The Elements Of Copywriting That Drives Sales

What is SEO Copywriting?

SEO copywriting is about creating useful, compelling and valuable content that targets specific keywords.

So that people will gladly promote it on social media and websites all day long.

This increases your chances of obtaining backlinks and ranking it on Google.

If you’re new to keywords and SEO, I’ve written a post about it here.

Why Is Copywriting Important?

Copywriting plays a very important role in conversion rate optimisation.

It’s stops your target audience’s in their tracks and compels them to take action.

The importance of writing well remains unnoticed if you can’t connect with your target audience.

Watch the video of “The Elements Of Copywriting That Drives Sales” below.

In this post, Jesse Forest will cover the elements of copywriting to generate leads and sales.

About Jesse Forrest

Jesse Forrest is a copywriter and entrepreneur. He started his entrepreneurial journey at 16 years old and didn’t discover copywriting until he was 21.

He has been fortunate to work with some of the biggest names in the industry, including Jay Abraham and Dr. D Martini from “The Secret”.

He has also worked with countless other businesses and individuals to help them grow their businesses and achieve their goals.

Jesse is a master of persuasion and knows how to write copy that gets results. He is also a skilled editor and can help you polish your own copy until it is perfect.

Today, Jesse runs a successful copywriting agency with a team of writers and editors.

They work with a wide range of clients, from small businesses to large corporations.

Copywriting For Beginners

These are the fundamentals of SEO that is important for both beginners and advanced writers.

In this training, we’ll cover the following:

• What is Copywriting?
• Copywriting vs content writing
• How people read online
• How to understand your audience language
• How to write a copy that sells without being cheesy
• 7 essential elements of copy that converts

What is Copywriting?

Copywriting is simply writing the words that get people to take action online.

To sign up, make a purchase, register, fill out a form, click a button, and more.

Copywriting vs Content Writing

Content comes in many forms and is typically used to inform, educate, entertain and build a relationship with an audience.

Here are some of the many different types of copy and content that we have online:

How To Understand Your Audience’s Language

• Speak or write in the language of your audience.
• Communicate the same kind of words and phrases and sentences they use.

When you do so, you have a better chance of gaining a rapport with your audience.

Convincing them to take action, whatever that action might be.

David Ogilvy, the godfather of advertising. One of his famous quotes was…

Until you understand your target audience on a deeper level, you’ll never be able to write in a way that will influence them.

So you need to understand:

• who your target audience is
• their problems
• their desires
• their frustrations

Because when you do, you can write copy in a way that affects them.

Who would you have a better chance of selling to?

A friend or a stranger?

A friend is easier to sell to or influence because you already understand their fears, problems, and desires.

They most likely they trust you too.

So when you write copy, you want your readers to feel that you understand their problems on a deep emotional level.

A way to know understand your audience is to look at:

• Amazon.com book reviews
• Facebook groups
• Reddit groups.

These are places where the conversation is already happenning. 

Start by looking at the conversations and identify the things that we care about as copywriters and business owners.

So here’s an example of some of the best-selling books on content marketing and this review stood out:

When we’re looking through reviews, look for patterns.

What are the frequent frustrations, problems, challenges that people talk about?

What are some of the goals of this audience when it comes to content?

You’re going to record the audience’s problems and challenges into a Google document.

It’s like building an intelligence dossier about your target audience.

Document what you observe being said over and over again.

As the benefits or goals has helped with their business and content strategy.

So now, you’re learning about how they talk about content, how they talk about a particular product. 

In this Facebook group for wreath makers, notice how there are 256 comments of peope answering this poster’s question?

There are some great answers here that you can use to create a copy.

Another strategy is ask your audience.

 “What are some of the biggest challenges or problems?”

Then start mining their answers for the commonalities so you can use in your copy.

When you’re building out your websites for people, you want to understand the audience.

You want to know their frustrations as well fears, that’s how you build rapport.

Find out what matters to your target audience and what they’re going through.

Then include that in your copy whether you’re writing emails, landing pages, or Facebook ads.

How People Read Online

When we land on a web page, we immediately start skimming, scanning and scrolling through the page and copy. 

We’re looking for things that are interesting to us.

So people aren’t reading word by word. 

In fact, only 16 percent are actually reading every single word most people are not.

Studies show that when this paragraph was presented, only 27% of people actually read and comprehended the information. 

When they turn that same information in bulleted format, the readability increased by almost a hundred percent. 

Have paragraphs of information and bulleted lists will increase retention dramatically.

The more that people actually read and comprehend, the more likely they’re going to turn into buyers and subscribers. 

5 Tips For Writing For the Web

1. Meaningful headings throughout your page

Write in sections with it’s own heading to stop people from scanning and scrolling.

2. Bulleted list

Using bulleted list makes the content easy to read which keeps users on the page.

