Jeff Brooks wrote a post way back in 2011, which is a millenia ago in Covid years.  He gave prescient advice on removing words to make copy better.  Among his list,

• Removing the first one to three paragraphs.  He describes these as mostly “warm up” and extraneous.   We’d agree.  Most copy is not good and it starts at the beginning.  This isn’t opinion making, it’s science based scoring that predicts response.  You can see our earlier posts on the Copy Optimizer here, here and here.  The first paragraph (or 2 or 3) should be a story.  Good copy has two parts; telling a story and making it read like a conversation with a friend.  The sequence matters.  Story first.

How to tell a good story?  Follow the rest of the remove/add advice below.  But, that is a bit paint by numbers(ish), which is still progress but not enough.  Show me, don’t tell me.  I know that’s cliche but it’s powerful if you let it seep in.

What else in Jeff’s list?

• Removing the word “that”.  It can often go.  Read your sentence without it.  There’s a good chance it’s better.
• Removing adverbs.  Yes, agreed.  However, the science behind this is a tad involved.  There are time and place adverbs and general adverbs.  These tend to group together in text and make it harder to follow, especially the time and place ones (before, after, above, behind.
• Removing adjectives.  Agreed.  We call these the storytellers crutch.  Most should be deleted.

What else to kill?

• Nouns.  Of course you can’t delete all of them but most should go.  Proper, informal, delete most of them.  They will make your copy read like an academic abstract.  The Copy Optimizer will highlight all your nouns and tell you how many to delete if you have too many.
• Prepositions.  This is like the “that” word.  Once you’re sensitized to it, you’ll find most prepositions can be deleted.
• Long words. 

The flip side also holds

Here’s a partial list of what to add.

There are many parts of speech your copy is missing if you want it to feel like a human conversation here’s a partial list of what to add.

• All pronouns are good.  1st, 2nd, 3rd person.  Indefinite.  When we talk we use lots of pronouns.  You’re writing should mirror this.  It’s a way to make copy involving.  This goes way beyond the simplistic “you” advice floating around the blogosphere.
• Contractions.   They are  They’re how we talk.
• Private verbs. There is a list of well over 100.  The Copy Optimizer will provide all these.  These share what the writer (i.e. signer) is thinking and feeling.  Examples: felt, heard, believed, wanted, dreamt, suspects, thinks, learned
• Possibility modals:  can, may should..
• Emphatics: just, really, most, more, for sure…

Good copy is a process.  The science behind words can help.

Kevin

P.S. The Copy Optimizer product development to turn our science and innovation into a customer facing, do-it-yourself, editor on steroids is officially underway. ( Earlier posts on the Optimizer here and here.) This will be a monthly subscription service with different tiers tied to revenue and agency/charity categories.

Write your copy, get scores instantly with visuals on what to add and drop.  Edit, get new scores instantly and get higher response rates.

P.P.S.  We’ll have a beta signup sheet soon.