Want to know one of my favorite tools
for improving the conversion rate of my copy?
Stick around because in this tutorial
I'm gonna go and edit an email in real time
so you can see exactly how I use this free tool
to improve flow, readability, and conversions.
Keep watching.
(upbeat music)
Hey posse, what's up?
It's Alex, coming at you this week
with a super simple tutorial that can make
a massive impact on your copywriting.
If you're new to the crew, welcome.
My channel has over 100 in-depth tutorials,
copy critiques, and step-by-step guides,
so if you want to see more practical and useful tips
on improving your copywriting, social media
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when my next video goes live.
Now, real quick pop quiz.
The average person reads at what grade level?
Is it grade 5, grade 7, grade 10 or grade 12?
If you guess grade 7, yes, you got it right,
which means you should be writing at the seventh grade level
to make sure you're speaking to the right audience.
That is, unless your customer avatar
is in fact college professors.
Now, if you're thinking, what, no way Alex,
I'm a real writer.
I'm not gonna dumb myself down
for a bunch of seventh graders.
Well, what if I told you
that some of the world's most beloved well-known
and bestselling authors typically write
at a grade seven level, or even below that?
Yep, I'm talking about Ernest Hemingway, Jane Austen
J.R.R. Tolkien, and even Stephen King.
Just take a look at this reading level analysis
where Shane Snow ran a bunch of bestselling fiction books
through the Flesch-Kincaid index,
which is designed to indicate how difficult
a passage in English is to understand.
Notice how none of these authors
wrote above a ninth grade level.
And if that's not enough to convince you
that your writing can be both captivating and simple,
then I'm not sure what will.
But one of my absolute favorite and free tools
to check the readability of my writing is Hemingway Editor.
Yes, this tool was named after the master
of literary brevity himself,
who, remember, wrote at a fourth grade level.
It's a super simple tool that aims to tighten up your words
and make them more concise, impactful, and yes
more easy to understand by everyone.
So, how does this tool actually improve
your conversion rates you might be wondering?
Well, for starters you want to make sure
that the average reader can comprehend your writing.
If they can't understand it
then they sure as hell aren't gonna buy it.
So, you want your copy and content
to be clear and concise, yet bold and relatable.
And this tool uses different color codes
to highlight lengthy, complex and difficult sentences
so that you know what needs to be sliced and diced,
simplified and optimized.
It'll also tell you if your vocab
is getting a little too academic or wordy.
So, to use the Hemingway Editor just go to hemingwayapp.com
and you'll come to the free web version of Hemingway Editor.
So, all you gotta do is copy and paste your text in
and the Hemingway Editor will immediately tell you
the readability of your piece.
And there are five things that the Hemingway Editor
will highlight in your copy.
Alright, so red sentences,
that is anything that the Hemingway Editor
deems to be too complex.
Then there's yellow sentences and those are hard to read
but not entirely complex.
They are still something worth looking into
to see if there's any way you might be able
to easily simplify those sentences.
Blue words are adverbs which are overly descriptive
and don't add that much to your copy,
and these are words that you can consider
replacing or omitting altogether.
And then you have the green words
which is passive copy that could probably be written
in a little bit more of a stronger, more direct tone.
And lastly, the purple words
which are words that you can replace with a simpler version.
So, are you ready to see exactly how this works?
Alright, let's do it.
Now, this email is a real email that I sent out
during my recent Launch Pad promotion.
When I copy and pasted it into Hemingway Editor
as it was on the day it was sent,
it actually scored a six which is pretty great.
But for the purposes of this video
and because I really wanted you to see a bad example
I went through and I made the copy significantly worse.
So now you can see it's ranking
at around an eighth grade level,
and clearly it needs some work
with all that red and yellow in there.
So, let's get started editing this bad boy.
Alright, so immediately the first thing you see
is that there is a adverb here,
which is probably not needed.
So I'm gonna go ahead and just omit that all together.
This is the moment you've been waiting for.
Alright, and then this next paragraph,
if you are ready to ignite your copywriting business
in 2022, keep your eyes glued to your inbox this weekend
because enrollment for season three
of the Copy Posse Launch Pad opens this Sunday, January 9th.
So, one of the easiest ways to tell
if a sentence is too complex is to read it out loud
with like gusto and see if you can actually finish
the sentence in one breath.
If you cannot or if you struggle to do so,
it's probably too long.
And one of the things that you can do to really simplify
your copy is not necessarily to change the words,
but to break up those longer paragraphs
into shorter, easy-to-digest sentences.
So in this case, if you're ready to ignite
your copywriting business in 2022
keep your eyes glued to your inbox this weekend.
You know, you could easily go, dot, dot, dot, right?
Because, capitalize, enrollment for season three
of the copy posse launchpad opens this Sunday, January 9th.
Already, red text is gone.
Next, I'll admit, now I love those really short,
coherence markers that can take one paragraph of text
and break it into smaller, short little sentences.
I would put that on its own line
because it really keeps people reading, right?
I'll admit, when this program was launched
for the first time two years ago.
So that's passive voice, right?
"When the program was launched"
versus "when I launched this program."
So I'm gonna change this to more active voice.
When I launched, if I could spell, this program.
Remove the passive voice
and already we've completely limited
the amount of green there, so that's great.
When I launched this program for the first time
two years ago right before a global freaking pandemic
I had no idea what I was in for.
I think that sentence is fine.
It is a little long, but I think that's okay.
What I thought I'd be doing was guiding my students
through everything I did to ignite
my copywriting business from scratch.
Again, I think it's okay.
Right, the goal isn't necessarily to remove
every little thing that Hemingway Editor
deems to be complex or wordy.
