Well, I’ve been out with Covid for a while, but thankfully I’ve made a full recovery. In today’s blog post, I want to talk about one of the most important tools you can use when creating websites, advertisements, emails, and anything else that involves writing…

Conversational writing.

Conversational writing is key to keeping your reader engaged. The best part is that you don’t have to be an English major in college to use this important tool. When writing conversationally, you don’t have to worry about all the dos and don’ts of proper English grammar because you aren’t trying to be “proper”. Your goal is to capture the way ordinary people talk to each other and then put it on paper.

That throws the door wide open to slang, slogans, and even (gasp) unfinished sentences. That being said, you shouldn’t throw good grammar out the window entirely. Here are a few tips on how to write conversational copy that flows well and keeps your reader engaged.

Find Your Audience

As always, you need to know who you're going to be writing to. That way you can make sure that you use phrases they’re familiar with. This will help the reader feel like you’re “one of them”. Different cultures and genres have their own unique set of words, and you can usually figure out how they’re used via a quick Google search. 

For example, if you’re writing a blog post about Marvel movies, you’ll be using a lot of terms, phrases, and one-liners that fans would be familiar with. Thankfully when you’re dealing with something as popular and widespread as Marvel, you won’t have to spend too much time finding resources for research.

The same principle applies to your website pages. Find out who your ideal customer is and then learn how to speak their language. Now that you have your audience’s attention and are speaking their language, it’s time to move on to the last step.

Gently Pull Them

You can’t literally reach through the computer screen and gently tug the arm of your website visitor, but the good news is you don’t have to. Let your web page copy do the work for you. Here’s how to get your website visitor to stay engaged:

• Have an interesting introduction

• Keep feeding them information that appeals to them as they continue down the page

• Add links to other pages they would be interested in

• Close with an appropriate call to action (CTA)

If I’m not mistaken, I’ve already mentioned how important introductions are. You have to make a good impression, let your reader know what the rest of the page includes, and get them interested in reading the rest of what you’ve written, all at the same time. That means it might not be such a bad idea to double-check your opening paragraphs from here on out.

While you need to let people know what this page has in store for them, you shouldn’t overload the introduction. You need to have useful or interesting tips, facts, etc. sprinkled throughout the entire page. Think of the paragraphs as episodes in a tv show. You want the episode to be complete, while still leaving a little bit out so that people will want to watch the next one.

As far as links go, you can put them wherever you feel is best. Just make sure you pick the right words to use for a hyperlink and not a random string of words in the middle of your paragraph.

Then all you have to do is finish strong. This is where you can give a brief summary of everything the person just read and present them with a call to action (CTA). If you’re writing a blog post, it might be a CTA to have the person read another article or check out the product you were describing. If it’s a home page you would want several CTAs that are encouraging people to visit the other pages on your website.

The most important thing in all of this is to make sure there’s a natural flow to your copy. These tips I just gave you won’t work if there isn’t a flow. That’s why having conversational copy is so important. And if you ever need help go ahead and contact me, I’d be glad to help.