a slow process of repeated drafts, you may not be able to make it in the business. Few clients are willing to pay enough for a web site, or be patient enough, to let you treat their project as if you were Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel.

Another personality type that has trouble with discipline is a Crisis Cathy - someone who masterfully and continually creates emergencies, problems and roadblocks so that things never get done, but with seemingly legitimate excuses. Family members may put up with this kind of behavior, but clients generally won’t, especially if it rears its head more than once.

As for details, you must have the discipline to proofread, check facts and get things like names and numbers right. I’ve seen a couple of writers who can’t spell or use proper grammer become fabulously successful nevertheless, but I do not recommend this. Where clients are concerned, it’s a much bigger handicap than these blithe spirits will admit. Most clients do not take well to carelessness on your part. When you deliver work containing mistakes, they consider it disrespectful and unprofessional.

So there you have it. These four competencies are roughly equal in importance for success as an independent copywriter or marketing consultant, I believe. Do you measure up? Are you willing to work on developing the qualities you don’t have?

Expanding businesses into other countries means that you will be conveying your messages to people who speak other languages. What’s more, your audience may have cultural background other than yours — and it does matter.

Surprisingly many people think that creating, say, a website in a foreign language means just to translate the existing English version. Good translation by all means is very important. But what about putting your message into the context of the particular culture, which is native to your new audience?

This process is called “website localization”. It is like “tuning” your website (both content and design) into unison with mentality of other people — the prospective visitors.

Here I won’t describe the part of web site localization which deals with programming; this issue itself is complex enough. I will focus on writing content for your website and its further translation.

What part of this work you can do yourself? Probably not all of it, but quite a lot. Here is a step-by-step guide to help you in the process.

Step Zero: Remember: Your Website is Not for You.

It is for VISITORS. So it is logical to consider what THEY think such websites should look like. It is their points of view that matter, not yours. When you memorize this axiom, go to

Step One: Learn!

Self-education is useful in itself; besides, this knowledge is going to save you money and bring profit later. Learn as much as you can about your prospective audience. The more, the better.

It’s a rather time-consuming but exciting process. I hope you will manage, as Ancient Romans used to say, “Miscere utile dulci” (to mingle the useful with the pleasant). You will find out plenty of interesting things about another culture. Customs and traditions, rules of etiquette and moral principles, stereotypes, superstitions and lots of other stuff for you to consider when addressing people from a country other than yours.

You can find plenty of information in the Internet. Search Groups as well. Show your interest in other culture, and almost any native will appreciate it and help you as an expert. In addition, you will make good friends with great people.

Travelers’ guides can be an excellent source of information; they will help you avoid costly mistakes not only during a trip abroad. Just one example. You must have seen websites with pictures showing people gesticulate. Note that any gesture which is quite OK in the USA may be misunderstood somewhere else. By the way, do you know what the “OK” gesture means in some Asian countries? Demand for money, that’s what. In Tunisia it will be interpreted as a threat to kill; in Arab countries — “go to h…” In France it means just “zero” or “nothing.” In Denmark or Italy it can be taken as an insult; and so is in Brazil, Guatemala and Paraguay — here it is considered very obscene. So, you’d better make pictures of your website “culture-neutral”.

The farther in, the deeper… What is considered rude, impudent, offensive, or impolite in this culture? What is respected, valued, venerated? What traits of character are appreciated most? What are the favorite colors and what are they associated with? What are the most noticeable differences between your culture and this one?

Don’t be surprised if points of view on what is beautiful and what is ugly will also differ from yours. When you come to the conclusion that your text won’t do and the design probably needs changing as well, go to

Step Two: Analyze!

Turn your findings into tips for writing another text. “Don’ts” here are of much more important than “Do’s”

Realize how you shouldn’t write. Learn what won’t work. Find out what to avoid in graphics and website design.

When arranging content and graphics, it is very important to know whether the audience reads left-to-right, right-to-left or vertically.

Step Three: Write for your audience.

What to begin with when writing for a person from another culture? Put on his shoes first. Well, that’s second. First, take off your own shoes. I mean don’t be a representative of your own culture — just for a short time you’ll be writing the content.

