Free Copywriting Guide

Copywriting is a fundamental skill for any online writer.

Even if you don't aspire to become a highly paid copywriter yourself, you will almost certainly need some copywriting skills to sell your books and e-books, your services, and, yes, yourself, via the web.

Many writers are unfamiliar with the art of Internet copywriting, and even perhaps a little suspicious of it. However, the good news is that there are certain basic skills anyone can quite easily learn and apply.

And the even better news is that a comprehensive introductory guide to this subject called Make Your Words Sell is currently being given away free of charge.

Make Your Words Sell is by Ken Evoy (the man behind the popular Site Build It website research and building tool) and professional copywriter Joe Robson (creator of the hugely popular Newbie Club).

Make Your Words Sell explains how to write Internet sales copy that first grabs readers' attention, and then persuades and motivates them into action. Here are just some of the things it reveals:

• How to use the 'SWAT-it-to-death' technique to master the key skills that trouble most copywriters, amateur or pro.
• How to create the perfect USP.
• How to write headlines that pull without hyping.
• How to generate huge numbers of benefits for your product or service
• How to identify the benefits that are the most important to your customers.
• And how to word those benefits perfectly in your copy to get the sale!

Make Your Words Sell formerly sold for $29.95 (and was great value at that price). It's currently available free, with no strings attached. I don't know how long this offer will last, however - so if you're at all interested in Internet copywriting, I highly recommend visiting the Make Your Words Sell website and picking up your free copy today.

• And don't forget too - if reading Make Your Words Sell gives you a taste for copywriting, The Ultimate Copywriter from WCCL will give you the in-depth advice you need to set yourself up as a professional Internet copywriter.

Review: The Ultimate Copywriter

The Ultimate Copywriter is the latest in WCCL's range of products and courses for writers, which also includes my courses Write Any Book in Under 28 Days and Quick Cash Writing.

The Ultimate Copywriter is by professional copywriter Mel McIntyre, also known as Top Copy Guy. It is provided on CD-ROM in both PDF and audio (MP3) format. It is therefore suitable for all computing platforms, Microsoft Windows, Macintosh and Linux.

The first thing I noticed about The Ultimate Copywriter is that it is very well written. Some advertising copywriters I know seem unable to write in normal English, but that is evidently not the case with Mel McIntyre. The content is neatly set out, and (like all WCCL products) it has clearly been professionally designed and edited. The usual 24-hour customer support is available from WCCL's dedicated help site at www.myhelphub.com.

The main part of The Ultimate Copywriter is a substantial manual of over 180 pages. It is divided into eight sections, plus appendices. It begins by explaining what copywriting is, and how writers can break into this lucrative field. After that, it gets down to the nitty-gritty of how to write good advertising copy.

The manual covers various copywriting tasks. Three that are discussed in particular detail are writing copy for websites, writing a sales letter, and writing a press release. Other avenues such as article writing are also covered, though in less detail.

The advice in the guide is backed up with copious examples. Mel has written and/or edited advertising copy for WCCL, and I found it especially interesting to read his in-depth analysis of the website sales copy for their Write a Movie in a Month course. Mel shows how the '15-point sales letter formula' described in his guide was used to create and structure the web page in question. As this is one of WCCL's best-selling products, it certainly appears to have worked.

There are not one but two sections devoted to how to get work as a copywriter, and these will be of particular interest to new copywriters. I found Mel's advice - and the examples of how he got his first copywriting jobs - quite inspiring, and I will definitely be trying out some of these strategies myself. He also lists a number of websites that regularly advertise opportunities for copywriters, including several I was previously unaware of.

How does The Ultimate Copywriter compare with WCCL's other copywriting guide, Power Copywriting by Bob Serling, which I reviewed in this blog post a few months ago? The most obvious difference is that The Ultimate Copywriter is aimed four-square at writers who want to break into this field. Power Copywriting is good, but it has a different target readership. It is basically a tool for website owners and entrepreneurs who want to write their own copy. The Ultimate Copywriter also covers a wider range of copywriting tasks than Power Copywriting, which is basically all about creating website sales pages.

