Can I Buy You A Coffee?
I'm going to share with you one of the best tips I've ever received in my time as an Internet Marketer.
Although affiliate marketing is an important part of my business, my main passion is in creating and selling my own digital products. In the last few months I have also spent some time working with a few other people to help them either create their own products or set up effective landing pages on their sites.
The tip I am about to share with you has also been something that they agreed was a real eye-opener and changed the way they create their own content.
Forget What Your English Teacher Taught!
That's not the tip by the way - I just felt it was time for a sub-headline!
(I should also apologise to those who don't speak English as your first language but I'm sure the principles apply in whatever your native language is)
You see, when we went to school we were all taught how to write proper English grammar. We learned the importance of constructing proper sentences and using proper punctuation.
If you went to a higher college or university you probably learned how to write essays, reports and dissertations in such a way as to please the examiners and score highly in our exams or degree courses.
This is all well and good for passing exams or getting qualifications and this style of writing is drummed into us all through our early years and becomes the way we write as adults.
Here's the problem: Nobody is interested in reading "textbook style" writing when searching for information online.
In the past few months I have read articles and other content written by some of my friends which has been grammatically brilliant and full of great information but if it had been published as it was it would have totally bombed because of the formal style of the writing.
Coffee Shop Copy
Here's the tip:
Write all your content as if you were talking to your best friend over a coffee at a coffee shop.
Get out of the habit of writing formally and write in a conversational style. It doesn't matter if it's not grammatically correct as long as it makes sense and sounds natural. I'm not saying you should write sloppy work that looks unprofessional and ignore punctuation. It just needs to make sense and read well.
If you do it right then the reader will start to feel like you are talking directly to them and understanding their thoughts and needs. They will be much more engaged and will consume much more of what you write if they feel a connection with your writing style.
The longer you can keep people on your site and engaged with your content the better your chances of them clicking links which could lead to a sale. After all that's why you are here!
Next time you are creating content - remember to write it in this coffee shop conversational style and let's see if your engagement levels with readers go up.
I bet they will!
Good luck
Dave
Recent Comments
83
Boy do I feel like having a decent cup of coffee right now in a coffee shop! I haven't seen that in 6 months because of lockdown, LOL!
A face to face conversation will also be nice, we will have to stick to doing it online.
Thank you Dave for a great post.
Marelise
Hi Marelise
Thankfully the coffee shops here have been open for a few weeks now and it's nice to have a little bit of normality return.
Glad you enjoyed the post.
Thanks
Dave
Brilliant. That is exactly what must be done. In ALL our writing. Even when writing books, the grammar rules should go right out the window. (At least, not be the first rule considered)
So many things have changed since novel writing began, and since bloggers started strutting their stuff also. No one wants to be written to, just informally, softly spoken to.
Chat with people and you'll see how right Dave is.
Hi Joss
It was a real "lightbulb going off in my head" moment when I realised how powerful this was. People wont read formal writing - they want easy to consume content.
Thanks
Dave
This is great, Dave. I have tended to write formally but have also tried to write naturally at least part of the time. It's good to hear we can sit back and write conversationally.
Also, I work in health insurance (customer service) so part of what I do is take a complicated subject and put it into lay person's 'speak'. I guess it's the same for our websites.
Thank you,
Paula
Hi Paula
If you can put insurance language into lay persons speak then you can do anything with your writing 😃
People don’t want to read perfect grammar - they want helpful info that’s easy to understand.
Cheers
Dave
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hello Dave
Ditto on that
I have to say that is exactly what is happening to me, 1 year into writing here, I made an agreement with myself to achieve that state of 'FLOW' from the beginning on WA to write in a non-formal, genuine and conversational aspect.
Of course it takes time to develop that natural style when a face to face engagement isn't taking place
however writing with the essential idea of '' consider yourself as the other person''[ not as a reader just a personal friend]
when you can balance that in dialogue, fact, in a very simple art in a genuine compulsive way, you have arrived and will connect!
I am glad to say that i am finding that works for me
chris
HI Chris
When you get conditioned to write a certain way it's difficult sometimes to change to another way.
However I have found it makes such a big impact on engagement when you write in a more conversational style.
Thanks
Dave