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Online Copywriting 101: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet — Part 2
To those who missed the first lesson, how nice of you to join us…
Isn’t this stuff easier now that the Web’s getting smarter? With a subject like copywriting, there are so many smart people out there, sharing so much information, faster than ever, that it’s important to study all the different ways writers can harness and leverage that power.
That’s what these online writing techniques can do. They’ll help you persuade; to share your ideas and promote your agenda in a way that other people want to hear; to speak without speaking, to customers, would-be clients, or anyone else who should hear what you have to say.
So, pens and pencils down. Let’s get started…
Recap
51.) “Grok’s Copywriting Cheat Sheet Explained” — E-Marketing Performance
Copy Length
52.) “Long Copy vs. Short Copy Tested” — Marketing Experiments Journal
53.) “Gr8t Web 2.0 Copy” — GrokDotCom
54.) “Is Less More in Copywriting?” — Attversumption.com
Word Choice, Formatting & Usability
55.) Perception of Fonts: Perceived Personality Traits and Uses — University of Wichita psych department study
56.) “Revenge of the Pixels: The Battle for Screen Real Estate” — GrokDotCom
57.) “How to Write Persuasive Links” — GrokDotCom
58.) “Oldest Remaining… A Copywriting Tip” — Seth’s Blog
59.) “6 Common Punctuation Errors That Bedevil Bloggers” — Copyblogger
60.) “10 Flagrant Grammar Mistakes That Make You Look Stupid” — ZDnet.co.uk
61.) “30+ Tools for the Amateur Writer” — Mashable
62.) “When Developers Write Copy” — GrokDotCom
63.) Before & After — It’s not only the words that count but how they look as well. Fonts
communicate meaning. What’s the right typeface for your text?
64.) Readability.info — Test your website’s reading level by a variety of standards.
65.) “The Blog Readability Test” — What level of education is required to understand your blog? (Sometimes writing at an elementary school level is a good thing.)
66.) Dafont.com — All the fonts you don’t but kinda want to have anyway.
67.) ConfusingWords.com — A collection of 3210 words that are troublesome for readers.
68.) NoSlang.com — List of commonly misused words
69.) iTools — An assortment of language tools in one place
70.) ConvertCase.net — Accidentally write something lengthy with the Caps Lock on? No problem. This tool converts it for you.
71.) TypeTester — Compare fonts side-by-side
Active vs. Passive Voice
72.) “Activate Your Verbs” — GrokDotCom
73.) “Two Pieces of Bad Writing Advice — And What to Do Instead” — GrokDotCom (Actionable advice on when, where and how to let the passive voice take control in order to protect the subject.)
Writing for Personas
74.) “Persuasive Copywriting for Beginners (And Dummies!)” — GrokDotCom (Engaging different personality types.)
75.) “Eyetracking, Heatmaps & Gaze Plots! Oh my…” — GrokDotCom (Learn how to structure content to write for different personas on the same page.)
76.) “The New Targeting” — Monday Morning Memo by Roy Williams
77.) “Dishing Out What the Customer Really Wants” — GrokDotCom (Engaging different personality types.)
78.) “You Must Unlearn What You Have Learned” — Web Ink Now (Sage advice.)
79.) “If Your Personas Don’t Talk, Fire Them!” — GrokDotCom
Branding + Advertising Brain Food
“Advertising doesn’t create a product advantage. It can only convey it . . . No matter how skillful you are, you can’t invent a product advantage that doesn’t exist.” — Bill Bernbach
80.) “The Secret of Saying Too Little” — Monday Morning Memo
81.) “Accentuate The Negative” — GrokDotCom
82.) “Why Problem Based Positioning is a Psychological Magnet” — PsychoTactics
83.) “Are You Normal?” — Monday Morning Memo
84.) “Targeting Through Ad Copy” — Monday Morning Memo
85.) “The Intrigue Continuum” — GrokDotCom
86.) “How to Make Your Ads Sparkle” — Monday Morning Memo
87.) “Magic Words” — Monday Morning Memo (Yes, there are magic words. Do you know them?)
88.) “The Future of Ad Writing” — Monday Morning Memo
89.) “Ready. Angle. Fire.” — Monday Morning Memo
90.) “Not Everyone Can Withstand Transparency” — GrokDotCom
91.) “Stronger Ads = More Complaints” — Monday Morning Memo
92.) “Refer to an Unseen Action” — Monday Morning Memo
Monetizing Content
93.) “Free Report: Teaching Sells” — Copyblogger’s Brian Clark shows you how to leverage your content into paid offerings. A must-read, must-listen (there’s a free audio ebook as well) tutorial that shows why the Teaching Sells program is a bargain at any price for independent publishers, authors and copywriters, freelancers. It’s not a bunch of hype to sell the full program, though. Even if you just listen to the ebook, you’ll get quite a lot out of it. Clark discusses how to avoid the pitfalls and mind-traps that limit writers in the online space, and how to turn that knowledge into a career that’s real. You don’t have to be a bestseller, but you do have to know how to build an audience. If you’re looking for get-rich-quick schemes, look elsewhere. If you want to know how to get rich as quickly as you can, listen to this free report, then buy Teaching Sells.
