Recommended Copy Writing Reads / Watches

[Carl Nixon]

I'm knocking together my website for my start up and I need to pay a lot of attention to the copywriting. Budget constraints means my entire website is a DIY affair as I can't afford to hire in experts (yet).

I have watched a few YouTube channels and read a few sites, and most of them seem to conflict in someway or another. I suspect this is because each of them built their copywriting expertise working in different sectors.

Are there are any must read/watch resources I should be looking at before I build my content?

 

[fisicx]

Tons of really good stuff here: https://copyblogger.com/blog/

Forget YouTube, you need to be reading blogs by copywriters.

And it’s hard work creating content. Best place to begin is your marketing strategy. This will guide your direction. You can then plan your site structure. This will indicate what content goes where.

 

[Annoying Donkey]

The Brain Audit by Sean D'Souza. The book is £5 on Amazon.

 

[Darren_Ssc]

I have watched a few YouTube channels and read a few sites, and most of them seem to conflict in someway or another. I suspect this is because each of them built their copywriting expertise working in different sectors.

Discount pretty much anything where someone is telling you how to do something for a living rather than doing it themselves.

 

[Aleksander_Gramm]

Copywriting isn't science but I recommend you to start from Claude Clarence Hopkins Scientific Advertising (was published in 1923). You'll be surprised but little has changed since 1923.
Also I recommend you to read David Ogilvy's books.
This is my marketing&copywriting teacher https://www.repiev.ru/index-Eng.htm Marketing thinking is a good book to learn copywriting

This source can help you
https://copyhackers.com/blog/

Copywriting is a craft, there is a little knowledge but you need an experience and a good ear for copywriting (or talent).

So I recommend you to hire copywriter. If it acceptable for you, I can recommend you the experienced copywriter from Upwork, she is a native speaker and she knows SEO.

 

[Deleted member 59730]

2 of the best copy headlines from the last century.

GO TO WORK ON AN EGG. for the Egg Marketing Board

OHWHATALOTIGOT. for Smarties

There is no way you can learn to write like that. Reputedly they are both by Fay Wheldon.

 

[Darren_Ssc]

2 of the best copy headlines from the last century.

GO TO WORK ON AN EGG. for the Egg Marketing Board

OHWHATALOTIGOT. for Smarties

There is no way you can learn to write like that. Reputedly they are both by Fay Wheldon.

'Naughty but nice'.......Salman Rushdie

'Opal Fruits, made to make your mouth water.'....Murray Walker

 

[Carl Nixon]

Thanks everyone, some great resources there that I will check out this weekend. Thanks.

Unfortunately, hiring someone in at this stage is a no go. I'm only setting up a business just in case I lose job to the corona situation. If I lose my job (about a 25% chance at the moment), I will set myself back up as a freelancer. At the moment I'm just setting things up with the bare minimum spend, just so I can hit the ground running should I need to.

If I do lose my job, I will hire in professionals then. If I don't lose my job, I will just keep things going as a sideline but I wont invest any money in it. (Hopefully that makes sense)

 

[saythisinstead.co.uk]

Just go straight to the best. Dan Kennedy. The Ultimate Sales Letter

 

[ethical PR]

Thanks everyone, some great resources there that I will check out this weekend. Thanks.

Unfortunately, hiring someone in at this stage is a no go. I'm only setting up a business just in case I lose job to the corona situation. If I lose my job (about a 25% chance at the moment), I will set myself back up as a freelancer. At the moment I'm just setting things up with the bare minimum spend, just so I can hit the ground running should I need to.

If I do lose my job, I will hire in professionals then. If I don't lose my job, I will just keep things going as a sideline but I wont invest any money in it. (Hopefully that makes sense)

What services will you be offering?

 

[Carl Nixon]

What services will you be offering?

I offer programming services bases around Excel (VBA) and Python. This is mostly used for automating business processes and for manipulating and processing data.

 

[madeads]

I would suggest to check out your competitors and see what kind of language, writing style/technique they're using for their websites.

Learning copywriting in general is a good idea, but unless you can successfully apply it on your own website, then knowledge on its own is not much use.

Mind you, I'm NOT saying to copy your competitors, but you can definitely model their strategy and come up with your own twist.

 

[AllUpHere]

I would suggest to check out your competitors and see what kind of language, writing style/technique they're using for their websites.

Learning copywriting in general is a good idea, but unless you can successfully apply it on your own website, then knowledge on its own is not much use.

