Quick Course On Effective Website Copywriting

[Dave McM]

Dave, I think you've inadvertantly agreed with the point dsieg58 was trying to make without realising it.

Not in the least. My point was that while you can seek to reduce all communication (including non-verbal) to one motive like that, it's a gross over-simplification.

You could go further still and say that all our actions - not just communicating - are directed to preserving our genes' chances of survival and therefore sales-related; and that communication is just the marketing aspect of that. It may well be true, and it's perhaps not a bad model for looking at evolution. But I don't think that kind of reductionist approach is very useful in day-to-day life.

[Mikl]

Mike, we don't know each other so please don't take this as an attack, that said, what, exactly do YOU consider the purpose of words on a web page?

No, of course I won't take it as an attack, Andy. On the contrary, I welcome your comments.

My point was not about the "purpose of words on a web page", but rather about the supposed distinction between the aims of "regular text" (whatever that means) and website text - and, in particular, that the aim of one is to entertain or inform, and the other is to persuade.

Some text is informative, some is entertaining, some is persuasive, some is all three of those, and some is none of those. My point is that the text on a website is no different from that on any other medium in this respect. What the original article (or, at least, the one paragraph I quoted) seems to be saying is that website text is fundamentally different in its aims than other text. I'm saying that it's not.

Mind you, it would help if we knew what the term "regular text" is supposed to mean in this context. In what sense is website text irregular? (To me, "regular" means something that comes at consitent intervals, like the bus I take into town.)

Mike

[Andy]

No, of course I won't take it as an attack, Andy. On the contrary, I welcome your comments.

My point was not about the "purpose of words on a web page", but rather about the supposed distinction between the aims of "regular text" (whatever that means) and website text - and, in particular, that the aim of one is to entertain or inform, and the other is to persuade.

Some text is informative, some is entertaining, some is persuasive, some is all three of those, and some is none of those. My point is that the text on a website is no different from that on any other medium in this respect. What the original article (or, at least, the one paragraph I quoted) seems to be saying is that website text is fundamentally different in its aims than other text. I'm saying that it's not.

Mind you, it would help if we knew what the term "regular text" is supposed to mean in this context. In what sense is website text irregular? (To me, "regular" means something that comes at consitent intervals, like the bus I take into town.)

Mike

Hi Mike,

Point taken. When I first read your response, my inclination was to agree with you. But after considering it further, I'm more inclined to agree with the author. My reasoning is that due to the nature of the web, the medium itself IS substantially different from other media. Even the basic language of the web - HTML - Hyper Text Markup Language - is built around the concept of linking pages together ad infinitum. Indeed, when we read something, anything on the web, our tendency is to click on something. And that act is one we should all be quite conscious of while constructing our pages.

Even so, I do believe the most click most often used is the back button. If the goal of bringing visitors to a page is to profit somehow, this is most often the least desirable action a visitor can take.

Andy

[Fish]

Going back to the OP, Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins can be read for free - and is very illuminating. Written in the 1920's I think, but it very much cuts to the chase:
http://www.scientificadvertising.com...dvertising.pdf