Advanced Online Copywriting - London Workshop October 9, 2007

People treat websites differently to other published information. Two simple facts:

• Most people decide whether they want to stay on a webpage in under 1 second

• Over 75% of people don't read webpages, they scan them - picking out individual words and sentences.

The online environment is the most challenging marketers have yet faced. Your audience are more demanding and fickle than ever. You have to get your message across as quickly and effectively as possible.

Studies have consistently found that Web Pages which follow best practice for online copywriting outperform those which don't by over 100%. This results in pages that:

• Convince people to read them
• Effectively communicate their message
• Stay in the audience's memory

WHAT IS COVERED?

This one day workshop will begin with a brief overview of best practice.

The rest of the day will be dedicated to re-writing exercises which will involve drawing on the full range of your best practice skills to make pages more:

• Concise
• Easy to scan
• Well-structured

A great part of the value of the day comes not only in viewing the Workshop Leader’s. example re-writes, but also in discussing the differences between your re-write and those of the Workshop Leader’s and other participants’.

These exercises have all been based on real web pages, and so provide a very realistic setting to discuss issues around online copywriting.

Particular sub-genres of online copywriting which exercises will cover include:
 Email Newsletters
 Search engine optimisation
 Accessibility
 Tone of voice

Other features of this great course include:
• Has fewer attendees (because of more complex exercises and a greater need for discussion/feedback)
• Allowing you to supply a web page to our expert before the course, so they can provide you with comment and feedback on it during the day

An electronic version of the day’s presentation will be made available to all course attendees.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

This course is aimed at experienced online copywriters who are confident in their knowledge and use of best practice techniques. The course assumes you are already familiar with online copywriting best practice and will only present a brief re-cap at of its techniques at the beginning of the day.

The day’s exercises are not, for example, presented as instances of practising any particular part of best practise (e.g. ‘We are now going to practice choosing which words in a paragraph to make bold’). Instead, pages are presented to course participants for a complete re-write, after which a class discussion is held on which techniques different people chose to use and why.

Anybody who has taken our more basic online copywriting course will be comfortable with the level of this course.

WHO IS THE WORKSHOP LEADER?

Tim Fidgeon, Author, Trainer and Consultant

Tim lives and breathes usability and copywriting for the web. He’s been involved in several award-winning projects over his 7-year career and regularly writes and publishes research articles on all aspects of usability. He’s passionate about making the Internet better, because he sees it as his way of making the world a better place!

One of Tim’s growing interests is ‘e-inclusion’ – specifically, how websites can be designed to support users with learning difficulties and low levels of literacy. He strongly believes that no-one should be left behind in the digital revolution.

Tim writes regular articles & white papers that have been published by, amongst others:

.net magazine
Businesshighlight.org
E-consultancy
Netmag.co.uk
New Media Knowledge
Usability News
Web Standards Group

Official Website: http://www.e-consultancy.com/knowledge/events/1450/advanced-online-copywriting--london-workshop.html