|  | Writing for the web (long copy vs. short copy) Many direct marketers say: "Long copy sells more than short copy". There is some truth to this... but my take on the subject is a bit different. The web is a new medium and copywriters should learn to adapt to it's audience. The key to writing the right amount of copy is this: "Copy is never to short or to long if the reader takes the action you request". Studies have proven that internet users have shorter attention-spans than book or magazine readers. Thus, your copy should be even more compeling and generate more interest than never before. Your copy must be so riveting that it will be read from the beginning to the end. Everything else is secondary. If you don't write compeling copy, you'll never get the reader to read the part of the copy that does the selling of your product or service... and you'll lose the sale! Will people read long copy? Sure they will, but only if that copy is interesting enough. According to old copywriters: "Copy should be like a woman's skirt. It should be long enough to cover everything, but short enough to make it interesting". And this concept has never been so true as with the internet. Your copy should be long enough to tell the entire story, to make the entire sales pitch and to get your points across. Not any longer and not any shorter. If you make it shorter you will not build enough interest on your product and you'll loose your prospect; on the other hand, if your copy is to long, you will bore your reader and he or she will click out of your website faster than a lottery winner makes new friends... =) The price factor. There is another factor that greatly influences the amount of copy you write: the price of your product or service. I've seen low-ticket items in the $20-$50 dollar range being sold with just three short paragraphs of tight and highly-seducing copy. But you should not even try to sell a high-ticket item with just a few paragraphs of copy... no matter how good your writing is. In my experience, longer copy is a *must* for higher-ticket items. Back to section 2 |