As a web developer I spend a great deal of time thinking about page design. It has taken some time to get around to thinking about the copy I place in between the nice graphics. It's not until you have to sell something on the web that you realize that while a picture paints a thousand words, it's the words that ultimately sell the picture. In her book - Web Copy That Sells - Maria Veloso takes you through the basics of creating good web copy and some of the theory behind good copywriting.

The Theme

The basic theme of the book is to teach the basic principles of web copywriting. Early on in the book, Maria makes the distinction between traditional advertising copy and copywriting for the web. While Maria obviously draws on her years of experience with traditional copywriting, she keeps to the theme which is copywriting that works for the web. The early chapters explain some of the fundamental rules for writing web copy that sells.

A Simple Blueprint

Maria expands on her opening chapters and explains her simple blueprint for 'writing killer web copy'. The blueprint involves five steps, which some of you will recognize as the five stages of defining a Unique Selling Proposition', or USP. While Maria never uses the term USP it is clearly the foundation for the blueprint. Maria then expands on the blueprint drawing on several examples as she fleshes out some actual web copy.

From Prospects To Purchasers

It's no good prospects visiting your site if no one buys is the subject matter for the next few chapters. From the 'Zeigarnik' effect to 'Neurolinguistic Programming' you are taken through the basics of linguistic binds to cognitive dissonance. I don't mean this to be a complete turnoff, just making the point that Maria does a reasonable job at explaining some of psychology involved in copywriting and places these theories in context.

Crafting Your Copy

This is the nuts and bolts chapter of the book which covers in detail the construction of killer web copy. The chapter covers all the basic information from the starting point of a USP, to the details of headlines and vocabulary. Maria discusses the value of testimonials and the merits of long copy versus short copy on the web. This chapter builds on previous areas and provides sufficient detail to enable anyone to make a reasonable attempt at creating good copy.

Email Marketing

If you had to name one killer Internet application, it would have to be email. It's therefore important to realize that writing good copy is not restricted to websites, but applies equally to email. I was therefore delighted to see that there is an excellent chapter that covers this area in great detail. Maria has done an excellent job at covering all the main topics from email basics of formatting and signature files to opt-in offers and auto responders.

Summary

Maria Veloso does an excellent job at explaining the fundamentals of good web copywriting. She writes with the authority of someone with 27 years of copywriting and direct-response marketing. The book is well thought out and assumes no previous copywriting experience. All the psycho babel in the psychology section is explained simply with plenty of examples. The chapter on email marketing is a real bonus. My only gripe would be some of the examples of web sites used to show good web copy. While the web copy may work, the designer in me is crying out to make them look a little better.

Tetsou