3. Bold important words and sentences

Using bold text can help emphasise the importance of certain words and make them stand out.  

4. Short sentences and paragraphs

Break up paragraphs in two, three and four lines deep but certainly no deeper than that.

Shorter sentences are easier to read especially in a mobile word.

 5. Include relevant images that support the copy

Use images to support content that requires more explanation.

You want people to stay on your website long enough to take the action.

3 Questions Website Visitors Ask

1. What is this site about?
2. Is this what I’m looking for?
3. Is it useful and can I benefit from this information?

These are the questions people ask subconsciously in their mind when they first land on your website.

Be sure to answer these questions through content on your website.

7 Essential Elements of Copy That Converts

The copy elements that you want to include and drive sales.

1. Headline

Headlines are so important because you need to grab the user’s attention to make them stay on the page.

If the headline doesn’t do its job of getting people intrigued about what else is on the page.

They will stop reading after the first line of sentence.

A good headline will encourage people to read the rest of the content.

Here are some best practices you can implement in your headlines.

Clarity:

• The headline should not be cute, clever or trying to win some kind of creative award.
• It needs to quickly communicate what the page is about and answer the question that everyone’s thinking. 

Benefit focused

• Talk about the benefits on whatever it is that you’re offering.

Problem focused

• Where your headline could be embarrassed by your outdated web copy.

Short

• Write headlines between 5-10 words max.
• Add sub headlines which are the text below the headline where you can expand upon what you’re saying.

Headline Formulas & Examples

Say what it is

For example, the headline “Fast and Affordable Copywriting” has ultimate clarity.  

It explains what it is and delivers value to the user.

Question Headline

One good example is from Neil Patel.

It’s short and it’s to the point, then underneath he has a sub-headline that expands on his headline.

So a great short to the point question can do wonders as a headline. 

Number Headline

On our landing page, I’ve used number 10 there. You’ll notice that on a lot of news articles.

They’ll use numbers because psychologically says it works very well when it comes to writing headlines. 

2. Sub-Headline and Value Proposition

What is a Value Proposition?

“A value proposition is a promise of value to be delivered.

It’s the main reason a prospect should buy from you (and not from your competitors)” – Neil Patel.

Your value proposition should answer the question “Why should I choose you and not the competition?”.

That is what your value proposition is stating.  

GrooveFunnels’ value proposition is right there in the two red ticks of the bonuses.

You could mention the industry problems that everyone recognizes and explain how you’re business is doing it differently.

3. Hero Image

• Your hero image is the first visual people see
• Visually represent what the page is about
• Avoid stock images, if possible

Using real authentic images of you, your products, service or customers will be far better than using stock images. 

It’s a good hero image of you, if you’re selling a service or if you’re a Freelancer.

You can also show the product being used in the hero image. 

An example from square.com is that they’re showing how it’s so easy to swipe your card using their little device.

Here’s another one from a subscription box company snack nation.  

They’re showing you all of the boxes and unpacked all the goodies that you get when you sign up with Snacknation. 

If you have a physical product, get some professional photography done.

Showcase as the hero image like you can see on the image above.

4. Call To Action Button (CTA Button)

• The CTA button informs the visitors what will happen or what they’ll get if they click on the button.
• I’m talking about the words inside of those buttons but also in the design as well.  
• So ask yourself, what action do you want the potential customer or client to take?
• It’s because the CTA button informs the visitor what will happen or what they’ll get if they click on that button.
•  You’re writing to answer what will happen or what they’ll receive if they click on the button.  

CTA Button Copy

• Include action words (get, book, register, etc.).
• There are so many better words to use than “submit” in your CTA button copy. 
• Stand out with bright, contrasting colors – use colors like bright pink, bright blue, bright green which should contrast with the background.
• Prominent placement (above the fold).
• You want to have the CTA Button in the above the fold area that’s really important so you get people to click on that early.

Examples:

Just like we can see with Netflix.

Their button “Join free for a month” so people would be like “Yes! I want to join free and I get a whole month. Fantastic!”. 

So they’ve put their CTA button in there tells them what to do “Join”, it also tells you what you get for free access for a month.

Another is some kind of online fitness plan and their CTA button is “Get started”.

“Get started” is fine but we could improve that in a variety of ways.

It’s still good copy though and it’s bright orange and the background is kind of a light blue so it stands out really nicely.

A great example of a CTA button from GrooveFunnels and it’s something you could model as well when you’re writing copy for your own GroovePages. 

5. Social Proof

We look for guidance before making our own decisions.

A good example I’m using is tips jar.

Now if you go to a bar or a restaurant you often see the tip jar is full of money.

It’s an indicator that other people have left tips so therefore we should do so as well. 

It’s appropriate and encouraged to tip here because everyone else is doing it.

