10 Ways to Write 5 Times Better Online Copy in 3 Easy Steps

People often say to me, "Bob, how can I be a successful online copywriter like you?" Well, I'm here to tell you that you, too, can be a famous online copywriter and make billions of dollars and have red-hot nymphos crawling all over you.

What's the secret? First, you need to get some words. Without words, writing is a thankless chore. Take the Sumerians. They didn't have words. They had pictures. Now they're all dead.

There are many kinds of words. Some words are small. Some are big, like delicatessen. Some of them, frankly, need more vowels (Krzyzewski, you listening?)

The best part? They're all free! Any word you want. Even "penultimate."

When we write online copy, the words we use say a lot about us. If we are funny, then we want to use "funny" words, like "homo" or "Kotex."

If we are depressed, we want to use depressing words like "advertising" or "exercise."

The important thing is to be yourself when you are writing. If you don’t know who you are, you have to find yourself. The best place to find yourself is in bed. Hopefully, with someone cute.

Creativity: The Key To Being Creative.

In order to be a successful online copywriter you have to be creative. The most important part of being creative is "creativity". Without "creativity" most of us wouldn’t have a creative bone in our body. Except maybe our coccyx.

Nobody really knows what "creativity" is. Every year thousands of people take a pilgrimage to find out. This involves flying to Cannes, snorting cocaine, and having sex with smokers.

How do you nourish your creativity? I suggest chicken caesar wraps, but I know a very successful dance instructor who swears by strawberry Toaster Strudel.

The important thing to remember is that we’re all creative. Although, honestly, I have my doubts about Trent Lott.

The F Word: It’s Fucking Awesome!

On the internet, content is king. And dirty words is queen.

If you are writing a blog, you must be hard-boiled and never show weakness. You must not let on that you are from Scarsdale and went to Hofstra and worked at Grey. You must show the world that you’re an anarchistic, hard-living, hard-drinking bastard. And what better way to be a bad-ass mothafucka than to use naughty language.

Words like "fuck”, “bullshit”, “douchenozzle” and “dickhead” make your copy sing! Put a few of them together and you’ve got magic -- “Fucking dickhead!”, “Fucking douchenozzle!”, “Fucking fuck!”

The ability to express complex concepts in a censorship-free environment is what makes the web great. Well, that and those super hot pictures of Brit.

Understanding Your Online Customer

Let’s face it. Most of the people who visit your website are fucking douchenozzles. Nonetheless, they got money and you want it!

I mean, um, they are Web 2.0 savvy consumers whose engagement with their own personal brands make them willing to interact in a conversational way that leverages the social media to become engaged customers for life.

Remember: Engaging content is how you engage their engagement.

The Three Simple, Secret Principles To Magical Copywriting Success

Now we get to the heart of the matter. Anyone can be a successful online copywriter if you just follow these three simple, secret, magical rules.

1. Don’t use Windex on your computer screen. It fucks up the molecules or something.

2. Don’t hold back. People love to know personal details about you. Unless you have a hernia or some kind of smelly intestinal disorder.

3. Amateur MILF in wild inter-racial 3-way... Oops, sorry, wrong website.

Shocking Discovery From TiVo

Just when you think market researchers can't get any stupider, they exceed expectations.

Last week PowerWatch -- Tivo's audience measurement service -- made this startling announcement: Consumers are more likely to watch commercials that are relevant to them.

You gotta be kidding!

TiVo actually studied 20,000 of their subscribers to figure this one out. I could have studied an egg salad sandwich and told them the same thing.

The amazing part is, they issued a press release on this as if it was some kind of research breakthrough. Listen to this pretentious baloney from one of their clients:

...PowerWatch client Starcom agrees. "New viewing behaviors revealed by correlations between household demographic, product category and ad fast-forwarding shows that ...effective message delivery can help make an ad resonate more"

In case your wondering what that pompous bullshit means, it means people watch stuff they're interested in.

Go figure.

But Wait, There's More:
This isn't the first idiotic study to verify the breathtakingly obvious. Believe it or not, there was another study released last April, that lasted 16 months, to prove the same thing. See Imagine What They Could Have Found If They Had 17 Months and Morons And Their Money.

Why We Need To Kill Them All

On a number of occasions I've said we need to kill all account planners and start over. Here's why.

Last week they had a big hoo-hah account planning conference in Miami (missed it -- had to wash my hair.)

Ad Age ran a column about the high points. The conclusions from this conference are so mind-numbingly cliche-ridden that they are almost a parody of themselves.

Here are a few choice excerpts along with some comments from Yours Truly:

"People are no longer waiting to hear from us."

When, I'd like to know, were people waiting to hear from us? Was I sick that week? Advertising is a nuisance. Always has been, always will be. That's why we get the big bucks -- to make people pay attention to stuff they're trying frantically to avoid.

"It's a shifting world, and understanding the landscape is more important than ever."

What in the world does this mean? When has the world not been shifting? When have you not had to understand the landscape?

"Understand the conversation, insert your brand into it and then keep going."

You knew it was coming. The fucking "conversation." Will someone PLEASE find a new cliche. The next person I hear say "conversation" is going to die. I'm not kidding

"We must create content that changes the world."

How about creating content that sells some shit. Wanna change the world? Join the fucking U.N.

It took 650 account planners to come up with this bullshit.

If you want to read the whole smelly thing go here.

Apology:
I really don't like using the f-bomb as much as I've been using it lately. I'm going to try to wean myself off it. But not today.

Wean:
It's a funny word.