What is copywriting, and what makes text sell

Copywriting is writing whose job is to make the reader do something: understand an offer, trust it and take the next step. Text sells when it answers the reader's question in the reader's own words before it talks about the company, and when each format, a web page, an ad or a post, is written for the way people actually read it.

Below: what good copy is made of, how people read on screens, what changes between a website, an ad and a social post, how to write in two languages, and where AI fits.

Copywriting and content: the difference

Copy asks for an action now: buy, book, call, sign up. Content earns attention and trust over time: an article, a guide, an answer to a frequent question. A business needs both, and they feed each other. An article that answers a real question brings the reader to a page where the copy asks for the next step.

How people read on a screen

Mostly, they do not read; they scan. In a 1997 study Jakob Nielsen found that 79% of test users always scanned a new page and only 16% read word by word. The same work measured 124% better usability for a version of a page that was concise, scannable and objective at once. The study is old and screens have changed, but the habit it describes has not gone away: Nielsen Norman Group still recommends the inverted pyramid, with the most important information, even the conclusion, first.

For a business that means the headline says what you offer and to whom, the first sentence answers the main question, and the details come after. A reader who stops after one paragraph should still know what you sell and what to do next.

Four things every selling text has

• One reader. Not "everyone who might buy", but a specific person with a specific question: a parent looking for a kindergarten, a restaurant owner choosing a supplier.
• One promise you can prove. "The best quality" proves nothing. "Delivered the next working day, or the order is free" can be checked, and that is why people believe it. Only make a promise the business keeps.
• Evidence. A fact, a detail of the process, a photograph of the real thing, a clear condition. Adjectives are not evidence.
• One next step. Call, book, write, buy. Three buttons with three different requests make the reader choose, and they may choose none.

Website copy

A page has to answer the visitor's questions in the order they ask them: what is this, is it for me, why you, what does it cost or how is the price decided, and what do I do now. Google writes that its ranking systems aim to prioritize helpful, reliable information created to benefit people rather than to manipulate rankings, and its self-assessment questions ask whether a page provides original information and a substantial, complete description of its topic. Copy written for the reader is the kind Google says its systems aim to put first.

Two practical rules. Give each service its own page instead of listing six services in one paragraph. And keep the words your customers use: if they search for a "website" and your page talks about "digital presence solutions", you lose both the reader and the search.

Ad copy

Ads give you very little room, and the platform decides what is shown. A Google responsive search ad takes up to 15 headlines of up to 30 characters and up to 4 descriptions of up to 90 characters, which Google combines, and only some of them appear in any one ad. So each headline must make sense on its own, and they should be genuinely different: one names the service, one the benefit, one the condition, one the call to action. For a Facebook Feed image ad, Meta's ads guide recommends 50 to 150 characters of primary text and a headline of about 27 characters.

The ad and the page after the click must say the same thing. Someone who clicked on "free delivery" and lands on a page that never mentions it may leave. How the two differ, and which to start with on a small budget, is in Meta ads vs Google ads.

Do not guess which text works; test it. Google Ads experiments split a campaign's traffic and budget between the original and a changed version, so you can compare their performance over time. Change one thing at a time, or you will not know which change mattered.

Social media copy

On social media your post appears in a feed among posts from friends and accounts people chose to follow. Write the first line so that it works alone, because it may be the only line a reader sees before "more". Make it a reason to stop: a question your customer actually asks, a fact, a short scene. Then one idea per post, in the brand's voice, and an ending that tells the reader what to do or what to think. If the caption only explains the picture, one of the two is not needed.

Two languages, two texts

A bilingual business needs two texts, not one text and its translation. A literal translation keeps the foreign word order and the calques, and a Georgian reader hears it at once. Write each version for its own reader, keep facts, prices and promises identical, and let the sentences differ. Google also recommends a separate URL for each language version of a page, and warns that translating only the boilerplate while the main content stays in one language can create a bad user experience if the same content appears several times in search results with the boilerplate in different languages. Search in Georgian has questions of its own, which we cover in SEO in Georgian.

Where AI fits

AI is useful for first drafts, headline variations and checking a text against its brief. It is not a source of facts, and it does not know your customers. Google's guidance on helpful content suggests asking whether the use of automation, including AI, is evident to visitors, and says that using it mainly to manipulate search rankings violates its spam policies. Our rule: a person who knows the business edits and approves every published word and checks every fact.

When copywriting will not help

Words cannot fix an offer nobody wants, a price out of line with the market, or a phone nobody answers. If the problem is the product, the price or the service, better copy only brings more people to the disappointment faster. Fix that first, then write.

Where to start

Take your most visited page and read only the headline and the first sentence. Do they say what you sell, to whom, and what to do next? If not, start there. For an outside view, request a free audit. How we write website, ad and social media copy in both languages is on the content strategy and copywriting service page.