The Wall Street Journal quoted research firm eMarketer today about the size of the online ad economy. The results are eye-popping. Read more

Every post needs to start with a catchy headline. More than anything else, a headline determines whether or not a viewer will read your post. Read more

And now, it’s time for another installment of Bad Copywriting. This time around, the booby prize goes to Limited Too.

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“Free” is a powerful motivator in a subject line, but care must be taken to avoid being snared in the spam filter.

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This came up just today. For the record:

There are 70-75 words in a :30 TV commercial

80 is too many and 6o words feels too loose.

Although a writer may be able to read 85 words in half a minute, that hectic pace doesn’t allow for nuance, meaning or emphasis. Tighten it up and give the copy room to breathe.

After all, it’s the meaning the audience takes away, not how many words you can cram in.

Gino Cosme has pulled together 10 Tips for the Online Copywriters in a recent article for South Africa’s Bizcommunity.com.

As usual, Gino offers sound advice, summarized here: Read more

I’m as cynical as the next guy. It’s pretty hard to get me to open something. But how about this email headline from Marriott: Read more

This is a follow-up to our earlier post about using verbs for links on websites. Thanks to everyone for their comments.

The consensus seems to be that Read more

Why is Microsoft Word’s built-in dictionary so lame? Everybody has known this for years and remarks about it anecdotally. Read more

Do you capitalize the word “Internet?” And when does a proper name become a common noun?

This is an issue of some importance to all online copywriters. It’s bothered us for some time that Internet remains a proper noun – after all, we don’t capitalize Cable or Water or Electricity. But, like the Internet, they are all piped to the house by a utility. Read more