Maybe you've heard the term "copywriting" somewhere or maybe you haven't. Either way, I'm going to show you in this crash course why copywriting is SUPER important for your business website.

Ramit Sethi and Ben Settle, two kings of successful online entrepreneurs, have both openly stated that hour-for-hour, copywriting is the most profitable skill you can learn for your online business.

But what the heck is copywriting?

Copywriting is selling on paper. It helps you convert more of your readers to customers.

Copywriting can be lumped under the web topic of "conversion rate optimization." But it should not be underestimated. It is possibly the most overlooked and underutilized area of "CRO."

Can you see how powerful it can be? Imagine converting two to five times more people. The famed businessman Jay Abraham has often argued that it's easier to convert twice as many customers than to double the traffic.

Separating the good from bad copywriters

Some people who know what copywriting is but aren't overly familiar with it assume that copywriting is a form of rewriting the words on your page in a overhypey, salesy way. Like the image below:

They then go on to hire a bad copywriter who returns a weird looking sales page or revised site page that looks weird, hypey, gimmickey, and does not speak in the voice or personality of the company's brand or site owner.

THIS IS COMPLETELY WRONG.

Real copywriting maintains the voice and brand of the company.

It effectively highlights and positions the product in the ways that have proven to trigger the most emotional response in the reader. It reads so clearly that people immediately understand it.

Do you scratch your head when you read the site?

There's a lot more to copywriting than I can say here. But there are two big mistakes I constantly see on the web:

1) The headlines (and overall text on the page) leaves the reader confused. Instead, stop using complicated jargon. Say it in plain english so a five year old can understand it.

You have only a couple seconds to convey your point. For example, instead of "We package and curate Amazon republishing resellers in intricate processors", say "We sell and ship Amazon products fast."

2) There is no positioning or highlighting of benefits in a way that is persuasive.

Some of the most important pages on small businesses' sites make me want to roll over in my grave. And I'm not even dead yet!

It's just a wall of text talking about random facts related to their industry.

There is a certain art to selling, so I can't give you complete instructions to follow. But here's some advice: Try to highlight how you're different from competitors, what positive emotions the product will bring up in the prospect when it solves its intended problem, and why they need to act now.

Good luck. You're now ahead of the crowd.

With this short crash course, you're already eons ahead of most people online. They have no idea and therefore their ads, web pages, business cards, and everything else are literally leaking cash. That's because they're missing out on profits from the unoptimized sales copy all over their site.

Have any questions? Let me know in the comments.