10 Must-Know Rules for Effective Copywriting

Understand who your audience is and write for them. 

Do your readers want to be entertained, informed, or educated? How can your article provide value to them?

• The title is a promise of value and benefit to the reader from reading it. The writer must create intrigue to capture the reader’s attention, generate interest, and encourage them to read. 
• Headings often are not finished until the writing is ready for publishing. 
• Be careful not to give empty promises or use a clickbait title. We want to build rapport with readers to enhance our credibility — not leave the reader feeling empty-handed.

Copy needs to keep the reader's attention long enough for them to get to the punchline or call to action. If the reader is only scrolling through your writing without actually taking it all in, then it's going to be pretty hard to get your message across. 

Start your writing with an idea that is interesting and relevant to the audience, otherwise, people might only read a couple of sentences and decide it is not worth their time.

Copy should evoke emotion. We want the reader to feel something.

Creating tension is a great way to elicit an emotional response. Tension attracts attention. Creating a line between two things generates conversation through tension.

Storytelling feels real, immediate and personal. 

Good writing should tell the narrative to capture the moments and experiences shared by humans. A human component to a brand increases consumer trust, as it helps the brand seem more relatable.

The tone of your writing influences your brand identity. It is what you say and how you say it.

If done well and the writer uses relevant visuals that complement the copy, visuals can encourage the reader to read the rest of the text.

The worst thing you can do as a writer is making your writing harder to read. 

• Learning how to structure writing often comes from the experience of organizing and shaping many different types of material into pieces of content. 
• Some writers use a templated structure, others first get their ideas down on paper to gain a sense of what pattern or format emerges. 
• Do not try to format writing online like a traditional document, writing in long paragraphs. 
• Every new idea should be on a separate line and your writing should be simple with minimal jargon and easy for the reader to follow.

Writing should have the intent to impact the perceptions and ideas of the reader. After the aha moment, our goal with writing is often to encourage the reader to take a particular course of action. 

The desired response to the call to action should be clear, specific and straightforward.