Mind you, I'm NOT saying to copy your competitors, but you can definitely model their strategy and come up with your own twist.

I'd say the complete opposite is true.

 

[madeads]

I'd say the complete opposite is true.

Completely ignore your competition and what's currently working, then come up with something yourself from scratch without knowing if it's going to do well or not?

Sounds like a fantastic way to waste time and money. On the other hand, if you like testing and have the means to do it, then best of luck.

 

[AllUpHere]

Completely ignore your competition and what's currently working, then come up with something yourself from scratch without knowing if it's going to do well or not?

Sounds like a fantastic way to waste time and money. On the other hand, if you like testing and have the means to do it, then best of luck.

How do you know that what your competitors is doing is working? Try your approach with something like Adwords (or Google Ads I suppose I should call it) and you are in a race to the bottom.

 

[madeads]

How do you know that what your competitors is doing is working? Try your approach with something like Adwords (or Google Ads I suppose I should call it) and you are in a race to the bottom.

I've done it numerous times for Google Ads and it works perfectly well - the key is choosing the right competitor to "copy".

I'm not saying to blindly start doing what others are doing. However, if you do a bit of research and find a company who has been in business for the last 20 years, they have a professional website and their reviews are sparkling, then that gives you a clue that whatever they're doing works quite well.

 

[AllUpHere]

I've done it numerous times for Google Ads and it works perfectly well - the key is choosing the right competitor to "copy".

I'm not saying to blindly start doing what others are doing. However, if you do a bit of research and find a company who has been in business for the last 20 years, they have a professional website and their reviews are sparkling, then that gives you a clue that whatever they're doing works quite well.

If you want to rely on luck to provide your results that's fine.

The fact that a company has been going for a number of years, has a professional looking website, and has great reviews is no indication their copy is working. It's not even an indication their advertising is working. For all you know, they could be blindly dumping a few grand on PPC campaigns without once ever checking they are getting a return. It happens all the time, and then amateur marketers come along and presume what they are doing is working, without any indication whatsoever that this is actually the case.

PPC is one of those promotional tools in which a clueless competitor can cause you more problems than a clued up one.

 

[fisicx]

However, if you do a bit of research and find a company who has been in business for the last 20 years, they have a professional website and their reviews are sparkling, then that gives you a clue that whatever they're doing works quite well.

Or it means they brought out a competitor, have a pretty but ineffective website and paid for reviews.

I know of a number of businesses who have done this.

 

[The Byre]

Discount pretty much anything where someone is telling you how to do something for a living rather than doing it themselves.

THIS! THIS again!

On every subject THIS!

If someone is not doing something and is not speaking from the rockface, you should pretty much discount anything they have to say about some subject. Forums and even books are filled with the wisdom of armchair warriors.

As Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote, "Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles from the cornfield."

 

[AllUpHere]

THIS! THIS again!

On every subject THIS!

If someone is not doing something and is not speaking from the rockface, you should pretty much discount anything they have to say about some subject. Forums and even books are filled with the wisdom of armchair warriors.

As Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote, "Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles from the cornfield."

We wouldn't have much of a forum left if only those who were at the coal face could post with authority. I write copy most days, and a large part of my income relies on it being effective. There is a lot of rubbish written by 'experts'.

Unfortunately, and by their very nature, forums will be largely populated by content from those with nothing better to do.

 

[UKSBD]

As Dwight D. Eisenhower wrote, "Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil and you're a thousand miles from the cornfield."

They should make architects or more precisely, the people who draw up the technical information, work on a building site in the middle of winter, before they're allowed to say how things should be done.

 

[Deleted member 59730]

I've done it numerous times for Google Ads and it works perfectly well - the key is choosing the right competitor to "copy".
.

Two major companies spring to mind. Having used both Tesco and Sainsbury Click and Collect recently I can say that their websites and search engines both have the same basic faults. Obviously they copy each other. You would think that 2 major companies could at least do better than one man band photographers at running a database website.

As for Waitrose, life is too short.

 

[Deleted member 59730]

Unfortunately, and by their very nature, forums will be largely populated by content from those with nothing better to do.

Mr D for instance?

 

[AllUpHere]

Mr D for instance?

Personally, I don't value Mr D's posts, but if he had anything else to do, and couldn't be on here 24 / 7 posting 10's of thousands of times, the forum would be noticeably quieter. Sometimes the new posts list is just a list of stuff Mr D has posted when everyone else has been working or sleeping. A surprisingly small amount of members keep this forum looking busy.