In fact, though, you don't have to choose between them, as if you buy The Ultimate Copywriter, for the launch period at least you will get Power Copywriting thrown in free, along with various other special bonuses. Considering that The Ultimate Copywriter is currently selling for almost the same price as Power Copywriting, this looks like a good deal to me.

Do I have any criticisms of The Ultimate Copywriter? To be honest, very few. It is a well written, comprehensive guide, and most aspects of freelance copywriting are covered. There is perhaps a slight bias towards online copywriting, but I guess this is understandable in a guide sold via the Internet! The online marketplace is of course huge and growing every day, but it might have been nice to see a bit more about the 'traditional' opportunities for copywriters that still exist, e.g. writing brochures, leaflets and newspaper ads.

Still, this is only a minor criticism. If you want a guide that will get you started in the exciting world of freelance copywriting, I highly recommend The Ultimate Copywriter, especially with the range of free bonus items currently on offer.

Review: Power Copywriting

Power Copywriting is a new course just released by my publishers WCCL. It's written by top US copywriter Bob Serling, and is provided as an instant download in the standard PDF format.

Power Copywriting is 149 pages long. My first impression on opening it on my PC was that it was well written and neatly presented. However, this is the sort of manual you really do need to print out to get the most from. Fortunately WCCL have not built in any copyright-protection features that stop you doing this, so you can print all or any of the pages if you like.

Power Copywriting is primarily about writing website copy, though many of the principles set out would apply equally to other forms of copywriting, e.g. sales letters.

At the heart of the manual is Bob Serling's "32 Step Power Formula" for creating compelling website copy. In general I was highly impressed with this. I always like how-to guides that provide easy-to-understand, step-by-step instructions, and Bob certainly delivers here. One point that came across very clearly to me is that website copywriting is about much more than just sitting down and spinning out a few paragraphs of purple prose. Bob emphasises the importance of researching the product or service you are marketing in great depth. As he says, if you have all the facts about the product at your fingertips, actually writing the sales material becomes quite easy and straightforward.

Another point I gleaned from the manual is that successful copywriting is very much a two-way street with your client. Bob regards it as an important aspect of the copywriter's work to come up with a compelling offer that a customer simply can't say no to. That may mean getting back to your client and suggesting that he offers more and better bonuses, a beefed-up money-back guarantee, and so on. This is certainly something I can identify with from my own experience of copywriting. You must be prepared to liaise with your client to help him come up with the strongest possible offer (while still allowing him to turn a fair profit!).

After the (long) chapter devoted to explaining the 32-Step Formula, there is a Workshop section where Bob shows how he applied the formula in an actual copywriting assignment. He goes through all 32 steps in order, showing how he incorporated them in the finished sales copy (which is reproduced in the manual as well). This is very informative, and actually includes some additional advice and information that is well worth taking on board.

As an occasional copywriter myself, I picked up a lot of useful tips from this manual, and I'm sure my copywriting is going to improve massively as a result. There was just the odd thing I disagreed with, including Bob's recommendation to split long copy over a number of different web pages with a 'click to continue' button at the foot of each. In fact, in my experience this is seldom done on the web today, and I think for good reason - each time the prospect gets to the foot of a page he has to click to continue, and if he can't be bothered to do this, you have lost him. Personally I think it is better to keep your sales copy to a single page, even if it does end up quite a long one!

In addition to the main manual, buyers of Power Copywriting also get five bonus audio interviews in MP3 format, from copywriting gurus Joe Vitale, Marlon Sanders, Audri Lanford, Corey Rudl and Declan Dunn. I must admit I haven't listened to these yet, as the total file size is over 300MB, and even with my broadband connection Firefox tells me it will take over two hours to download! I definitely intend to do this, however, probably overnight, as these guys really are the creme-de-la-creme of Internet copywriters.

Finally, I should emphasise that Power Copywriting is all about writing web-based sales copy. If you want to know how to do this, whether for your own sites or on behalf of your clients, I recommend it highly. It's well written with lots of examples to support the points made, and would be suitable for beginners as well as people such as myself who have some knowledge of copywriting but realise they still have plenty to learn. One thing Power Copywriting doesn't do, however, is tell you how to set up your own copywriting business. Still, I understand that WCCL have a new course on that subject coming out next year!