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Have you ever read an article or advertisement and when you finish it, you say to yourself, “What the heck did I just read?” For the copywriter or advertising agency, this means failure. The last thing you want to do when writing copy is confuse your reader. Mixed messages and jumbled meanings cause readers to tune out and turn off. When that happens, you lose the sale or fail to reach the goal.

There are six very simple ways that you can write copy and keep your reader engaged rather than leaving them in a state of total confusion.

Clarify.

Clear copy is about saying what you mean and meaning what you say. When you write, try to avoid adding extraneous information that may contradict what you said in the last sentence, or lead readers down irrelevant side paths.

Here’s a 3-step routine you can follow to help you with clarity:

1. Make your statement.
2. Add two or three supporting facts.
3. Provide examples to help illustrate your supporting facts.

Clarity is about painting a picture that readers can see in their heads and instantly understand.

Avoid Jargon.

Unless you’re writing a technical journal, stick to everyday language that any 8^th grader can understand. This doesn’t mean condescend to the reader. It just means that complicated words, technical terms, acronyms, or industry jargon can confuse people because this “inside language” does not translate to the average mind.

Get to the Point.

Your main idea should be in the first, or at the latest, second paragraph. Especially if you’re writing for the Web — you need to hurry it up and finish your thought before reader becomes distracted and moves on to something else. Additionally, we talked about painting pictures in the reader’s mind. While this is important, we don’t want to get carried away. Use imagery in your writing, but do it sparingly.

Focus and be Relevant.

“Plump up” your copy with examples that relate to the topic or industry — but try not to go off on side tangents. For example, if you’re writing an article about how a certain cleaning product affects dogs, then don’t launch into how certain dog foods may also harm your pet. The dog food information, while it may indeed be true, would work better in an article about harmful ingredients in dog food. (It would seem like this was obvious… but you wouldn’t believe how, when left to their own devices, amateur writers tend to divert from the subject at hand.)

Position Your Copy.

Positioning your copy shows why whatever is being written is important to the reader. It weaves the benefits or the “what’s in it for me” answer into the copy so that the reader is hooked on what you’re saying. This is true for article copy, press release copy, ad copy, and so forth. If you don’t show why this information is beneficial, then whatever goal you are trying to accomplish — get them to read your article, get them to buy your product, get them to visit your Web site — vanishes.

Make it Memorable.

If your readers read the copy and forget everything you said one second later, then your copy has failed to do the job it was meant to do. The reader needs to be able to remember the key points of the article, the ad, or whatever you’ve written. Think of a product jingle or a company tagline. Again, examples, and “picture painting” help with mental recall.

By following these six key points, you can create copy that engages the reader and helps them to understand the points you’re trying to get across. When readers understand you, everybody wins.

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