Hi Fellow Copywriters,

I'm new here to Copywriting.com but so far I'm pretty impressed. What I would like to hear from all of you are your opinions on web 2.0 copywriting and how it will affect your writing as an online content producer.

As web 2.0 copywriting rises to become the new interactive form of communication for social media, websites and sales - how will you adapt your writing to keep up with this new online trend?

CG Dewing

Dear CG, I don't think there is anything magical or revolutionary about Web 2.0 copywriting. Good online writing today is the same as good online writing was three years ago. You want to address the reader directly, rather than writing in third person. You want to speak from your own experience, rather than throwing on the hype or making brash sales promises. If you've made a mistake, you want to speak frankly about it and then explain in plain language what you're doing to fix the problem. If there's anything that characterizes good online writing, it's being real. If you try to fake it, chances are your readers will see through the illusion.

That's what I've tried to convey to my staff.

- how will you adapt your writing to keep up with [wdb 2.0 copywriting] this new online trend?


You know as far as online copy goes, Google has had a huge effect. A lot of copy is used to satisfy Google's algorithms. Until very recently [last month] Google put a lot of emphasis on original content and links. It had been that way for several years, since the last Google slap, so in order to get links many marketers, bloggers and affiliates spent a lot of effort throwing up pages on web 2.0 sites in order to build networks of links and back links. It was a "black hat" favorite method. Guys like Jeff Johnson built huge businesses around these backlink systems.

But, as I said, last month Google once again changed the game, as only Google can. From what Ryan Deiss says, Google now puts their empahsis on a balance between original content, links and frequency of new material. If that is right, and I belive from personal experience with Google that it is, then there may be less emphasis on building link networks of web 2.0 sites.

My point is that I'm not so sure copywriting is becoming so married to web 2.0 sites. It may have seemed that way for reasons other than straight forward communication.

Having said all that, it seems to me that the same tactics for copywriting apply to web 2.0 sties as do in any other venue.

Cheers

toddr