Essential Copywriting Checklist to build your list
Essential Copywriting To be:
- Clear about your Goal
- Specific
- Consistent
- Natural
- Helpful
Essential Copywriting DON’T
- Use jargon or marketing buzzwords
- Use complicated words
- Talk about yourself all the time
- Sound robotic or overly formal
Bullet points
- Use one, consistent format so the bullet points make sense as a whole.
- If your first bullet point in a list is a full sentence, the other bullet points should be too.
- End each full sentence bullet point with a period.
- When using noun clauses, stick to them for the entire bullet point list.
- For nouns and noun clauses, either use a comma at the end of each point and a period at the end of the last one, or skip punctuation altogether.
This depends on the text layout and what looks better. When in doubt, go for less rather than more.
Capitalization
- Use title case for post titles (h1 headings), blog post titles, and main landing page headings.
For example: How to Come Up with a Good Blog Post Title
- Use sentence case for all other headings and subheadings h2 and smaller.
- Use lowercase for common nouns and phrases.
Contractions
- The general rule is use them! They make your writing more natural and conversational.
- Avoid them if you want to emphasize the contracted word, such as negation.
Numbers
- Spell out numbers 1-10 when used in a sentence.
For example: There are two ways to write numbers.
- Spell out tens, hundreds, thousands etc. Use digits for anything in between. For example: 12,350
- Use points for fractions. For example: 2.5
- Use commas after every three digits in high numbers. For example: 450,000
- Use a currency symbol before numbers. For example: $150
Voice: active or passive? Use active voice (for example: we wrote the blog post) whenever possible.
It makes your writing more dynamic and natural. On the other hand, passive voice (the blog post was written by us) seems formal and impersonal.
Avoid talking too much about ‘us’ and ‘we’. Instead, use ‘you’ to speak directly to the reader.
Actionable Specifics:
- Short sentences short paragraphs
- Bullet lists
- Heading
- Short intro paragraphs
- Short and concise conclusion and CTA
- When you include links, link the Keywords or phrase
- You can use bold font to highlight the most important info
- Keep tweetable chunks in mind
- Write a catchy headline
- Include applicable keywords in copy
- Share posts are easier to produce and digest , but long post get more engagement
- No Matter long or short make them informative and specific
- A blog post should be friendly and should feel like a conversation
- Be yourself – you are writing as an individual and not as brand
- Use active voice -talk to your audience directly
- Avoid jargon, cliches
- Be Yourself use I instead or we
Some Tools to help you in copywriting
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