Web writing: you must ask for the sale

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Wednesday, April 4th, 2007 Subscribe To Our Feed

All writing is sales-oriented - yes, even that Web content you’re writing for your local college. It’s sales-oriented because you’re asking for the reader’s attention, so you need to approach EVERYTHING you write from the point of view of your reader.

Unfortunately most new Web writers don’t do this, and worse, even when they’re selling their own products or services, they fail to ask for the sale.

They’re subtle. They hint. And when they do, they show that they fail to understand the Web as a writing medium, because at most, on any Web page, you’ve got around seven seconds to intrigue the reader.

When you hint, you confuse people - they wonder what the point is. What do you want? And when they’re confused, they become annoyed, and click away.

Ask for the sale, or you won’t get it

Web writers (like most writers) are a shy, nervous breed on the whole. This makes them reluctant to ASK for a sale. Now, if you’re writing your own Web site, this reluctance is your business, so it’s up to you - you don’t have to ask if you don’t want to.
However, when you’re writing for a client, you’re cheating him if you do an incompetent job. Failing to ASK is incompetence.

Do a real-life reality check

Until you’re sure that you’re actually ASKING for the response you want, ask someone else to check that what you hope is on the page is there. Ask a friend to read the page quickly, and ask him: “When you read this, is it clear what the page wants you to do?”

If it’s not clear, rewrite until it is - remember, you’ve only got seven seconds.

[tags]Web writing, Web writer, content, copywriting[/tags]