Copywriting Learned In Five Steps

By Darrel Hawes

Learning to write good advertising copy is a worthwhile endeavor, whether you are a business owner looking to write better ads, or desire a freelance writing career. It's an ability that is sure to help you in many areas of your business.

Some ideas to for you to consider as you are working to become skilled at copywriting:

1. Take a course. Many copywriting courses are available, both by mail order and the internet. Here are some programs to check out: programs by AWAI, Ray Edwards' Web Copywriting Explained, and Breakthrough Copywriting by Michel Fortin and David Garfinkel. There are many excellent courses, but just make sure those teaching actually know what they are talking about.

2. You can hire a mentor to teach and guide you. This is a major investment in time and money, but is a decision many copywriters make. However, this doesn't necessarily have to be the case if you don't want it to be, as many successful business owners have learned the skill of copy on their own.

3. Be constantly studying good marketing and advertising. Any good copywriter does this. When an ad engages you emotionally, do your best to dissect it and discover why.

4. Build your own swipe file. A swipe file is a collection of ads that copywriters use for inspiration and to model their own ads. You should save ads out of magazines, newspapers, web pages, direct mail, or anywhere else you find them. In addition, you can purchase books with hundreds of examples of effective ads and this can be a very quick and easy way to get access to these examples.

5. Learn by doing. That's the way people have always learned best. A successful advertisement is one people have responded favorably to, so look for way to inexpensively and efficiently test the waters. It is relatively easy to advertise on the internet. You can promote products as an affiliate and inform people of it through pay per click ads with Google, Yahoo, or MSN.

There's also Craigslist, eBay, and local classified newspapers.

The most important aspect is to keep at it all the time. Read well-written copy, write, and check out what works.

About the Author:

If you are trying to increase traffic to your web site, see Darrel Hawes' site for help in getting more traffic, and generating more leads.