#1 Copywriting Tip? Make Sure It Makes Sense!

Why search for a good copywriting tip when too many copywriters don’t even do this one simple thing?  

C’mon, copywriters. We can do better than this snippet of copy that I grabbed from a web page:  

It doesn’t make any sense, right? You discover the changes so you don’t have to discover the changes? Huh?  

And when you consider this is meant to be marketing and persuading a potential customer, it’s even worse. 

Why these copywriting mistakes happen 

This kind of mistake is inexcusable in my book. And I can think of two possible reasons why this horrid web copy made its way out into the world:  

• The writer was not a professional copywriter but simply someone in charge of getting some words on that page.  
• The writer was a professional copywriter but sloppy.  

#1 Copywriting tip to avoid this from happening to you 

And I can think of one very easy fix to prevent this kind of slop from going public in the future. So here’s your #1 copywriting tip to avoid this kind of crap: Re-read what you wrote to make sure it makes sense.  

This goes beyond proofreading. The ad copy I showed you above doesn’t have any typos or incorrect capitalization or even grammar errors that a proofreader would catch.  

But it still doesn’t make sense!  

And that’s because no one took a minute to simply re-read it—or to ask another person to look at it with fresh eyes.  

This is just content for the sake of content. And it’s not uncommon…or new.  

Copywriting stories from the past 

Here’s proof… 

I once had a freelance copywriting job where the client cared less about the quality of what I wrote and more about the character count. I’m serious. All that mattered was making the content fit the spaces, not the content itself.  

Another time I had a designer simply cut off text mid-sentence on a sales sheet (back when those were a thing) to make it fit rather than ask me to edit the text. 

Your content DOES matter 

These stories are from many years ago, so it’s not that this kind of copywriting laziness or disregard for content are new. But with the deluge of content being produced every minute of every day these days, by copywriters and non-writers alike, mistakes like this are much more prevalent.  

But the truth is, you don’t have to settle for this. Instead, you can choose to rise above and give everything you read one last read through to make sure it makes sense.  

My #1 copywriting tip? Care enough to read it again, whether you think someone will read it or not. Because we don’t need more empty words.  

Not a professional copywriter, but still writing marketing? Grab this free marketing writing ebook for help.

Photo of confused woman by Karolina Grabowska: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-sitting-on-sofa-looking-at-phone-and-scratching-her-head-5902271/