As easy as writing sales copy might seem – let’s face it, it’s what we do every day and we are supposed to know how to get it right (within reason) – I recently got reminded that things are not always that easy for us, the craftsmen of words.

Up until early last year I hadn’t written a single word for a hotel. Sure, I had some knowledge about hotel sales copy but it came mostly from studying hotel websites while booking our holidays and playing smart alec, thinking I could write it better.

Real life likes to play tricks on us and my writing skills and confidence were put to the test when I landed a job as an SEO and main writer for a large chain of serviced apartments in the UK.

There are certain things I learned about the industry that helped me overcome the initial bump on the road. Today I want to share them with you.

No warm ups. Period!

I have a tendency to use warm ups in my posts. I am sure you noticed that in this article as well. In many cases, warm ups work like a charm. However, when it comes to holiday makers, your readers have hardly any time at all to go through your copy and might not even get past the warm up.

Insight – write for people who:

- Have a very limited time to do their research.
- Expect to see nothing more than a list of things that are included in their booking.
- Need to remember your copy and offer past the research stage to come back and buy.

Friendly Tone is a Way to Go

Nothing works worse when you are trying to sell a hotel than a dry, professional tone. The tone of your copy has to reflect the cushy atmosphere of the holiday accommodation that you are selling. A friendly tone is the way to go in this case. However, the difficulty is that most people look for nothing more than a list of things they get with their booking plus some location info and a price.

Keywords Do Not Always Work The Way You’d Expect Them To

Writing a copy for a hotel is a constant battle between satisfying both research and sales stages of the process. On one end, your copy needs to inspire your readers while they still check out many different hotels so that they remember yours and will come back to make a booking. On the other hand, you want them to book straight away and must write copy to inspire them to do that too.

The best way to achieve success with both is by using the right keywords. However, these work in a quite specific way in the hotel industry.

Insight – hotel keywords characteristics:

- Holiday makers usually use plural keywords during their research.
- Short tail keywords are mainly used for research and have a low conversion rate.
- You will get better conversion rates on long tail, low traffic keywords.

It was a steep learning curve, but I made it through and I am now enjoying  great success at work. I hope these tips will help you do the same.

Pawel Grabowski works as an SEO Specialist and web content writer for a leading serviced apartments provider in the UK. He is also the author of “The Smart Business Guide to Winning New Work“, the best beginners’ guide to selling and brining new clients in. Connect with Pawel on Google+.

Image: Bernard Gagnon via Wikimedia Commons

I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to welcome Cathy Miller as a guest writer on Get Paid to Write Online. Her Simply Stated Business blog is one of my must-reads and you’re in for a treat as Cathy describes her writing journey.

There’s a freshness about a clean sheet of paper. It’s like newly fallen snow, silently waiting for the season’s first snow angel. For someone who spent most of her life creating snow angels on paper, the online world was a new universe. My name is Cathy Miller and I am an old business writer.

The Journey Online

The year 2008 signaled the winter of my discontent. After 30+ years in Corporate America, I packed up my pen and paper and headed online. Up to that point, I was free of all social media platforms.

• Twitter was something gossipy girls did
• And Facebook sounded like a student’s fate during finals

I started my own business writing company. Fortunately, there is still plenty for an old business writer to do. But, I have never been one for labels. Give me one and I’ll probably write all over it. I knew if I wanted to compete in  this new world, I’d better find out about this online stuff.

Comedy Central

My first peek at online jobs had me looking for the hidden camera. Surely, this was some kind of joke.

• Ads for $5 per post
• Blogs devoted to Loosing Weight
• Rants about spam

To be fair, I never liked the taste of spam either, but why was everyone getting so worked up over it? Suddenly, the print world was looking pretty good.

Back to School

Believe it when they tell you, you are never too old to learn. Eventually, I found my way to the sunny side of online. Talented professionals, like Sharon Hurley Hall, showed me you can Get Paid to Write Onlineand still afford to eat. Your only limits are what you make them. There were lessons to learn – blogging and ghosting and WordPress – oh my. For all of its newness, the online world offered much of what I loved about the old world.