Inspiration + Fun
94.) WordCount.org — English words dynamically ranked according to popularity. Very cool.
95.) WordAssociation.org — An ink blot test for words.
96.) Etymologic — “The Toughest Word Game on the Web”
97.) Free Rice — For each word you get right, they donate 10 grains of rice to help end world hunger
98.) “Words and Phrases That Should Exist (But Probably Don’t)” — Squidoo
99.) “The Ad Graveyard” — Daily Report
100.) Lost in Translation — “Babelize” any sentence or paragraph to see how silly you sound after being translated five times over. It’s the “telephone game” gone awry.
101.) Web Economy Bullshit Generator — A proactive keyword initiative spearheaded by Dack.com to help facilitate global ROI for the long tail in a Web 2.0 environment, or something like that.
Stay Tuned…
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Join us on June 2, 2008 in Manhattan for FutureNow’s Persuasive Online Copywriting seminar. Tickets are only $795 for this popular one-day crash course on the most profitable ways to move the bottom line with nothing more than words. Just words.
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November 13th, 2007
12:40 pm
[...] decided to start with the essentials first — but, yes, there really are 101 links! In Part 2, we share some our favorite tips, including how to use web copy to engage different customer [...]
November 13th, 2007
3:37 pm
[...] Online Copywriting 101: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet — Part 2 [...]
November 14th, 2007
9:40 pm
[...] guys at GrokDotCom put together the Second Part of the Copywriting Cheat Sheet. You can Check Out the First Part [...]
November 19th, 2007
1:09 pm
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November 20th, 2007
1:19 am
Thanks for this article. It is really great.
November 20th, 2007
6:34 am
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November 20th, 2007
6:13 pm
Great info.
November 20th, 2007
7:35 pm
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November 21st, 2007
9:42 am
Lots of info again, you certainly keep us reading!
Thanks for all the tips, I’m currently creating these kind of ‘cheat sheets’ in dutch as well, no translations but a more dutch-minded version. And these tips are really helpful!
November 21st, 2007
12:24 pm
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November 21st, 2007
5:32 pm
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November 29th, 2007
2:31 pm
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December 19th, 2007
3:00 pm
Just a reminder for those interested in join us on January 14th in sunny Orlando for our Persuasive Online Copywriting seminar, where there will be plenty of time to discuss ways to improve your online copy and branding. If you’d like to save $100, act fast — the early registration discount has been extended to December 20th. That’s tomorrow!
Thanks for reading, everyone!
-Editor, GrokDotCom
January 21st, 2008
11:44 pm
[...] to the first 5 hours and I must say it’s some great stuff! The guys at GrokDotCom put together the Second Part of the Copywriting Cheat Sheet. You can Check Out the First Part Here. Finally, Rich Schefren is offering on his blog a pdf file [...]
January 13th, 2009
7:18 pm
[...] 77. Online Copywriting 101: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet — Part 2 [...]
June 27th, 2009
1:11 am
[...] second part covers copy length, word choice, formatting & usability, active vs. passive voice, writing for [...]
June 28th, 2009
2:19 pm
[...] Online Copywriting 101: The Ultimate Cheat SheetThe ultimate cheat sheet with various Web copy resources that copywriters can use to lean the best writing tips and ideas. More copywriting cheat sheets. [...]
June 29th, 2009
10:20 am
[...] Online Copywriting 101: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet The ultimate cheat sheet with various Web copy resources that copywriters can use to lean the best writing tips and ideas. More copywriting cheat sheets. [...]
June 29th, 2009
11:46 pm
[...] Online Copywriting 101: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet The ultimate cheat sheet with various Web copy resources that copywriters can use to lean the best writing tips and ideas. More copywriting cheat sheets. [...]
June 30th, 2009
3:21 am
[...] Online Copywriting 101: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet The ultimate cheat sheet with various Web copy resources that copywriters can use to lean the best writing tips and ideas. More copywriting cheat sheets. [...]
July 2nd, 2009
1:41 am
Thanks for all the great information, I am just starting up a small copywriting business myself and the article was really helpful as well as being informative.
July 2nd, 2009
9:03 pm
[...] Online Copywriting 101: The Ultimate Cheat SheetThe ultimate cheat sheet with various Web copy resources that copywriters can use to lean the best writing tips and ideas. More copywriting cheat sheets. [...]
July 12th, 2009
10:46 am
[...] Online Copywriting 101: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet The ultimate cheat sheet with various Web copy resources that copywriters can use to lean the best writing tips and ideas. More copywriting cheat sheets. [...]
September 2nd, 2009
10:28 am
[...] Online Copywriting 101: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet The ultimate cheat sheet with various Web copy resources that copywriters can use to lean the best writing tips and ideas. More copywriting cheat sheets. [...]
September 23rd, 2009
1:14 pm
Good followup to part 1.. Are you considering a part 3? I don’t know where you would find any more content. This cheat sheet has been great. Thanks!
November 17th, 2009
11:19 pm
[...] Online Copywriting 101: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet The ultimate cheat sheet with various Web copy resources that copywriters can use to lean the best writing tips and ideas. More copywriting cheat sheets. [...]
January 23rd, 2010
2:04 am
Uff. It will take months to read all these!
Thank you !