• Avoid jokes, slang, idioms, proverbs and sayings. They are YOURS, not theirs. Allusions to books they probably haven’t read, quotations, however familiar they are to you — all that won’t work.
• Be cautious with metaphors and similes (comparisons). Pretty clear and familiar to YOU, for others they might be not so obvious.
• Symbols can mean something very different in other cultures. If you can’t do without one, find out what it means THERE.
• Abbreviations and acronyms are tricky, too &ndash they may be unknown to your audience.
• You will have to explain stuff you think to be trivial. Not everybody in the world knows what is eBay, Paypal, or Amazon. Celebrities’ fame isn’t worldwide, either. Big companies and brands may be unknown on the other side of the globe.

Step Four: Find a RIGHT translator

If you can, get a well-educated native speaker of a language you are going to have your text translated into (it is called “target language”)

The reason is that nobody can ever say: “I have learned this language” — only “I have been learning”. We all have been learning our mother tongues since birth. That is why native speakers have an advantage. The larger the translator’s vocabulary, the better your message will be expressed. Besides, a native speaker often has precious knowledge on the culture — it’s precisely what you need for website localization– and will help you in the process.

Step Five: Bring it to Perfection

How to check the end result? Ask somebody from this culture to proofread the text before launching the website.

Encourage feedback when your website is launched. Correct mistakes, if any, at once. Improve your website all the time.

Getting your messages understood in other languages and cultures is a tricky task. It takes plenty of effort — but it will pay. Not only will you make profit and avoid bitter losses caused by misunderstanding. As a bonus you will get deeper undestanding of people whose languages, cultures and even ways of thinking are different. This understanding is the key factor of your success in doing business or communicating with these people.

Good luck to you! Success be to your efforts!

How does your personality affect your web copy? Whether you mean to or not, your site reflects you in ways you might not notice: sometimes good, sometimes bad. While personality peccadilloes can be endearing in social situations, minor personality flaws can cause web copy sabotage. So before you get out your keyboard, get out a mirror.

Why not see if any of these 3 personality traits are seeping into the design and copy of your web site?

• Insecurity





• Pride





• Anxiety

Web Copy Sabotage #1: Insecure people create timid sites

Most people are insecure in certain situations as they vary their image to gain the favour of others. Nothing kills web copy faster than trying to be a people pleaser. Insecure people create timid sites that try to be all things to all people. Instead of declaring, “Here’s who I am,” insecure web copy tentatively pleads, “I can be whatever you want; hope you find something you like.” How forgettable and phony is that? Secure people on the other hand have learned to get real.

Some people like them; others don’t. Their web copy stands out because their authors stand up. Their web copy is memorable because it is authentic. Does your web copy take a stand or does it sit on the sidelines wanting to be liked? Is your web copy real or real phony?

Web Copy Sabotage #2: Proud people produce narcissistic sites

While timid web copy aims overly outward, narcissistic web copy looks too far in the other direction. Business owners have a justifiable pride in their business. Sorry to say this pride can lead to web copy sabotage.

• Many owners lost in their delight often boast, “Look what I can do,” instead of proclaiming, “Look what you get.”
• Their web copy tends to focus on features instead of real customer benefits. It highlights trained staff rather than peace of mind.

Missing are empathy and impact. Nothing kills internet rapport like a one-sided, relationship. Does your web copy brag about you or resonate with strangers?

Web Copy Sabotage #3: Anxious people make nervous sites

Nervous sites are the most common form of web copy sabotage. They don’t gaze outward or inward; they look nowhere, all hurried and patchy. The visuals are the first give-away:

• a little red here and a dash of purple there





• a touch of bold with a smidgen of underlining





• a bevy of random quotations





• a frenzy of isolated graphics

Where’s the rhyme? Where’s the reason? Where is the message? The web copy reads more like a digital ransom note than a calm presentation of a distinctive value proposition.

The sad part is this kind of web copy sabotage is that it frequently betrays an honest business person who is just not comfortable about expressing his business. This web copy unfairly depicts sleaze and incredulity.

Sometimes the anxiety is driven by a specific learning style. A number of individuals are more comfortable with trees than a forest, preferring details to the big picture. That’s too bad because site visitors usually crave the big picture before they invest their care and clicks. What image does your web copy convey &ndash calm or chaos?