• The power of the written word
• Helping others express their dreams
• The rewards of communication

How could I not fall in love with a place where keeping it simple scores?

Lessons Learned

A Different Style

My last corporate boss told me that one thing she liked about my writing was its short sentences. I think I just blew that theory. Is it any wonder that my style took to online writing? Okay, don’t go running to my early blog posts. It did take me a while to adapt. A combination of my writing style and baby boomer eyes was a natural for the online world.

• Bulleted lists
• Bold headings
• Short sentences

Love it!

Calling All Writers

There is a tremendous need for good writers – emphasis on good. Think about it. The opportunities for writing online are endless.

• Web pages, press releases
• Professional bios
• Articles for online magazines
• Ghostwriting and blogging
• eBooks, newsletters
• Sales pages, ad copy, and much more

Why shouldn’t an old business writer join the fun?

Online and Loving It

You can make a good living online. You can also mix print and online writing and survive – no, thrive. In the end, it’s all about communication, and it doesn’t matter if you are new to the business or a 30+ year veteran. Emily Dickinson (someone even older than me) put it this way –

We turn not older with years, but newer every day.

Go online and enjoy the journey.

Cathy Miller is a freelance business writer with over 30 years of professional writing experience from small businesses to Fortune 500 customers. Cathy started her own business in 2008, providing all forms of online and print business writing. Cathy has a business writing blog at Simply stated business, a health care blog at Simply stated health care and her personal blog, millercathy: A Baby Boomer’s Second Life.   

Sites that go up in smoke represent opportunities for new writers.

As incredible as it seems, copywriters are more in demand in today’s economy than ever before. In our digital age the need for fresh copy resurges every time a search engine changes its algorithm and valuable web rankings are lost. While this is a headache for the webmasters with the pages that suddenly go up in smoke, it can be a boon to recent college graduates looking to enter the world of copywriting.

College graduates in this position are both at an advantage and a disadvantage. The advantage is they possess a wealth of education that can be brought to bear in working for their clients. The disadvantage is the graduate might have a firm grasp of how to produce academic writing but might not be as skilled in the art of writing commercial or web copy. Writing for online marketing isn’t the same as a PhD dissertation, and fresh graduates may have to make quite a few stylistic adjustments.

How to Write Copy

Writing copy requires the ability to reach out to the potential customer, and that means it must be engaging and interesting. Since much copywriting work is now found online, new copywriters need to understand exactly what works and what doesn’t. For example, writing copy for a small business owner’s web page will not require the same skill sets as writing for someone’s blog. In most cases, the static page requirements will be more professional in nature, while the blog may be relative informal but require a nuanced grasp of voice in order to reach the most readers.

The first thing a new copywriter needs to do is learn to identify the right voice for each job. This can prove difficult since the voices some copywriters are most skilled at using are ones they aren’t always comfortable revealing. In other words, some copywriters can use coarse, crude language and gain a wide audience, but these same copywriters wouldn’t want friends and family to read this voice.

Find Your Voice

Thankfully, most people have a conversational voice they can use both publicly and privately. This informal voice works best on blogs and on websites with an informal and contemporary feel. When this voice is achieved, new copywriters should consider establishing their own blogs to showcase their ability through regular writing. In this way, these blogs work as portfolios for potential clients.

Next, copywriters should offer services at reduced rates in order to start building up a larger online presence and add work for clients to their portfolios.

Writing Opportunities for Graduates

Writing copy offers a world of opportunities for new college graduates. The more clever and intriguing the copy is, the more likely it is that attention and business will begin to present themselves. Copywriters who win professional recognition will find their experience becomes quite well-regarded.

Armed with an approachable style and portfolios to showcase skills, new copywriters can approach potential clients with appealing offers. As with any other new venture, the first few approaches might not bear fruit immediately, but the key is perseverance. It might take a dozen “no’s” to reach the first “yes,” but when that time comes it feels absolutely incredible.

