The Essential Copywriting Guide for Online Business Owners

So, your business is up and running.

You’ve built your website, you’ve created your social media channels, you’ve developed your offers, and you might even have started blogging to generate traffic to your site.

You might even be getting a lot of web traffic.

But there’s something missing: sales!

If there’s one thing that differentiates a conversion-heavy business from one just breaking even, it’s how influenced the customers are to buy.

And if your copy isn’t powerful enough to grab attention, retain it, and move your audience seamlessly towards a purchase, you’re missing out on tons of revenue.

Let’s talk about some proven techniques used by some of the world’s most effective copywriters––techniques you can put to use for your own business!

3 Copywriting Tips & Tricks to Attract Attention to your Online Business

1. Understand Your Target Audience

Before we jump into the HOW, let’s start with the WHO.

If you want to write highly effective copy, you need to know exactly who you’re writing it for. And knowing who you will direct your message to and other information to add would be part of any good copywriting tutorial. So, watching one or two before you start your journey of copyrighting could give you a nudge in the right direction.

No product or service on the planet is meant for everyone. None. Not even commonly used household items like toilet paper appeal to everyone in the world.

You need to write copy that’s written for a specific audience.

Who is your target market? What’s their demographic information? What’s their psychographic profile? What kind of words are they using when they are searching for products and services like yours? What are their pain points?

If you can’t answer these questions without thinking, you need to do more research on your audience before you write a single word of copy. Note that different products of the same company could have their own audiences that they will appeal to and resonate with. With that in mind, don’t assume that all copy work will land the same for everyone.

Once you have your ideal audience nailed down, you can start writing copy that converts that audience. After all, the goal of having a well-written piece would be to guide more of the same audience to view and purchase the products and services the company has to offer.

2. The CIRCA Method in Copywriting

I’m going to share with you a method I’ve developed over the last decade or so of my copywriting career: The CIRCA Method.

The CIRCA Method is especially effective in direct response copywriting, where the ultimate goal is to move your audience to take immediate action, whether it be downloading a lead magnet or making a purchase right then and there. If you want to learn more about copywriting, here is a list of the best copywriting books you can read to learn more.

Let’s break it down:

C: Capture

The first thing you need to do is to captivate your audience and capture their attention. The responsibility of capturing attention relies on your headlines. 

The job of your headline is to make your audience center their focus on your page and hold their attention until they read the next line of copy.

To capture attention, think: what would surprise your target audience? What would shock them? What would make them think twice? What would make them double-take? What can you write that would leave the audience thinking, “hey, this is something that I can really relate to,”?

I: Identify

The headline isn’t enough to keep your audience interested if they don’t know the copy is FOR them. You need to help your audience self-identify.

For example, I might write something like Are you a new freelancer stuck somewhere between learning copywriting skills and landing your first client?

Or

Want to launch your freelance copywriting business but have no idea how to get started?

The idea here is that your target audience answers “YES!” to each self identifying question. The more opportunities for “YES!” you give your audience, the more they’ll feel like what you’re selling is a perfect fit for them.

R: Resonate

As humans, we’re pain-averse. We do anything we can to avoid feeling anxiety, discomfort, or displeasure (most people, anyway).  

As such, most people are wildly out of touch with their emotions. As a copywriter, it’s your job to bring those emotions to the surface and make your audience confront them face-to-face.

For example, if I were to write copy that would resonate with my audience, I might write something like: You’ve put hundreds of hours into learning copywriting, but you’re yet to land your first paying gig. You feel stuck, like maybe this isn’t for you.

Or

You want to launch that freelance business, but you don’t know how to structure your contracts or what should go into your SOW. You’re left wondering if you can even handle this whole “business owner” thing.

These resonating statements leave the audience saying, “yeah, that’s me, and it SUCKS.”

C: Compel

You can’t just pour salt on the wound and leave your audience to suffer. You’ve brought the pain to the surface––now you have to offer the remedy. So you have to do what it takes to compel your audience to take action to get rid of their discomfort.

The “compel” part of your copy needs to highlight the benefits of what you offer. For even better results, lead with emotion-driven verbs. Note that most people tend to make decisions based on how they feel about it, hence, the addition of verbs that could spark emotions in the customers. And once they feel invested in a particular product or service, businesses can reel them in for possible sales.

For example,

Radically change low conversion rates into life-changing revenue with the Ultimate Sales Page Kit.

Or,

Overhaul poor sales page performance and experience rapid improvements in your conversions with the Ultimate Sales Page Kit.

Below are some transformative power verbs to help you get started:

You can even take this one step further and add urgency.

Such as:

• In 60 days or less!
• Before the quarter is over
• In 24 hours

And so on.

A: Assure

Your offer could be the best in the world, but people are indecisive and often cautious of anything they read online. That’s why assurance is so important in copywriting. Assurance includes utilizing social proof where possible.

I suggest using social proof in a stand-alone section on your website, with multiple reviews or testimonials, and highlighting your most powerful testimonials near a couple of your calls to action throughout the page. 

Some examples of assuring your audience with social proof include

• Google review embeds
• YELP embeds
• Screenshots of social media posts praising your business, service, or product
• Including a photo, name, and even website attached to testimonials in sliders 

The more “proof” you provide showing that these testimonials are “real,” the better.

3. Pay Attention to Your CTAs

And here’s the clincher: your calls to action.

“BUY NOW” just doesn’t cut it.

“LEARN MORE” is overplayed.

Give someone something to actually latch onto. Your call to action is the final piece of copy standing between your audience and that shopping cart. Make it count.

Give your audience something to say YES to or to activate the reward system of their brain. Human brains are generally wired to seek pleasure. And so, when the reward system registers that there may be something to gain from that experience, chances are they’re likely to make a purchase.

For example,

“YES! I WANT THESE RESULTS→”

Or

“CLAIM YOUR RESULTS RIGHT NOW→”