Home

   Back to
   Home Business Ideas

Here's a business idea for those of you out there who are good at putting words together.  Why not refine that skill by learning what it takes to be a good copywriter in the online environment and offering your services to those in need of such a service (and there are PLENTY of them out there)?

There are many, many resources for learning about copywriting online, some free, some not.

When you start your research you will quickly learn the common denominator - AIDA - Attention, Interest, Desire, Action.  Master the AIDA principle as it applies to online copywriting and you will be well placed to offer a valuable service to internet marketers without the time, ability or inclination to master the skill of effective copywriting for themselves.

You will find as you progress in your research that copywriting for the online environment is a very different proposition to what works in the offline world.  One major difference is that your copywriting has to be geared with the search engines in mind.  Anyone looking to you to create copy for a home page will, even if they don't express their needs in these terms, be expecting that the copy you produce will be written not only to grab and keep the attention of the reader and motivate him or her to action, but also to optimize the page for search engine purposes.  This means understanding the importance of keywords and how to write keyword-rich copy without compromising the effectiveness of the message of the copy.  This can be tricky.

For this reason, your greatest investment in this business will be the time you need to spend to equip yourself with the necessary skills to be an effective online copywriter. Once you have this skill mastered, however, it's simply a matter of creating your own website (which, of course, will be a shining example of the quality of your work) and generating publicity.

In terms of what you can offer from your website, consider in addition to copy for webpages, add-on services such as drafting of sales letters for use by your clients in their autoresponder marketing campaigns, preparation of press releases and a classified ad service.  You may then want to extend your reach to more general site promotion areas such as optimization of existing webpages for improvement in search engine rankings to a fully-fledged promotion service.

Recommended sites (copy and paste the long URLs so they fit in one line in your browser window):

-> Hodu Winning Documents     http://www.hodu.com/tuts.htm

-> How to Write Million Dollar Ads, Sales Letters, And Web Marketing Pieces
    http://www.marketinginsights.com/products/htwmd/serling2.html

-> Effective Copywriting Techniques
    http://www.markcom.com/marketlink/html/body_effective_copywriting_techniques_.html

-> Make Your Site Sell
    http://www.sitesell.com

Recommended books:

-> The Elements of Copywriting: The Essential Guide to Creating Copy That Gets the Results You Want
By Gary Blake and Robert W. Bly

-> Copywriting for the Electronic Media: A Practical Guide
By Milan D. Meeske

-> Copywriting by Design (Bringing Ideas to Life by Words and Images)
By David Herzbrun