Elaine Hirsch is kind of a jack-of-all-interests, from education and history to medicine and videogames. This makes it difficult to choose just one life path, so she is currently working as a writer for various education-related sites and writing about all these things instead. (Image: mason bryant)

I’m always looking for the chance to learn new things, so when American Writers and Artists Inc (AWAI) offered me the chance to review their Accelerated Program for Six Figure Copywriting, I jumped at the chance.

This course is aimed at copywriters and would-be copywriters. If you’re a writer or blogger looking to use your skills in a more lucrative area, then it’s worth considering this course. And if you’re already in the direct response copywriting game, but want to know how you can take your skills and earnings to the next level, then this course is definitely for you.

What’s Inside AWAI’s Accelerated Copywriting Course

The course is in 13 chapters (more than 500 pages) covering the following topics:

• #1 Getting Started as a Copywriter: The Opportunity & Lifestyle
• #2 Taking the First Step towards Copywriting Success
• #3 Copywriting Myths and Realities
• #4 The Secret Structure of Direct-Response Letters
• #5 Communicating with Your Prospect
• #6 Building Your Offer One Brick at a Time
• #7 Making and Closing the Deal
• #8 Why We Need Guarantees
• #9 Ready … Set … Write!
• #10 Backing Up Your Claims
• #11 Putting It All Together
• #12 Becoming a Master Storyteller
• #13 You’re a Copywriter!

There are also writing exercises and resources to go with each chapter, as well as a wealth of bonus materials. You can access these online or download the PDFs so you can peruse them at your leisure.

There are also lots more materials on the site: webinars, teleconferences, job listings and a forum – there’s seemingly no end to the resources available. And there are links to other courses too.

Looking Deeper At The Accelerated Copywriting Course

Getting back to the course itself, there is a lot of information packed inside those pages. Each section gives an introduction to the topic, provides examples (lots of them) and lets you apply what you have learned. This is not your average online course – you will need time to work your way through it. I have been reviewing it for weeks and still haven’t quite finished because it takes time to absorb the course content.

Although I’m not a direct response copywriter, I believe that I’ve already learned some techniques that will help me to improve sales pages and marketing for my own products and, who knows, perhaps one day those copywriting skills might come in handy for clients. As AWAI says: “Even if you’re not interested in becoming a professional copywriter, the selling and marketing knowledge you’ll gain from this program will help you in any business you happen to be in.”

Is It Worth It?

This course costs $397. Yes, that’s a hefty price tag, but it’s nothing compared to the cost of a college course, and considering all the additional resources you get, it’s a bargain. I’ve seen lots of criticism online of the promises made in the sales page about earnings in the tens and hundreds of thousands once you complete the course. I don’t believe that everyone who finishes the course will earn at that level (I’m always sceptical of big promises), but I do believe that some will, especially if they’re prepared to put in the effort to market their new skills. In any case, what I’ve completed so far convinces me that writers can still gain something from this course.

This course has got information that you can use right away to improve your writing, as long as you’re prepared to invest some time. And there’s a guarantee. If you buy the course and don’t think it’s wonderful – you can get your money back within 30 days after you purchase it. So what have you got to lose? I recommend that you try AWAI’s Accelerated Program for Six Figure Copywriting today. (And I’m not the only one; other writers I respect share my view).

Disclosure: AWAI didn’t pay me for the review but they did offer me free access to the course materials so I could review it. I liked the course so much that I’ve signed up as an affiliate and I’ll be devoting some time every week to completing it.

Whether you have an affiliate marketing site of your own, or you are a freelancer who has been commissioned to write copy for somebody else’s, one thing it will almost certainly need to have is reviews of the products you are aiming to promote. These serve two purposes – one, as content that can help search engines find your site, thus boosting traffic, and two, as sales copy to encourage your reader to take further interest in, or buy, the product. Here we take a look at some of the ways you can write great product reviews that will meet both of these objectives.

