[Sigia-l] long copy vs short copy

Eric Reiss elr at e-reiss.com
Mon Nov 8 09:11:53 EST 2004


Interesting article.

Point 3.4 was particularly relevant – the content has to be good. 

I’ve always told my writing students that a good and relevant text
will have the length it needs but no more. As the King of Hearts
instructs Alice during her visit to Wonderland, “Begin at the
beginning, and go on till you come to the end. Then stop.”

When you arbitrarily cut copy in half and then cut it in half again,
you invariably lose pieces of information the reader needs to create
a shared frame of reference with the author. And that harms the
conversion rate. If copy is to produce good conversion rates, it must
leave no fear, uncertainty, or doubt in the mind of the reader.

I’m astonished that some consultants still insist that text should
only be 10 lines or grandly announce that all the pages on an
existing site should be cut by 50%. There’s a mountain of evidence to
the contrary.

Cheers,
Eric

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eric reiss
principal
e-reiss aps
copenhagen, denmark
http://www.e-reiss.com
office: (+45) 39 29 67 77
mobile: (+45) 20 12 88 44

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