If it sounds good to you
and doesn't read as being too long or verbose,
you can absolutely keep it in.
Sharing the frightened, frightened.
I can't even say that word, frighteningly.
I'm gonna remove that.
Sharing the effective step-by-step
trainings on the high-level techniques
and strategies that I've learned.
Okay, this is a doozy (laughs).
Sharing the effective step-by-step trainings
on the high-level techniques and strategies
that I've learned and tested over the past 10 years,
revealing the formula, tools and guides
that have helped me write.
I can't even finish that in one breath.
So, let's change this.
It says, what I thought I'd be doing was guiding
my students through everything I did
to write my copywriting...
To ignite my copywriting business from scratch.
Sharing the effective step-by-step...
Let's just say, step-by-step techniques and strategies
that I've learned and tested
over the last 10 years, dot, dot, dot.
I love a good dot, dot, dot. Perfect.
Revealing the formulas, tools and guides
that have helped me write high converting copy
for my million dollar clients, dot, dot, dot, right?
Anytime you're listing something and everything on the list
is sort of a mouthful, put it on its own line, right?
These could almost be bullet points as well
if you wanted to really structure the email
to be easy to read.
And teaching you how to write an impressive portfolio
to show off your highly sought after copywriting skills.
Let's get rid of that completely.
And teaching you how to write
an impressive portfolio to show off...
You know what, your copywriting skills, right?
Sometimes it's fun to use adjectives,
but if it takes away or makes you stumble
over reading it, it's too complex, take it out.
Leave the essence of what we're trying to say here,
which is teaching you how to write a portfolio
to show off your skills, right?
But what happened was even better
than I could have imagined.
You can already see the grade level's down to a six.
That's great, right?
Already just by breaking up those sentences
and not really changing overall
the essence of the messaging, okay?
So, because on top of all that I, omit,
found my freaking people.
A badass posse of heart-centered writers
from all backgrounds, countries and levels of experience
who want to use their words to make a difference.
A difference in their lives,
a difference in their family's lives,
a difference in their client's lives,
a difference in the world.
I think that's okay.
The cherry on top...
I would make that as a little coherence marker.
It's a great open loop. What was the cherry on top?
Well, keep reading, right?
Was seeing so many of my Launch Padders one by one.
Again, right, let's remove
some of the language that's a bit wordy.
Every time I do that it goes back up.
One by one launch their copywriting careers, quit,
quit their day jobs, right?
These were added in to show you guys.
I usually would never use this many adverbs. Omit.
Quit their day jobs, explode their income
and create a life of complete freedom on their terms.
It's long. How can we shorten this?
Maybe say, was seeing so many of my Launch Padders
one by one, launch their copywriting careers,
dot, dot, dot (giggles).
Quit their day jobs, explode their income
and create a life of complete freedom on their terms
despite all the challenges of 2020 and 2021.
Now, it will happen again.
The posse and I are back to continue our mission
of rallying the raddest, most rad.
Raddest and baddest, this is just how I say it.
I'm not gonna change it.
Crew of copywriters around the world
and teaching the highly paid copywriting skills.
Again, passive voice, right?
That are needed?
No, we want to say, copywriting skills you need
to write an irresistible portfolio and ignite your...
It's still a bit long.
And teaching you the highly paid copywriting skills
you need to write an irresistible portfolio.
So we kind of already said that.
So maybe I would just say,
raddest baddest crew of copywriters around the world
and teaching you how to ignite
your copywriting business in 2022, right?
I took that out because we already said it up here.
Up here, it was revealing, all of this, portfolio skills.
We already said it. We don't need to say it again.
Whether you're already a copywriter or brand spanking new
the Launch Pad is for you.
You can see I have Grammarly installed as well,
so I highly recommend you double team it.
Use Grammarly and Hemingway Editor
to really edit and finalize your copy.
Doors to season three will open on Sunday, January 9th
and you better believe it'll be better, badder
and radder than ever before.
So you could go like this, right?
Notice how so much of what I'm doing
is literally just breaking up the lines of text.
So keep your eyes on your inbox
because we'll be ready for lift off in three days.
Let's do this again.
PS, I've added even more additional, right?
It's complex, it's redundant.
Even more, additional, that's something that I notice
is really easy to do as writers.
We tend to say multiple words that mean the same thing.
Even more, additional, you can use one or the other, right?
So let's just completely remove that.
Tools and pieces of training. Pieces of training?
You know what?
Again, tools and training to this season
including six Launch Pad exclusive bonuses
available to no one else.
Wait until you see what I have planned for you. Stay tuned.
So, already we took this email
from grade eight to grade four, right?
So, so much better, easier to read
and Hemingway has given it its stamp of approval.
Alright, there we have it.
Now, I know that was at the grade four level
which is three grades lower than the average,
but that is okay.
Trust me, if you can write powerful copy
at an even lower grade level than a grade seven
you are a hundred percent on the right track.
So, aim for a seventh grade level and lower.
Remember, if someone is reading your copy
and they reach a point where there's no longer
that cognitive fluency, they will leave.
Our human brains like simple information
that is easy to process.
So work through your copy to make it simpler
for the average person to read.
And this will create a much more effective piece of copy
that relates and flows and most importantly converts.
So, give me a thumbs-up below if you enjoyed this tutorial
and want to see more like it.
And until next time, I'm Alex. Ciao for now.
Alright guys, if you enjoyed that video
make sure to check out the next one from me right here.
And you can click right here to get a free gift.
How do I run my business while on the go
and traveling the world.
While I don't go very far without my laptop in tow,
you might be surprised to learn just how much of my business
I'm able to run from nothing but my smartphone.
So today I'm counting down the top 10 business apps
I can't live without.