SEO

SEO (search engine optimization, to the uninitiated) is all about getting the best possible search engine ranking when somebody runs a Google (or other) search on keywords which are relevant to your website. You need to make sure your product reviews are optimised with keywords in the title and body which are the best and most likely match to what a prospective customer for your product might search for. What these are will vary depending on what you are promoting. If you are selling something with a particular brand and name, which people are likely to search for explicitly, then that would make sense as a keyword, perhaps in connection with keywords to do with the price of that item (“cheap”, “discount” etc.). If the name of the product is less well known you need to think about what it does, and questions it might be the answer to.

Information

If you are in an affiliate program, chances are you picked it because you believe in the product you are marketing, and even if you don’t you are going to write from a positive perspective because you want people to buy. Of course, people reading reviews are actually looking to find out how a product works and if it delivers on its promises, rather than to read a lot of sales copy about how wonderful it is, so try and give a good mixture of actual information about the product as well as the positive review element. If you are marketing computers, don’t just say that the model is the fastest and most reliable on the market, actually discuss the specs and compare it favourably to some competitors (ones it is superior to, obviously, don’t out and out lie).

Call to Action

As with any sales related copywriting, the piece should end with a call to action. This is harder to do with a review than with normal sales copy, but not impossible. You could mention that you got the product you were reviewing at a very good price because of a promotion that was going on, and urge your reader to participate in the same promotion right away. The reader needs to be told to buy, rather than just imparted with a positive overall feeling about the product.

Product reviews are really great content for any affiliate marketing site, and by following this advice you should be able to create ones that really add value.

Image: digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Finding your own creative process

It has taken me some years and a lot of tweaking to work out my own ‘creative’ process when it comes to writing. Tweaking seems to be, rather unfortunately, a big part of it. Depending on what I’m writing – poetry, a novel or the all-important paid stuff like online copywriting, the process seems to change, sometimes daily.

Finding the right ‘writing’ process for your own work is often trial and error and from reading blogs, forums, interviews and books, it seems that there are probably as many writing processes as there are writers. I also find that reading these helps massively when it comes to new ways of working.

Online copywriting in particular, where deadlines come rather soon than you would sometimes like, needs a lot of preparation on the part of the writer – being able to ‘hit the ground running’ helps. Whatever your writing process, it can be worth considering that there is less writing to writing than you might imagine.

Wasting time

The temptation can be, when facing a short deadline and a lot of work, to get to the computer and start writing. That is, after all, what you are being paid for. But research and, well, “thinking time” can be far more important.

A couple of weeks ago I spent the best part of a day mooching around in front of the computer, reading up on a subject I didn’t know enough about to produce the 10 articles I had due in the following couple of days. I felt hugely guilty about this, for most of the day, and ended up leaving the office to start on household chores with a sense that I had achieved very little indeed. Despite my best intentions, I did pretty much the same the following day. Finding myself now lacking much writing time, I had to admit I felt that rising sense of panic that many writers who spend a lot of time watching deadlines rushing towards them at a terrifying speed, will well understand. However, despite my ‘wasted’ browsing time, I found the articles slipping effortlessly onto the paper –well the screen. I worked out that I’d spent 90% of my time researching and 10% writing.

Sleep on it

The rest of that week was an easy one, working on subjects I knew enough about to make a good start on quickly and easily. However, the first part of the week got me thinking about how to approach more ‘difficult’ commissions. In the past I’ve certainly been over-keen to get on with the writing, and perhaps not put as much research or simple thinking time into them.

Perhaps the worst mistake I’ve made is to write and research at the same time – a waste of time really as you often end up coming up with a completely new angle and having to scrap half the work you’ve already completed. Research time, browsing, reading and getting your head round a subject – even a familiar one – is always time well spent. If you’ve the time to sleep on the research as well, all the better, it’s surprising the way ideas will form themselves overnight – taking a lot of the hard brain work out of a project!

Trial and error

Of course, this is not the only way to approach writing, most of us find our own best methods through trial and error and everyone has their own methods, but our brains are good at soaking up information and coming up with the ideas later. If you are new to online writing, especially copywriting, and haven’t tried this method – give it a go and you may be surprised at just how much more efficient and productive it can be. Happy writing!