4 Ways To Use Social Proof In Your Copy

1. Include the number of users

GrooveFunnels used a great copy of social proof because it’s the number 1 page and funnel building platform

They have 43,000 new members that switched in the last 30 days to draw attention.

This just shows so many people are joining, so many people are loving the platform.  

It shows other people that “hey, why don’t you join as well?”. 

2. Include where your company is featured in

One way you can do that is by just showing the logos of the media outlets online or offline.

3. Include which leading company trusted yours

You can show some of the companies that you’ve worked for.

You can show some of the clients you’ve worked for as well. 

4. Include the certifications or qualifications of your company

The image below is taken from an accounting practices website.

They showed their certifications and their qualifications because not every accountant has the same qualifications. 

So what they’re doing by showing social proof is saying “Hey, all of these companies we’ve worked with before”.

We’re certified by these companies.

They’re giving us a thumbs up so we must be good.”

6. Testimonials

• Testimonials are great when they’re real and genuine and authentic (not when they’re purchased from fiverr.com as some people will do)
• But testimonials really are a powerful way to increase trust with your visitors especially if they’ve never heard of you. 
• 92% of people are said that they read testimonials when considering a purchase (wendasta.com)
• The biggest websites in the world whether it’s amazon.com or eBay or any e-commerce website will often have customer reviews. 
• It’s almost mandatory because they know they can really increase your conversion rates.  

Here is an example of a good testimonial which I grabbed from a website and noticed a few of the underlying texts.  

This testimonial is decent for several reasons. 

1.  His photo. We can see this is a real person. 
2. We can see this person’s full name and relevancy in terms of his occupation.
3. We know that Tom Rohlf is the founder of Player 10. 

The testimonial itself  has underlined the parts because it doesn’t just ramble on about anything.

It says “When starting to think about selling my business…”

He’s giving you context and is relating to other people who might read this.

Other customers who might read this who might be in the same situation or have the same challenge.

He’s showing specific benefits that he got from working with this company and the situation was in which people often relate to. 

How do you get testimonials? 

For many small businesses, entrepreneurs or even large companies – some don’t have testimonials.

Because they never bothered to ask their clients or customers for them. 

So it’s a simple of just asking your customers for testimonials by asking them in person or send them an email/ chat.

Here are some of questions you can ask:

• Why did you decide to work with us?
• What are some of the benefits you experienced working with us?
• Who else do you think would benefit from our services?

So the better questions you ask, the better answers you’ll get.

Then put all of the answers together and format them into a testimonial. 

7. Features and Benefits

What is the difference?

Feature are facts about product or services; they add credibility and substance to your landing page.

Benefits explain how your product or service improve people’s lives.

The need to know are the features but the benefits is what makes people buy.

Here’s an example.

So Feature explains what the product does.

While the Benefit is how the customer feels about that feature. 

You can transform  your features into benefits with two simple questions:

“Which means?”

or “So what?”.

Here’s an example copy of an iPod.

Nobody knew what an iPod was, it was a revolutionary new product.

Back in the day, the iPod was not the first mp3 player but when they wanted to dominate the market which they did. 

They needed to explain to people what it was. 

If I said to my mom  “an iPod it has three gigabytes of storage”, my mom is not going to know what that means.

However, if I say “iPod a thousand songs in your pocket”…

Oh that’s the benefit of having so much storage so that makes sense.

So that’s going to be far more sexy of a benefit than saying “iPod with 3 gigabytes”. 

One is a feature, one is a benefit.

This is how you turn  features into benefits. 

Create a spreadsheet or get a piece of paper and create a table.

• In one column write down all of the features of your product or service.
• Ask yourself; “which means” or “so what”
• Then turn that into a benefit, so four gigabytes of storage- what does that mean? 
• So think about something the customer actually cares about. 
• These could be different chunks or sections of your page or copy where you talk about the features but you also talk about the benefits so those two are so important. 

So how do you display benefits and features in your copy?  

You could have one section of your page with a heading, with some bulleted lists that talk about all of the features and then you can have another one where you talk about the benefits. 

Talking about Apple, the image below is taken from their iPad air page which uses their own prewriting as well and follows these principles so we can see a heading in this section.

The headline is talking about the benefits of using the iPad air.

These are just some of the benefits right and they’ve got a picture of it being used there as well. 

And here’s another example of using benefits.

This is from trello.com, a project management tool. 

One of the benefits that they’ve listed here is on their headline and then they explained how you can do that using their platform. 

It got a visual image there to help the reader, got some a short paragraph and they’ve even got a call to action there in this particular section of that page. 

Done For You Copywriting

A special thanks to Jesse Forrest for contributing to this post.

If you’re like me and don’t have the time to write high converting copy…

Consider outsourcing it to Jesse and his team.

They write compelling copy for:

• landing pages
• Sales pages
• video sales letter
• email marketing campaigns
• and more!