How To Write Effective Online Ads

Do you run ads on Google, Facebook, or Instagram? Conventional wisdom tells us that Pay Per Click advertising (PPC) returns $2 for every $1 spent. This doesn’t take into account optimising your ads through compelling, catchy, and competitive copy.

If you’re dabbling in PPC advertising and struggling to come up with three headlines with 25 characters or fewer (the Google Ads limit!) - here is a short guide on how to write effective online ads.

Know Your Audience

Seems a little obvious, but just like in your content strategy, you need to know who your audience is and speak to them. If you are targeting 18-25 year olds, you don’t want to come off as cringe by adding out-of-context slang into your headlines and descriptions when they can become out of date very quickly. This will take some research on your part to determine the tone and style that works best for your core audience. Remember to keep consistent by using and updating a style guide.

Demonstrate Tangible Value

This can prove challenging for the writer, as you only have about 25-30 characters for headlines and 90 characters for straplines or descriptions (in Google Ads, at any rate.) But demonstration of value isn’t an uphill battle - you are only competing for attention among direct competitors for that search term. You can stand out by:

• Having a more competitive price. (Cheaper)

• Being more convenient. (Faster)

• Selling products of higher quality. (Better)

With these three elements in mind, you can “pick two” - something that’s cheap and fast is rarely better than something that’s premium and done with time and attention. (It also strains the credibility of your ad if you claim you can do all three, too.)

Drilling down to pain points and showing how your product or service can solve them can prove useful; but think of this formula when you are writing ads and in some cases…they may even write themselves!

Focus on The End Result

Ads are like the end of a story. “Once upon a time, there was a young man in search of a beanie. He typed ‘beanies’ into Google…” at which point your ad comes in. “He clicked on the ad that said ‘Quality beanies 50% off!’ and was satisfied when he got his beanie in the mail a couple of days later.”

Online ads should not be hypothetical, abstract, or mysterious. They need to focus on what the customer will get. In the beanie example, that young man was interested in getting the cheapest price. Since you can write a minimum of three ads, you can focus on quality (“100% Australian Wool!”) or convenience (Free Two Day Shipping.)

You can use these short “callouts” as Ad Extensions: short feature descriptions underneath your ad when it’s displayed alongside search engine results.

Calls To Action

All advertising is a call to action. Buy now, click here, sign up, schedule your appointment, Spend $50 and get free shipping, download for free, find out more.

You can enhance your calls to action by inducing Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt in subtle yet effective ways such as appeals to scarcity (Buy now - last 20 remain), fear of missing out (Sale ends on Monday - check out before it’s too late!) or loss aversion (Was $500, now $299 for a limited time only). In fact, you can add countdown timers to your Google Ads to really hammer the point home. Don’t feel squeamish about using FUD - practically every online ad is built on these foundations.

Keep On Testing

There’s no such thing as the “perfect ad” - if so, we’d all agree to run it and make millions of dollars. Google Ads allows you to run multiple variations of the same ad to see which one is the most effective. Write as many ads as you can think of, let them run for a week or two and see what gets the most clicks and conversions. That means keeping the best two or three. Remember to refresh your ads every few months - and keep some ads on standby for holidays, special events such as Click Frenzy or Cyber Monday, or End of Financial Year/Calendar Year sales.

Following these simple guidelines, you too can write killer ads that sell more!

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Want to get your own Google or Meta ads written by an award-winning copywriter? Contact me to get started!

Five Copywriter Habits That Will Improve Your Writing

Depending on the time of day, you’ve probably written hundreds of words already. Yes, it’s true.

Think about all the emails, reports, shopping lists, purchase orders, and notes to colleagues you’ve put out into the world today - all those words add up pretty quickly!

Modern business thrives on written communication. The power of the written word is so immense, it forms the entire basis of our society - think about our Constitution, laws, ordinances.

Though we may not be using words to trade sheep stations (or perhaps we are?) you can use these five copywriter habits to improve your own writing - and be more well understood and effective at work.

Writing For An Audience of One

The great American novelist and writer Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. once said:

“Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

In most cases, emails are one to one communication. In business, we may be writing reports to many stakeholders. Berkshire Hathaway’s Warren Buffett says that he writes his annual reports as if he was writing directly to his sisters. This will inform your style - as Buffett directed his copywriters: “safe, bland, and reassuring.”

Writing with one person in mind will keep your style consistent. You’ll feel less worried about how you say things and more focused on getting your message out there.

Takeaway: write to please one person, not many. Because you can’t please everyone.

All Writing Is a Story

Every piece of writing in business - in the world to date - has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Though I might cringe at the term “storytellers” in business, I do so because everyone is a storyteller.

In business, this narrative form may look like:

• The current problem

• What needs to be done about it

• What the resolved situation will look like

Make sure all your communications have a definite beginning, middle, and an end. Just like in high school, you need to introduce the topic of conversation to the reader. Don’t assume your reader knows everything there is to know - communication is the act of scooping out your brain into the brains of an unsuspecting and naive passer-by.

Takeaway: Structure your writing as stories with definite beginnings, middles, and endings.

Concise and Clear Language

You’ve likely read emails or reports that had you reaching for the dictionary at one point - I have, and I’m supposed to know “all the words.” Truth be told, I don’t. (The horror!) The point of good communication is clarity and concision. That means saying what you mean and making it as simple as possible to understand.