Image: the trial

The phoenix is a key symbol of rebirth

Chris Hoole of Apple Copywriting explains what copywriting means to him.

I don’t mean that writing for a living is going to make you come over all religious, although I guess it might. No, what I mean is that it is a way to start a new life and feel as though you are born again in a strictly earthly way.

Let’s start by considering why you might want to get born again, anyway. Are you bored at work? Is your life stuck in a rut? Do you want to express your creativity to the world? Has work lost its meaning for you?

I personally stumbled into the world of online copywriting by the most bizarrely tortuous route possible. I am from the UK but had decided to go and live in the South America to give my life a new direction and more interest. Actually, that’s not true. I decided to go to South America for a break from a dull life and ended up finding a place where I felt more at home than in my own country.

The only problem was that jobs are pretty thin on the ground where I now live. The options were pretty much to open my own business or brush up on my shoe shining skills. Then one fine day I decided to see if there was any chance of getting a job on the internet. I didn’t hold out much hope but I felt that I could offer something more to the world than a nice buffed finish.

To my amazement someone offered to pay me real money for writing travel articles about places I know. The night before I started I didn’t sleep a wink, as I suddenly realised that there were things I wanted to tell the world. Stories appeared fully formed in my head and I had to scribble them down on a notepad so as not to forget them.

That was the start of my copywriting career and while there have been a few low points since then the majority of the time has been rewarding. I truly do feel as though I have started a new life, and here are the reasons.

I Express Myself

I used to work in a job where showing creativity or personal initiative would have been as heavily frowned upon as turning up wearing a tutu and a pair of biker’s boots. Now I can write articles about my misspent childhood, the things I hate, my dog and anything else which flits across my fevered brain. Writing these kinds of personal articles and blogs has even helped me remember things I had long forgotten about. For example, I just had to write about camping trips and I remembered in great detail a family trip where I went to the beach every day with my sisters. On a rather naughtier note, I have to confess that I kind of enjoy making up stories and passing them off as being real. It is fun to write a blog claiming to have done things which I simply haven’t.

I Live and Let Live

Some people say that working alone from home must be dull but I love it. There is no boss, no office gossip and no need to put my shoes on every day. Going out to do something interesting during the day and then working through the night makes me feel as though I am really living. As well as feeling as though I have unlimited freedom with my working hours I also know that I am not causing any grief to anyone. One of the nasty things about working in an office, for example, is that problems with the other workers are almost impossible to avoid from time to time. Even for someone as cherubic as I am.

I am Born Again

It might sound like an exaggeration but if you were in my slippers right now you would know that it is true. I genuinely feel that writing from my home office has given my life a new direction and more meaning. It is impossible for me to imagine working in a stuffy office 8 hours a day again. Instead of waking up each morning dreading the commute to the office I now stroll the 10 metres to work looking forward to another day in my new, improved life.

Image:  joncandy

by Sean Platt

One thing all top-earning copywriters have in common is their dependable ability to drive readers to action.

It doesn’t matter how witty you are, how well you use alliteration, or how well you can draw your characters – if you can’t drive your readers to action, you’ll never command the fees that top-tier copywriters do.

A dollar to two dollars per word may sound like a lot of money, but that doesn’t mean those copywriters are overpaid. If a writer can get $10,000 for a sales letter, what do you imagine the person who paid for it stands to make?

Yet those top copywriters aren’t doing anything you can’t do and don’t know anything you can’t learn. Copywriting is a skill based profession. What they have that you don’t is years and years of practice.

So get started.

I fancy myself a pretty great father, but it didn’t happen the day my daughter was born. I had to fail many times and keep practicing before I learned enough to make it look easy.

Top-tier copywriters know how to lead their reader from the top of a page all the way to the bottom, where there is a call to action (the hot spot where you can turn readers into buyers).

It doesn’t matter if there isn’t an actual purchase involved. A “buyer” is any reader who rewards you for your time. And if you’re writing online, that is what’s ultimately important. It’s not just about sales; it’s about widening your network, building your fan base, and gathering as much attention or profit as you can for every word you write.

