Design a Web page

1. Design a Web page • To design a web page based on research and experience/shared knowledge of effective & well regarded sites • Evaluate: What makes a Good/Bad website – the copy? • Research, Analyse & Develop their own ideas of an effective website. • How to recognise visual mediums and how words compliment/add-to the visual • Sign onto a PC

3. Discuss websites • Memorable sites: why, who, what are they selling and who to?

5. Copywriting • A copywriter is someone who provides the words used to sell or promote different products, services, ideas, and even people.

6. Copywriting • Here are the questions that you should keep in mind before starting your copy. • Who is going to buy your product? • What are the particularities of this audience? • What are their habits, language, style, persuasion methods? • Create an attention grabbing headline. The headline makes the difference for your readers between choosing to read the article or not. It is said that only 20% of the readers actually read more than the headline. Basic copywriting pushes you to make sure your headline is catchy and features the right message. It is hard but mandatory in excellent copywriting.

7. Copywriting The paragraphs should flow nicely to capture the audience interest. These are the basics that you should know before starting your copy. • The text should be easy to read. Write Plainly“Copy is a direct conversation with the consumer.” • The words should be simple. • Short sentences • Clear message • Concise text • No redundancy • Focus on the Headline • http://www.optinrevolution.com/blog/5-basic-copywriting-tips-for-beginners/

8. Basics • “Consumers do not buy products. They buy product benefits.” • -David Ogilvy • Have you ever heard the phrase, “Sell a good night’s sleep, not the mattress”? Think about all of the mattress commercials and advertisements you’ve seen before. Do they lead with coil count or insulation padding details? Nah. They sell you on how comfortable the mattress is, how well you’ll sleep on it, and how much more productive and enjoyable your days will be when you are well-rested. They want you to positively frame their product, envision yourself using it, and negate any potential concerns you may have. • Similarly, you can use this formula in your own copy: • Frame your product as the solution • Paint the picture of how your customer will use your product • Use plausible guarantees to bolster the appeal of your product, if possible (money back, replacement)

9. The headline • “On the average, five times as many people read the headlines as read the body copy.” David Ogilvy • The headline is the most important part of your copy. It’s how you capture their attention in the first place. Here are a few tried and true formulas for creating a headline that draws a crowd: • Use numbers because readers love lists. (7 Ways to Create an Effective Facebook Ad Campaign) • Be controversial. (Email Sucks! Here’s What You Should Do Instead) • Appeal to their need to be in the know/ fear of missing out. (Blogging 101: Everything You Need to Start a Blog) • Appeal to their sense of logic and reason. (10 Reasons You Should be a Travelzoo Member) • Make them curious about your product, service, or topic. (Why startups fail, according to their founders) • Use trigger words that create an emotional response in your reader’s mind. (Amazing, Because, Create, Discover, Easy, Free, Guarantee…)

10. Exercise: Headings • General discussion about headlines: Lets think specifically about attention grabbing headlines. • What do you think works? What do you think doesn't work? Why are they so hard to write? What kinds of trends are you seeing in the content and articles that pop up in your Facebook feed? • Look up brands and other products services that have use and jot down their 3 favourite and 3 least favourite headlines; doing your best to ignore subject matter. • http://examples.yourdictionary.com/catchy-headlines-examples.html

11. Copy: concise writing • http://colelearning.net/who/module1/page52.html

12. Simile Destruction • Goal: Eliminate clichés from your content. • How To: Create a list of tired clichés (usually they take the form of similes). Strong as an ox. Working like a dog. Happy as a clam. You know the type. • Create this list together with your team or prepare it beforehand. • Work your way through the list, taking 30 seconds, a minute, two minutes, whatever, to come up with better and more creative ways of getting the same point across.