Doesn’t matter if your audience has three degrees in engineering or didn’t even finish high school - your writing should be equally accessible to both people. Would you rather be known as pretentious for trying to show off your brainiac vocabulary, or a business genius for explaining a difficult concept like you’re talking to a five year old? (That’s the old trick of “Explain Like I’m Five.”) Substitute long, difficult words for simpler alternatives. Utilize? Just say “use.”

Takeaway: Making your writing simple means it is easier to understand.

Editing Yourself

Everybody has time for editing. Doesn’t matter if it took you thirty seconds to compose, you can spend another thirty seconds proofing and editing. Editing is the art of cutting redundant words from your writing to achieve that concision and clarity. A sentence shouldn’t have extra words in it, much like a clock shouldn’t have extra hands on the dial. If you’re unsure on how to edit yourself, you can use Hemingway Editor or buy a book on editing, such as the aptly titled Edit Yourself.

Takeaway: Editing yourself is as crucial to the writing process as composition.

Using Verbs

Verbs power writing. Verbs, or “doing” words are the momentum your writing rides along. In business, almost everything is verbs. Buying, selling, ordering, drafting, syngergizing - some don’t seem like words at all, but they are at the very least passing themselves off as verbs. If your writing is trying to persuade or will something into being, verbs will get you there. Using too many nouns and adjectives bog the reader down - they will start wondering when you will get to the point very quickly. If you can write verbs into every sentence, you’re off to a flying start.

Takeaway: Verbs are the engine of writing, so the more verbs, the more horsepower your writing has.

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Need help from a professional Melbourne copywriter who can supercharge your business writing? Click below to contact me!

What is Website Copywriting? Tips for Effective Website Copywriting

I Sell Words began life in Melbourne with one mission: to be the best website copywriting firm bar none. However, the number of times I’ve attended networking meetings, handed out my business card, or described what I’ve done to acquaintances and got the reply: “Huh, so what do you copyright? Books? Films?” Not quite, no.

What Is A Website Copywriter?

Yes, copywriting and copyrighting is an example of a homophone; a word with the same sound but different meanings (English is full of them!). Explaining what I do as a copywriter – a website copywriter – goes a little like this:

“A web developer develops the code for a site. A designer produces the visuals. As a website copywriter, I write the text on the site.”

This gives most people pause to let the penny drop. Many people don’t consider the person (or team of people) that write the text for a website. The text is vital for your digital marketing – text makes up much of your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) efforts, how you engage your audience, and how you inspire calls to action – buy now, sign up, reserve your place, etc.

If your website copywriting isn’t converting as well as it should, here are some tips for effective website copywriting that can help.

Know your copywriting end goal

Like any piece of writing, website copywriting needs a beginning, middle, and an end. Doesn’t matter if you’re writing a tagline or a novel - every piece of writing needs this. What is your website’s end goal? Are you a business to business site? Are you business to consumer? Are you looking for more leads? Selling products? Asking people to sign up to an email list? Establish a goal for your copywriting and work backwards from there.

Establish a consistent tone of voice

In my website copywriting process, establishing a consistent tone of voice throughout the site is crucial to success. Is your brand youth-oriented? A conversational style may work best. A lawyer site will need a professional and direct style. Sometimes a mix of two can work (not three, three is just too hard to get right.) This gives readers a sense of your brand and what they can expect when interacting with your business further. It engenders more trust.

Using ethos, pathos, logos in copywriting

 When it comes to written persuasion, there’s not much new under the sun. Rhetoric, or the art of using language to persuade, is as old as the Ancient Greeks and Romans - hence ethos (appeal to one’s character), pathos (appeal to emotion) and logos (appeal to reason or logic.) Any piece of writing that means to persuade people need to balance these three elements to be truly effective. For more examples, click here.

Clarity and conciseness is king

The simpler your copy, the more people can understand it. The more people that understand your copy, the more people you can sell to. Making your writing bold and clear makes it easier to read which makes it easier to remember. You should use it in all your writing, not just on websites. To help your own clarity and concision (making it short as possible) you can use the Hemingway App for free.

And just like good writing makes your readers comfortable, a little thought in the real world makes your office comfortable too. Something like commercial aircon installation can make a big difference. When you feel physically at ease, you think better, focus better, and enjoy being there more. Comfort matters, in writing and in the spaces we spend our time in.

Search engine optimisation - keywords and copywriting 

It’s unavoidable - your website copy needs to have some kind of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) baked into it. That means researching keywords, structuring your copy, making sure you write compelling but keyword-rich headlines, and off-page SEO. For more on this, read my resource post on The Best SEO Copywriting Tips here.

Add calls to action (CTA)

Website copywriting is always asking something of the reader. At the end of the story, that means asking them to “buy now” or “contact me” or “sign up here.” Too many calls to action and you risk turning people off. Not enough, and they might pass your website by in their search for the best deal. 90% of visitors who read your headline copy will read your CTA copy according to Protocol 80 - so use them and optimise them as much as possible.

Conversion rate optimisation: A/B testing

Website copywriting is rarely a one and done proposition. Once you think you have the best copy ever, it can always be improved on. That means testing variations of headlines and CTAs using Google Optimise or similar applications. Test, track, and tweak for the best results.

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Need the best Website Copywriting in Melbourne to improve your business? Check out my copywriting services here, or click below to contact me (there’s an example of a CTA!)