Forum Moderators: phranque
Today's 'Post of the Day' comes to us from our very own tedster. The post is about writing good ad copy.
tedster says:
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FLAVAH WORDS
These are my ace in the hole. You know what most descriptions, heck most COPY, reads like. It's corporate speak, dry as dust, no spark at all. When you want eyeballs, you can't imitate the crowd. You got to have FLAVAH! Some flash, some style.
I've found that using one unique word at the beginning of your description pulls in the clicks. The word should be commonly known, short, but not bled dry by overuse.
Good "flavah words" will vary with the topic of the site, but most of all they should be just a little unexpected. Some examples I've had success in descriptions this year are: "Elegant" "Savvy" "Spunky"
Words that have the less frequently used letters in them (V-K-J-X-Q-Z) are also good at jumping off the monitor.
STUDY THE MASTERS
I find that magazine covers are a great source of inspiration. Those writers must do a very similar job of grabbing attention to what we must do in our titles and descriptions. Next time you're in line at the supermarket...
CODE BLUE
If the overall shape of the letters resembles an off-color word, that helps too. For instance, depending what font the word "flick" is displayed in, it can be very adult! Words ending in "...uck" all seem to be eye-magnets.
K-I-S-S
One other tip on all copy -- if you're not familiar with Strunk and White's "Elements of Style", get a copy. If you have it, blow the dust off and give it 3 minutes a day. This book was advising good web copy principles before even the Arpanet was created. It's been my best buddy for 40 years.
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Excellent post tedster.
The rest of the thread can be viewed here. [webmasterworld.com]
These particular threads can be used by those that don't have time to sift through a whole day's worth of posts. It will give them the highlights of the day with links to the pertinant threads.
>magazine covers
SLAP-HAND-ON-FOREHEAD! Magazine covers! So simple, so sharp. It's what we do. Why has it escaped me until now?
Tedster's post is amazing. We've been talking about the importance of content, and here Tedster is giving us excellent tips and techniques to improve on the content of the sites and to make them of a higher quality. Thanks Tedster!
2M
Exactly - that's why we're sending back to the top for the evening. So all those folks chained to a desk all day (I feel your pain - I wear the shackles 8-10 hours a day too:)) get a chance to catch it too.
Look who's talking - Mr 1300+ posts. ;)
Are we going to have a new forum for this topic or is it going to be in the webmaster forum. I'm in full agreement that one huge tip per day can and will make a difference for all of us whether it is in marketing, copywriting or SEO.