Online, you have scant time to grab attention, so you must start with a compelling headline, inspiring curiosity enough to capture the click, but without being disingenuous.

Your headline must make a promise and your copy must keep it. Consider what you’re trying to say, and then think of the best way to wrap that information in a bit of intrigue and wordplay.

Once your reader is on the page make sure your first sentence is compelling enough to lead them directly into the second sentence, then right into the first paragraph and all the way down the body of the page.

Every bullet, every subhead, every paragraph of your copy should be in precise alignment with whatever it is you want your reader to do at the end, as well as with the promise you made in your headline.

Sometimes getting my children to do what I want is as easy as asking. Other times, I lay the road brick by brick from morning through to afternoon so our evening goes precisely as planned.

Treat your copy the same. Understand that your copy is a single organism with every piece dependent on the others. Treat your words as a narrative, maintaining flow from the top to the bottom, then paying special attention to the call to action at the end.

Use the call to action to bring it home. Tell your reader what you want them to do. And don’t be shy. If your reader has made it through to the end of your copy, they’ve already given you their time – the most important asset they have. They want to know what they should do next.

Whether you’re asking for a sale, a “like”, a comment or a re-tweet, learning how to ask for action just like the top-tier copywriters do will help you live the writing life that you deserve.

Sean Platt helps good writers make a great living. Get his free report, 24 Easy Ways to Turn Readers into Buyers and learn how to close those sales. Follow him on Twitter. (photo: Timo Heuer)

I am a writer, blogger and editor. I am an avid reader and a keen Scrabble player. I am a mother and wife. I am a black woman. All of these things are part of who I am but no single one defines me. I was reminded of this when I read James Chartrand‘s amazing story about changing her name and online persona to enable her to care for her family.

In some ways, this story made me sad, because it reminded me that there are always those who want to put us in a box and define how we live in it. They see the externals, make judgments and behave accordingly. I have turned up to interviews where people have been visibly shocked to see a black woman. “Your name doesn’t sound black,” I was once told. (Just what is a ‘black’ name, anyway?)

In others, it inspired me, because it shows that we don’t have to buy into those definitions, to allow others to say what’s right for us. We CAN fight back, even if not all of us choose to do it in James’s rather unorthodox fashion.

In much of my time in the UK, particularly in the work environment, I suffered for the double whammy of being both black and female. “Why didn’t you apply to work for one of the ‘ethnic’ papers?” asked one interviewer. “Because,” I replied, “the colour of my skin is does not define who I am and what I am interested in.”

I’d be lying if I said it was never an issue. There are ways in which the treatment of people of different ethnicities is so unequal as to forever create divides. (As a former lecturer on cultural studies, I have studied inequality as well as lived it.) I have been called the ‘n’ word, I have had accommodation evaporate before my eyes, I have had people try to pay me less despite my experience and skill. For me, those experiences do not give me the excuse for blanket hatred, for blaming others and for opting out of taking responsibility for my own life.

Unlike James, my picture is all over the internet. Unlike James,  I use my real name for my online interactions. It’s true that there might be people who don’t hire me because I’m a black woman – their loss. Those who do hire me will find that like James, I know my value and I accept nothing less.

If you haven’t already heard that James Chartrand of Men with Pens is actually a woman, then you must have been hiding under a rock. I read the entire post with bated breath and then tried to work out how I felt about it.

I’ve always thought James rocks and that hasn’t changed. If anything I respect James even more for what must have been a tough decision to keep things together at home.

What I find disturbing is that in the 21st century, women are still having to deal with this gender bias cr*p! Writing doesn’t involve any heavy lifting – except of the mental kind – so the only important thing should be whether you can do the job or not. You should also get equal pay if you can do the job – that should be a given.

I never considered operating under a male pseudonym, though I had a friend who did a similar experiment and found that her earnings increased when she did. She got more respect and less haggling. But I do wonder whether all the times when – in spite of my 20+ years of experience and string of clips – I had to make a case for being worth my hire, it was because I am a woman. I’ll be thinking about that one for quite a while.