Copywriting

Two important aspects of copywriting for website content involves the use of adjectives and verbs. In the previous section on website writing you learned a little about jujitsu writing.

Jujitsu is the philosophy of using an attacker's energy against him, rather than directly opposing it.

The mental energy used to read has some natural defensive moves. So how is it possible to use the power of the mind against itself? Again, use some of the rules of copywriting for the web.

Following the rules and enhance your conversion. The first rule involves adjectives.

Kill the Adjective or Kill Your Conversion

Conversion is getting visitors to onto your product, offering or sign-up. In a sense, to get them to click through, to stay on your site or at the best, to book mark your site is a conversion.

Adjectives can kill conversions. Kill the adjectives before they kill your conversion.

To understand how, consider what you do when you get spammed. Generally any e-mail you get that has the word Viagra in it will get deleted from your in box. Why?

It is blatantly not what you want. Suppose the spam starts talking about a New and Improved, Unbelievable Once in a Life Time you only have 5 seconds to make a decision offering.

How do you respond...oops, there are only three seconds left.The spam filters of your brain have already deleted the offering from the in box of your brain.

Why? Because our brain registers adjectives as spam.

Back in school we were taught to use adjectives with wild abandon. One English teacher, Ms Bartholomew taught me to take my thesauruses to bed, tuck it under the pillow and become best friends.

Some will dismiss adjectives as imprecise. Personally, I think they are like spice. Use too much and you ruin the dish. Use the same spice over and over and the meal will be boring. Go ahead and use them but sparingly and carefully.

A better description might be that adjectives are like the chocolate candy that has a surprise center. Too much chocolate will make you sick. However the chocolate also hides what the real center is. That center and what it tastes like is relates to the second reason it is good to kill the adjective.

To appreciate this, try to describe a cherry. What does a cherry taste like. Go ahead. Try to describe a cherry. In revealing what a cherry tastes like, you will see why it is sometimes necessary to kill the adjectives.

What does any adjective mean? The definition can be different things to the various readers. So what does a cherry taste like? Would you let someone else add or eliminate the ingredients to the meal you prepare. Because the meaning of an adjective could vary, it is like letting the reader change the ingredients.

3) Adjectives, like spam, are often tuned out by the spam filters of our brain. People want useful information that will help with what ever job they have to accomplish. Spam it and lose the conversion.

If adjectives are out, then what moves will help win the visitor. Jujitsu writing, using their mental power against themselves involves using verbs.

How do verbs have power?

First get a brief overview of the power of Verbs for web copywriting.

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