Is Online Copywriting Like Traditional Copywriting?
Copywriting is copywriting, right? Wrong.
There are similarities between online copywriting and off line copywriting, or traditional writing. You still are writing to persuade. Whether your copy is to be found through a search portal or to be read from a page, you still want your copy to spark an emotional reaction. That part is the same.
Other similarities between online copywriting and traditional copywriting include:
- Both require a call to action
- Both are the meat of your marketing collateral
- Both are improved with graphic enhancements
- Both need human readers to interpret them for value
- Both are at their best when they sell the benefits and list the features
Copywriting, in a sense, is the same whether done online or through print publications, but there is one fundamental difference between the two that makes online copywriting a bit more of a challenge. That key difference is that with online copy you have to capture the attention of robots, spiders, machines, algorithms, entities that do not breathe.
Search engines exist to catalog information. Your job as copywriter is to make sure that information is cataloged properly so that humans who need it can find it. That means you have to become an expert in search engine optimization. You can’t leave this to chance. You have to understand how search engines crawl, read, and index information. In addition to doing all the other things that traditional copywriting does, online copywriting must feed the spiders.
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Tags: online copywriting, sales, search engine optimization, traditional copywriting