How to effortlessly develop a crystal clear copy for your next client?

copywriting basics

In this article, I’ll show you how to improve your writing skills and convey your message more persuasively. The techniques I’ll describe are not only simple, but also very effective, and I know you’ll be surprised at how much you can improve your writing.

This article is intended for students who want to improve their basic copywriting skills. You don’t need any prior experience or knowledge; all you need is a piece of paper and a pen, as well as a basic understanding of the few concepts that I’ll be covering in this article.

It is simple to write clearly when you understand the active and passive voice, the power of direct commands, and how to use the first and third person, as well as when you know nominalizations and adverbs: what they are and how and why you should avoid them.

I’ll walk you through the principles of good, clear writing and show you how to apply them quickly and effectively.

So, how about we get started?

1. Know your reader

Before you even put pen to paper or finger to keyboard as a writer, there are a few things you should think about. It’s impossible to write clearly and effectively if you don’t know who you’re writing for or what your goal is.

So, before you begin writing any piece of copy, ask yourself,

“Who am I writing this for?” Who is my audience? Why are they reading it? What do they hope to accomplish from this copy? Finally, how can I assist them? What am I offering that will assist them in achieving their goal?”

So the first step in improving our copy will be to remove that irrelevant sentences. This may appear to be an obvious error, but it’s amazing how often people include irrelevant information in their copy that is useless to the reader.

That is why answering the three questions of Who, Why, and How is essential to focus on including only essential information in your copy.

2. Short, catchy sentences.

Long sentences are a sign of poor writing. They’re difficult to read and make the reader confused. You should aim for an average sentence length of 15 to 20 words.

That doesn’t mean all sentences have to be the same length. Varying their length is a good idea. It makes the writing more interesting, but any sentence longer than 30 words should be eliminated.

3. The Active voice.

Using the active voice improves the directness and impact of your writing. The active voice is used to describe a sentence in which the subject does the action stated by the verb. It follows a clear and simple Subject, Verb, and Object structure.

Using the passive voice, on the other hand, results in vague sentences, and overuse of the passive voice is another sign of amateur writing. Writing more complex sentences in the passive voice can be extremely puzzling to the reader. But don’t automatically associate the passive voice with poor writing.

As having the occasional sentence in the passive voice could help to break up the text and keep it from becoming too monotonous.

It’s just a good general rule to use the active voice whenever possible and aim for an active sentence in 80–90% of your copy.

4. Trash the Adverbs

Adverbs are words that modify an adjective or a verb. It describes how someone performs a task. They aren’t always bad.

However, if you strive to maintain your writing clear and concise, removing a few of those adverbs will most likely be highly beneficial and will improve your writing.

There are several types of adverbs, but the ones that need to be checked and possibly deleted are easily identified because they almost always end in the letters ‘LY’.

And since we have that nice, strong verb, we can get rid of the adverb without losing any meaning. It is simple and it makes our writing feel much more direct and professional.

5. You and I.

Overuse of the third person can cause your writing to become overly formal and dull. It sounds like it has been written by a robot for another robot. We don’t want our copy like that, right?

When you write in the third person, you write as if you and your reader are removed from the events you’re describing. I want YOU to stop writing in the third person, and you’re going to do it by learning how to recognize it and then replacing it with three simple words: “you,” “we,” and “I.”

They’re warmer and feel more direct and personal. You can’t ditch the third person at all times, but you can avoid it and use it carefully to keep your copy precise.

6. Find the Appropriate Words.

For this, you should always write with your mind reader. It’s the golden rule of good writing, and remembering this one simple principle will vastly improve your copy. And it also applies to the words you use when writing and the type of language you use.

Suppose you’re writing in jargon, and if you’re writing for others in that specialist group, it’s fine to use that kind of language because they’ll understand exactly what you’re talking about, so it’s fine.

However, many people make the mistake of continuing to use insider industry jargon when writing for a broader audience, which is inappropriate because that reader — the general public — will not understand it.

You may believe that using a fancy-sounding word makes you appear to be a better writer. LOL, this is not true; it is not clever, and it confuses people. Your content will be of no use to them, so STOP doing that!

7. Do not nominalize.

A nominalization is a noun that does not refer to a physical object. It could be a process, a technique, or an emotion that is derived from a verb.

Nominalisations frequently end in ‘ION’ or ‘ENT’and are extremely common and useful. So there’s nothing wrong with them when used sparingly.

Too many of them, however, can make a piece of writing sound academic and boring. So limit the use of them, but you don’t have to eliminate them. And you can rephrase the sentence by replacing the nominalization with its original verb, it will sound much better. Give it a try.

8. Be straightforward.

Nobody wants to appear rude. That’s why we frequently slow down our copy with fussy, polite ‘filler’ words that don’t need to be there and end up clogging up our copy when we’d be better off getting to the point straight away.

We shouldn’t be wasting our readers’ precious time. So, write with confidence, and don’t be afraid to give specific instructions where necessary.

9. Make Your Copy Perfect.

Let me remind you that there’s nothing worse than discovering an embarrassing error in a piece of material that’s been on your site or social network profile for months. How should you avoid it? Let me tell you.

What you should not do is rely on your computer’s spellcheck, you’ll have to work a little harder. Proofread your copy.

Here are my top three suggestions for editing your copy: Check the spelling of proper nouns, such as people’s and businesses’ names very carefully. These will also be missed by a spellchecker, so double-check them manually. Read your copy out loud so you can identify errors more easily. And lastly, ask your friend to read it.

That’s it for today.

I hope you enjoyed reading and this article was helpful for you, if you have made it to the end, comment SUPERB besties ❤

Did I miss out on anything important about how to make your writing effortlessly clear? Do let me know in the comment section below.