My friend Glenn doesn’t know a lot about WordPress. And what he does know gets him into trouble more often than not. In fact that’s how we met on Twitter. Glenn had a WordPress question and I had the answer.
What Glenn does know a lot about is writing. Copywriting and SEO are his bread and butter. So when Glenn wanted to help bloggers improve their writing skills he teamed up with the best blogger he knows, Darren Rowse of Problogger.
But Glenn and Darren wanted to do something more than just another Problogger guest post. They knew that bloggers love two things:
- Checklists they can follow
- Scores they can use to compare themselves to everyone else
And so the two of them got together and created the Copywriting Scorecard for Bloggers. I’m going to be sneaky and share three of their best tips for you right here.
Write Effective Headlines (3 Points)
A killer headline will make or break a blog post. Take a look at the blog posts that get the most retweets, Stumbles, and Diggs. Notice what they all have in common? Great headlines!
Look at the headline for this blog post. Did it make you want to click through and find out more? (I hope so, or Glenn will be laughing at me right now).
Use Short Sentences for Impact (3 Points)
Read this sentence.
Social media is any form of online publication or presence that allows end users to engage in multi-directional conversations in or around the content on the website, using web-based technologies to transform and broadcast media monologues into social media dialogues, and is believed to be a driving force in defining the current time period as the Attention Age.
If you read it all, congratulations. I’m betting most of you just skimmed over it.
Long sentences are boring and hard to read. Write shorter sentences. Your readers will thank you for it.
Promise an Outcome (2 Points)
I’ve already promised you one outcome in the headline. By following these three tips you will instantly improve your blogging.
You’ll find the other 60 tips in The Copywriting Scorecard for Bloggers.
63 tips sounds like a lot doesn’t it. Are you expected to check off 63 items every time you write a blog post?
No, thats the beauty of this. Glenn is a teacher, so this ebook contains more than 50 pages of copywriting advice specifically tailored for bloggers. The scorecard is just your way of finding out where you stand right now, and where you need to improve.
When you find a weakness in your writing all you need to do is look up that section in the ebook, learn how to improve that part of your writing, and put it into practice. In no time it will become second nature and you’ll be writing high quality blog posts with complete ease.
Buy The Copywriting Scorecard for Bloggers right now for just $29.97. Thats a bargain for this kind of advice from a 17 year copywriting veteran and the world’s most successful blogger.
Image Credit: Flickr
About Paul Cunningham
Hi Paul,
I subscribe to Darren’s newsletter so I saw this morning that Darren was offering his latest product for sale. It does sound interesting and I’m glad that you highlighted some of the top tips in it. I am very bad at writing compelling headlines so this looks very intersting to me. It’s funny that we sort of know a lot of this, but it’s hard to put it into practise (especially when you have a post deadline staring you in the face). Having a checklist would be awesome, but more awesome would be if it was automated :-)
Thanks,
Karen
Automation would be killer if it was done well. Scribe does something like that for SEO after all.
I seriously need to work on #2. I’m the king of the run-on sentence…
Paul,
I got the email from Darren about this new ebook yesterday. I’ve just finished 31dbbb group challenge with the SITS girls forum so I know how insanely useful Darren’s books are.
However I was still undecided until I read your review. You answered the question in my mind, “I’m sure it’s good, but what’s actually in it!” Thanks!
Looks like I just scored another 3 points for “Answer the questions your reader will probably ask” :-)
Nice post, although I was expecting a blog post about how to improve your scoring with Google. :P
Ah, well Glenn will always tell you to write for people first and search engines second, but the ebook does have a few tips in there on the best ways to balance the needs of both your readers and Google when it comes to keywords etc.
Might have to take a look at this one, been meaning to get something read for a while now.
I think i still need to make sure my headlines are good, I’m a bit hit and miss, but its all part of the learning process! Perfection makes things boring :)
Hello!
I have downloaded the e-book today and it looks great.
Many thanks…
Tania
Finally managed to read the e-book, and I am in love with the Wordle creations!! I can see myself printing, laminating and hanging them around the office every time I post an article!! (It was all a good read, this was just my favourite bit…)
Cheers, Tania
Paul this article is resourceful for those of us trying to get to a place of better with their blogs. I like that you shared some of the tips to get us interested enough to want to purchase the book.
Everyday I strive to make my blogs teach more and reach more people.
Thanks again for all you do!
http://yotrip.wordpress.com
These three simple points will really improve readership and sales. As time goes by, people have shorter attention span and does not want to read anymore. Adding videos can also be useful.