UX Writing: The Magic Formula for Conversion

7 Simple Steps to Increase Web Conversion

Websites with great conversion rates, have one thing in common — at their very core, is great copy.

I am a big advocate of copy first web design. A beautiful website, with bad copy, is a bad website. But an ugly website, with great copy, is a great website. And a beautiful website, with great copy, is an amazing website.

When we think about copy for a website, our ultimate goal is conversion, i.e., getting the user to take the action you want them to take on your website. The action can be monetary, time, or whatever else is specific to your business/website needs.

The moment when a user takes action is the moment you’ve convinced them that the cost of the action is worth the reward.

How do you convince someone the reward is greater than the cost?

Copy copy copy.

There is an infinite number of ways to organize and write copy to persuade your users to take action on your site. However, there is one tried and true copy formula that comes from a former advertising and copywriting guru, Bob Stone. In fact, it’s called Bob Stone’s Gem. And it goes like this:

Bob Stones Gem

1) Begin with your strongest benefit

Think about your target audience, and what’s the one thing that you do that benefits them the most that they can’t find elsewhere? That’s your strongest benefit. This is also called a unique value proposition (UVP).

For an example let’s look at Mailchimp’s website. Their opening is the idea that they equip small businesses with the tools and insights that big marketing teams have.

2) Expand on the most important benefit

Now that they’re hooked on your strongest benefit. Go ahead and expand on that, and really educate the user on what you’re offering. Show them not only that this is hard to ignore, but also, help them see how you can make their life better.

Looking at Mailchimp, we can see they're expanding the benefits by both elaborating on the initial benefit, but also segmenting out the…