5 Copywriting Tips That Can Dramatically Improve Your UX

Tip 3: Speak your ideal user’s language.

To communicate effectively to your ideal user, I recommend that you ditch UX laws and conventional wisdom. While it may well be that, statistically, “Click here” outperforms “Join now,” you’re dealing with people. And people aren’t statistics.

Once you start testing copy—more on that later—you’ll see that there are some counterintuitive forces at work. People respond to words, phrasings, and tone of voice depending on their own personality—not because you’ve chosen the correct word.

This is where user profiles come in handy. They enable you to communicate with people in a way that’s natural and logical to them. And that’s what results in the best user interactions. You wouldn’t tell a small child, “That statement is illogical and, therefore, not valid.” Instead, you would say: “That’s not how it works. Let me explain.”

Another thought: keep your copy short. Most people talk too much, and clients are notorious for loading far too many words onto a page. Copy can always be shorter and, in most cases, shorter, tighter copy gets better results. Whenever possible, recommend shortening and tightening up copy. Create microcopy for the win!

Tip 4: Communicate benefits, not features.

This is another little copywriting trick that you can use. If you do, you’ll instantly look smarter. And you’ll improve your site’s user experience, too.

Here’s how this works: In copywriting, there are always two things to consider: features and benefits. Features are what something does, how it works, what it looks like, and what it costs. In other words, features talk about what’s in the box. The problem is: features don’t sell. People don’t buy a mattress because it’s “100% natural Amazonian latex.” They buy it because “with a natural Amazonian latex mattress, you’ll sleep better than ever before in your life.”

In UX design, you can follow this features-and-benefits principle: Don’t sell 8mm drill bits. Sell 8mm holes.

It’s easy to say “Click here to sign up.” But if you’re asking people to sign up, you’re selling them on a feature. Instead, communicate the associated benefit: “Click here to sign up and get instant access to our articles.”

In other words, if you tell people why they should do what you’re asking them to do, they’ll be much more likely to actually do it.

Tip 5: Always be testing.

You already know this—but, very likely, your client might not be aware of quite how powerful testing copy can be. If, at any point, you feel that a piece of copy, microcopy, a button label, or a call to action might not be the best, create several variations and test them. Testing guarantees that a user experience will work. The same goes for copy.

And never miss an opportunity to let visitors tell you what they prefer.

Conclusion

So there you have it: the insider secrets that I’ve learned in the copywriting trenches. Put these tips into practice, and you’ll see what the psychology of copywriting can do to help your user experience work even better.