Web Copy Sabotage: What can you do about it?

So you’re not perfect. Everybody is a bit insecure, a tad proud and slightly anxious. The trick is to keep these failings from invading your web copy. So what can you do to prevent web copy sabotage?

Your human shortcomings might populate your site because you are just too close to the data to detect your demons creeping up the keyboard.

You’ve got to get some distance. First have a third party who’s not a family member play site doctor, looking for symptoms of insecurity, pride, and anxiety in your site design and copy.

There’s nothing like conducting your own foible check to be sure you parked your sabotaging issues at the curb, not in your web copy. Here are 3 questions to ask:

• What exactly does my site stand for?





• How do my visitors see themselves?





• How have I organized my design and copy?

If these tactics don’t help you improve your web copy, you could either see a qualified psychiatrist or hire &ndash you know &ndash a handy copywriter.

Every website copywriter faces a trap &ndash Search Enginitis. Writing web copy with technology makes sense, but writing web copy for people makes the sale. Here are two ways to connect with people across broadband and create web copy that sells.

Your website looks great: solid words, easy navigation, graphics just so, and maybe even a bit of flash with some multimedia. But customers are not buying.

The Technology Trap

You wonder if it’s the web copy itself. How can that be? You remembered the two key mantras of powerful web copy - “write for the search engines” and “write for the medium.”

Your web copy used appropriate keywords to help search engines find you and traffic is up. Surely, customers enjoy reading your content because your web copy is laid out with the internet in mind using:

• short sentences





• brief paragraphs





• bullets

Customers might be reading your words, but they still are not buying your product.

Chances are your web copy has been optimized for technology not people.

Even on the internet, selling is still about connecting to people. Selling on the internet means writing web copy for people not technology. So how do you press the flesh across broadband? Start where brick and mortar relationships do &ndash trust. Why not become the trusted provider in your marketspace? Your web copy can use words to raise your credibility in at least 25 different ways.

Here are two ways to craft web copy for people not technology:

• write the way customers speak





• replace your pitch with a theme.

Write Web Copy for People not Technology Step 1:

Write the way people speak. People instinctively trust strangers who speak like them.

If you find this article useful, how would you tell someone? Are you really going to say, “I read an unusually amazing web copy article that fundamentally increased my sagging sales”? Not likely.

Weak web copy, not everyday people, uses too many modifiers. “Amazing,” “fundamentally,” and “sagging” weaken trust. How’s your site for modifiers?

Give your web copy the finger test.

You might not want fingerprints on your screen, so I suggest printing a copy of your homepage content.

• put your baby finger on the first modifier you can find.
• put your ring finger on the next adjective or adverb.
• repeat until you run out of modifiers or fingers.

If your page is a handful, you’ve got too many modifiers and your web copy is hype heavy, not trustworthy. In addition to giving readers web copy that matches how they speak, it helps to give them time to get to know you.

Write Web Copy for People not Technology Step 2:

Replace your pitch with a theme. Customers need time before they trust.

They will get used to your site in tiny steps, so hold off selling; buy some time with thematic web copy. Have a theme for your site, introducing your offer only after your customer feels comfortable. Themes are a subtle form of repetition because they continually reinforce a single concept. Repeated exposure to an idea usually makes it familiar and safe. Remember the first time you used instant messaging or the family car - not so scary now.

Let’s say your site sells dental floss.

Here’s how your web copy might handle it. Instead of listing the benefits of DentaThread, you could tie the presentation together under the central idea “Some people have nothing to smile about.”

• The opening section could point out how the discomfort of Gingivitis wipes the grin off a person’s face.
• Another segment of the web copy would show how ugly cavities make someone too self- conscious to smile.
• Yet another piece would reveal how the high cost of root canal causes an individual to frown.

In this way, the web copy offers three versions of one idea to help the site grow on the visitor: one idea, three versions. Does your homepage have a theme? How many chances does your web copy give visitors to get comfortable with you?

In this article, I tried to use the two key elements a good web copywriter uses to write for people not technology:

• the language of my readers





• a central idea, trust

Did it work? Did my web copy help? If yes, I guess I proved my point. If no, I have 23 more ideas to go.