Copywriting Posts from the Internet Marketing Blog
Web Content Writers Wanted!
Whether or not it’s fair to classify WordStream as a startup, we certainly still think of ourselves that way. And one of the challenges of startup life is the rapid growth – meaning our needs often outpace our hiring.[More: 50 Things Every Content Marketer Should Know]Lately, that’s the case with content creation, so we’re looking for a few good freelance writers to help us out.
So if you love writing, Internet marketing, and extra money, we want to hear from you! Specifically, I’m looking for someone(s) who:Has hands-on experience with search marketing – WordStream is very meta in that we market about marketing, do SEO on pages about SEO, create PPC ads for our PPC software and so on. So if you’re going to write for us, you need to have experience with the world of search ma... > Read more
Persuasive Copywriting: 4 Tips for Higher Converting Websites
How do you tap into the subconscious mind of your site visitors and make them click that call-to-action button? The moment you get a little salesy, you know they’ll run away before you even realize what happened.With customers getting smarter by the day, subtlety is the key to success. In simple words, you have to persuade them to complete your conversion goal by making them think that they want to do it, and not because you want them to.
Make your visitors achieve their goals first, before you bother them with your marketing goals.But how do you do that? Some of you have probably heard about the principles of persuasive copywriting, like scarcity, urgency, authority, consensus, consistency, reciprocation, and liking.Moving beyond the common wisdom of these persuasion tactics, here are s... > Read more
50 Things Every Content Marketer Should Know
Fancy yourself a content marketer, or want to become one? Here’s a big fat list of the content marketing skills and tactics you should know before you apply for that content marketer job or update the title on your business cards.Good grammar and proper use of punctuation – Hopefully you learned this in school.
If you weren’t paying any attention, it’s not too late. You can pick up a lot just from reading voraciously – like how the mermaid in Splash learned English from watching TV. I also recommend picking up a basic writing manual, because it would be very difficult to intuit all the finer points of grammar and punctuation through intuition. You’ll feel nice and superior once you know the difference between a hyphen, an en-dash, and an em-dash.The difference between grammar a... > Read more
5 Super-Basic Writing Tips to Help You Be a Better Web Copywriter
Writing! Anyone can do it (and I encourage you to) but not everyone is good at it (sorry).This is not one of those article that explains the difference between its and it’s or tells you why you’re using “literally” wrong. (Details, details.)Instead, I’m going to share five super-basic tips that will make all your writing better, including any writing you do for the web (AKA SEO content).
These tips will help you hone your writing structure and your writing style, leading to better organized, more readable writing, which will ultimately get more reads, shares and likes.1. Start with an outline.Not this kind of outline!It doesn’t matter how experienced you are. Whether you’re writing your first college essay or your 367th blog post (which I am, and that’s just for the WordStr... > Read more
Win of the Week: Focus on Benefits Pays Off
Take a look at the two ads below. If you were looking to buy an insulation blower, which ad do you think you'd click on?PPC Ad #1PPC Ad #2These ads are completely different. Yet one of them performed far better than the other.But which one? And why?The winning ad is ad number two. It was written by BoostCTR writer "deaders," and it increased CTR by 176%.
Where the original ad was producing 1 click, the new ad is producing 2.76 clicks.So why did the new ad win? Let's take a look...The Original AdThe original ad starts okay. The title is clear. The first line repeats the title with the additional word "Blowing." So the first two lines say practically the same thing. This, in my opinion, is a waste of space.Line 2 is a bit strange. I think this is where the ad falls apart. It lists two model ... > Read more
Tricks to Get the Click: 10 Tips for Writing Better PPC Text Ads [New Guide]
Our latest white paper, co-authored with the good folks at Hanapin Marketing, is now available for download! Below is an excerpt from the guide. Click here to download the full text of this new, free guide.Tricks to Get the Click: 10 Tips for Writing Better PPC Text AdsIf you want to sell products or generate leads online, a user-friendly, conversion-optimized website is Step 1.
But when it comes to search engine marketing, it doesn’t matter how beautiful your website is if people never get there.Pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements placed in search engine results and on other relevant sites can be an extremely effective means of driving qualified traffic to your site – one that more than pays for itself, if you’re doing it right.Even though you have to pay for each click on one of you... > Read more
Win of the Week: Attention to Detail Pays Off
Take a look at the two ads below. If you were looking to buy a mini HDMI cable, which ad do you think you'd click on? PPC Ad #1PPC Ad #2 These ads are nearly identical, which makes it a bit harder to spot the winner. But in this case, the small details make a big difference.Made your decision?The winning ad is ad number one.
It was written by BoostCTR writer "jblankley," and it increased CTR by 84%. Where the original ad was producing 1 click, the new ad is producing 1.84 clicks.So why did the new ad win? Let's take a look...The Original AdThe original ad is already a strong ad. While they want to increase clicks on their ad, they also want only qualified visitors. This is why they've put "Buy" in the title copy and included the price in the ad.Claude Hopkins once observed that a... > Read more
Pimp My PPC Ad, Bing Edition! Get More Awesome in Your Bing Text Ads
It’s baaaaaack! And by “it,” I don’t mean Poltergeist, I mean Pimp Your PPC Ad, a regular irregular feature in which I scan the SERPs for lousy text ads and give them the Pimp My Ride treatment. (For those of you who were born, I don’t know, last year, Pimp My Ride was an MTV show that ran between 2004 and 2007.
)For previous editions, see:Pimp Your PPC Ad: 5 Lessons from Lackluster Text AdsThe Return of Pimp Your PPC Ad: Lessons from Bad PPC AdsLet’s get starting, shall we?Lesson #1: Use Capital Letters (Properly)I’m pretty sure Google automatically applies initial caps (i.e., title case) to your headline, because I’ve never seen an ad that looked like this in Google (yes, these look just like Google ads, but I assure you, they’re from Bing):These ads were served in... > Read more
Win of the Week: Tough Rules Create Breakthrough Ad
Take a look at the two ads below. If you were looking for a hotel on the beach, which ad do you think you'd click on? Better yet, which ad do you think you'd act on?While many contests conducted on the BoostCTR platform are designed to improve CTR, some are set up to improve conversions. This contest used conversions as the metric, which is why I added that second question: Which ad would you act on? PPC Ad #1PPC Ad #2The titles are completely different.
This is because this particular advertiser did not permit BoostCTR writers to use DKI in their ads even if the original ad used it. This was an obvious disadvantage, but the writer worked around it.The body copy is also very different. With that in mind, which one do you think outperformed the other?Made your decision?The winning ad i... > Read more
Win of the Week: Are You Accidentally Confusing Your Market?
Take a look at the two ads below. If you lived in Baltimore and you wanted to start training in mixed martial arts (MMA), which ad do you think you'd click on? PPC Ad #1PPC Ad #2 The titles are completely different. The body copy is mostly different (the phrase "Professional Facility" is the same in both of them).
And the URL is the same in both ads. Which one do you think outperformed the other?Made your decision?The winning ad is ad number two. It was written by BoostCTR writer "wordisborn," and it increased CTR by 70%. Where the original ad was getting 1 click, the new ad is getting 1.7 clicks, which is a significant improvement.So why did the new ad win? Let's take a look...The Original AdThe original ad is fairly good. The title "Mixed Martial Arts" is straightforward and mi... > Read more
