“What’s more”, “Nevertheless”, “Of course”, “Needless to say”… Why do some reviewers think these devices are too informal for sentence-starters? Oh, and let’s not forget “Importantly”, “Just as importantly”, “Additionally” and “Furthermore”!
I wouldn’t say it happens all the time, but enough to make me wonder. After pointing to something in my copywriting portfolio and saying, [...]

I is a copywriter. So my blog posts are all free of grammatical errors and semantic ambiguities, right? Nup.
I write much as I speak. So my style is conversational and my posts share some of the errors of speech. And that’s ok. For two reasons:

My style is CLEARLY conversational. Readers see the signals immediately, so [...]

I’m curious. My gut tells me that if the design of your website or brochure is wrong for your audience, you’re wasting your money investing in copywriting.
Well, maybe not wasting it, but certainly not making the most of it.
First impressions count. And I reckon if your design’s tacky, people will conclude that your product or [...]

Perhaps it’s the second coffee talking. Or maybe I’ve just been thinking about SEO for too long (*yawn*). Whatever the case, this morning, it’s time for something a little lighter.
Bring on the songwriting discussion!
A while back, I discussed how effectively the lyrics of Cold Chisel’s ‘Bow River’ captivate the band’s target audience. And how we [...]

In today’s blog post at Search Engine Journal, Ann Smarty reveals results indicating that Google penalizes sites with over-optimized internal links.
Specifically, she examined the effect of linking to the Home page using keyword rich anchor text. These results are very instructive (thanks Ann!), and they make a lot of sense. Google is right to [...]

In his acclaimed book, The Adweek Copywriting Handbook, copywriting big-gun Joseph Sugarman likens sales copy to a slippery slide. He says the sole purpose of the headline is to get the reader to read the first line of copy, the sole purpose of the first line of copy is to get the reader to read [...]

Which do you use? US or British (Australian) English in your web copy?
Your website is globally accessible, so your readers could come from anywhere. It may seem a trivial consideration, but many readers really care. British readers, for instance, tend to have a strong preference for British English. US readers tend to prefer US English. [...]

If there’s one piece of advice I’d offer to copywriters (other than embrace SEO), it’d be, “Use more contractions!”
I’ve lost count of the number of freelancers who’ve sent me samples chock-full of things like “we will” and “you are” and “we are”. Even fairly conservative audiences like to read the way they speak (within limits). [...]

We all know the advertising truism: focus on the positives, not the negatives. You’ll sell more by talking up the benefits of buying, than you will by harping on the risks of not.
In his book, ‘Scientific Advertising’, legendary ad-man, Claude Hopkins, says:
“We are attracted by sunshine, beauty, happiness, health, success. Then point the way to [...]

It’s been a while since my last post. Sorry! But I have a good reason, honest…
As you’ve probably already guessed from my headline, Divine Write has launched a copywriting forum. It’ll interest copywriters, business owners, marketing managers and webmasters most, but ‘regular’ writers will also find it useful (I hope). Current forums include:

General copywriting
SEO copywriting
Web [...]