13. Simile • Strong as a sip of moonshine. • Happier than windshield wipers in a heavy rain. • More of yours.

14. How it Can Help You Write Fiction  What do you think?

15. Robyn Bradley is a copy by day and novelist by night. She has an MFA in Creative Writing, and she won a short story award in 2007 for “A Touch of Charlotte.” • Copywriting doesn’t wait for the muse. When I’m in copywriting mode, I certainly welcome the muse, but I don’t have the luxury of waiting for her to whisper in my ear. My copywriting life is driven by deadlines, so I write even when I don’t feel it. This has served me well in my fiction life, and it’s probably the main reason I don’t believe in writer’s block. • Copywriting embraces word economy. The main goal with most copy is to clearly explain something in as few words as possible. This has influenced my fiction writing style—and for the better. I carefully consider every word I choose and constantly ask myself if the writing is as tight and clear as it could be. (And no, I haven’t mastered word economy, but I’ve gotten much better at employing it, thanks to my copywriting work.)

16. How it Can Help You Write Fiction… • Copywriting forces me to keep up with marketing trends. If I were to give people my full job title, I’d say I was a freelance marketing copywriter, but that’s a mouthful. And it would likely only confuse people further. But being a marketing copywriter means I need to keep up with marketing trends in everything from social media to search engine optimization to everything in between. This has helped me develop my marketing chops in general, something that serves me well when promoting my novels. • Copywriting keeps me sharp. It’s fair to say I write every day, and that I have been doing so for years. Sometimes I’m writing marketing copy. Sometimes I’m writing fiction. Often, I’m writing both. Any time I put fingers to keyboard, I’m honing this crazy writing craft. And that’s a good thing.

17. From copy to Prose • http://www.scribd.com/doc/45824530/A-Touch-of-Charlotte

18. Robyn Bradley Copywriting doesn’t wait for the muse. When I’m in copywriting mode, I certainly welcome the muse, but I don’t have the luxury of waiting for her to whisper in my ear. My copywriting life is driven by deadlines, so I write even when I don’t feel it. This has served me well in my fiction life, and it’s probably the main reason I don’t believe in writer’s block. Copywriting embraces word economy. The main goal with most copy is to clearly explain something in as few words as possible. This has influenced my fiction writing style—and for the better. I carefully consider every word I choose and constantly ask myself if the writing is as tight and clear as it could be. (And no, I haven’t mastered word economy, but I’ve gotten much better at employing it, thanks to my copywriting work.) Copywriting forces me to keep up with marketing trends. If I were to give people my full job title, I’d say I was a freelance marketing copywriter, but that’s a mouthful. And it would likely only confuse people further. But being a marketing copywriter means I need to keep up with marketing trends in everything from social media to search engine optimization to everything in between. This has helped me develop my marketing chops in general, something that serves me well when promoting my novels. Copywriting keeps me sharp. It’s fair to say I write every day, and that I have been doing so for years. Sometimes I’m writing marketing copy. Sometimes I’m writing fiction. Often, I’m writing both. Any time I put fingers to keyboard, I’m honing this crazy writing craft. And that’s a good thing.

19. Copywriting and fiction • https://www.awai.com/2016/02/how-writing-fiction-makes-you-a-better-copywriter/

20. Final thought • From William Faulkner, “Get it down. Take chances. It may be bad, but it’s the only way you can do anything good.”

21. Selling The Course • Write a sentence/headline using 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 words selling: Print and journalism course, Canterbury College Creative Writing and Journalism, an app design Co. a clothes design Co. • The text should be easy to read. Write Plainly“Copy is a direct conversation with the consumer.” • The words should be simple. • Short sentences • Clear message • Concise text • No redundancy • Focus on the Headline

22. Home Jeeves: things to do !! • To design a web page based on research and experience/shared knowledge of effective & well regarded sites. • Write the first page – home – for an imagined or existing web-site • Find a ‘bad’ ineffective website; analyse and improve. • What is bead about it and how would you develop it? • The text should be easy to read. Write Plainly“Copy is a direct conversation with the consumer.” • The words should be simple. • Short sentences • Clear message • Concise text • No redundancy • Focus on the Headline