How To Write Better Online Copy:

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I wrote this article earlier today for one of the online article directories…and while I dont usually do this ( post these sorts of articles on my blog) I re-read this a few times and decided I liked it enough and might be useful to enough of you that it was worth sharing here.  I do get a lot of questions about copywriting courses, recommendations, etc - and I really recommend nothing other than striving for continous self improvement.   While I've never been much of a joiner (probably to my own detriment) and am trying to play well with others these days - I will tell you this.  Most of the copywriting courses, ebooks and other stuff that is being sold around the willowly web is absolute shit.  There are a couple things that I have seen hyped in the last week or so as the next big "must have" course, or video, etc - and the truth is you will be FAR better off ignoring it all and simply staying focused on your own learning process then being distracted by the hype.  If you really want to swim in the slimy sea of the VERY best direct response copywriters in the world - and want to save yourself $97 - $497 - $997 - or whatever the pompous price points many of these pointless putzes are charging for their stuff - go out and buy a NATIONAL ENQUIRER and read the whole thing top to bottom, cover to cover - week in and week out.  The folks who write - and sponsors who shell out the big bucks for this copy is a much angrier animal than the relative ce la vie world of low cost internet marketing mania.  For an 8 buck domain and a few days of time - I can fail plenty without too much worry online.  But if you are shitting out 50 large for a full page ad - well, lets just say your margin of error just shrunk a wee bit in case you put up a major league whiff. 

One more quick note - if you want to really learn the psychology of what drives people to make buying decisions, how they process these things internally, justify their decsisions, etc - do yourself a favor and very simply go out and buy the book - the exact same source that 99% of the "gurus" are refrying for their own enchilada and serving it as their own.   "Influence - the power of Persuasion"  by Robert Cialdini - has been around for 15 or 20 years and is the seminal source for all the stuff that you see being used to "humbly" help you on your way to buy something else you don't need - from someone else you don't know - because someone else you might - did.  Or something to that effect anyway.  Go to Amazon and pick it up for 4 bucks used - and if you find ANYONE online who has added to this in any remarkable way, please do let me know and I'll rescind the above. 

Here is the article I wrote this AM - I'm suprised I sound so angy - cause - I am wasting away in Margaritaville as Jimmy Buffett once so aptly said.  You can take the man out of the snow - but you can't take the cold out of the man..;-)  Enjoy - and if this helps you in any real way - let me know and I'll post more of these here.

Do you want to write copious amounts of killer online copy that simply converts like crazy? Do you want more customers than you know what to do with – more orders than you could POSSIBLY fill and more business than your meager little hands can hold?

I'm going to give you the secret that NO ONE else is telling you – mostly, in my not so humble opinion, because they are blissfully and morally unable to assimilate it into their own persuasion process.

The #1 easiest way that you can transform the tepid results that you are getting, right now, out of ALL of your online efforts – and most specifically out of your copy – is to CARE more. Not about your results. About the pain that your client, your customer, your anonymous web browser is feeling in the pit of their stomach about the problem you are apt to solve. And I don't mean by using more "power words" or any other of the nonsensical nothingness that many of these online copy teachers are torpedoing at your sense of self –improvement.

I mean you have to feel GENUINE empathy for your prospect. The best copywriters will tell you that good copy is an INTERIOR process – not the result of some compendium of slick words, headlines and buzz phrases. No amount of "scarcity" or cool fonts will make you good. If you care – it shows. If you've been there before – it shows more.

Want to be a better copywriter than the very best whose pens presently are pressed up against the proverbial paper? Go to what you know – and sell THAT. Know what it feels like to be fat and picked last in gym class, not go to your senior prom and hide while your friends and family were hitting the beach in the summer for fear of being humiliated in a bathing suit in public? Guess what? You WILL understand what your prospect needs to hear to make the change in his or her life – and will be able to communicate that FAR better than someone who has never walked a minute in those moccasins.

Look – at the end of the day – if you are able to FEEL something genuine and powerful and truly want to help people achieve their goals and move out of the ever-present ruts that we all occasionally find ourselves struggling through….You can be a phenomenal copywriter. Because you aren't selling. You are SOLVING. And sharing. This is a very powerful distinction – and one I am personally so SICK and seeing overlooked, especially in the over hyped and under delivered online space. If you feel the obligation and honor that comes with helping people truly high step and hurdle their proverbial problems, you will be the richest man (or woman) in your niche. And that includes far more than just the kind of wealth you deposit in the bank.