Is Your Copywriting Negative?
Posted by Sandy Fitzgerald on Mon, Apr 12, 2010
Have you ever known anybody who is so negative, they wear you out every time they open their mouths?
You know the kind - if you've had any kind of job, it's likely you've worked with one of these people, and after a while, you dread talking to them. That's because they never comment on something except to say how much they hate it.
"I hate reality television. I hate Girl Scout cookies. I hate puppies. I hate 
rainbows."
And yes, we've all known someone or another who hates everything. Aren't they just, well...tiring?
Unfortunately, there will always be the negative among us all. Too often, negativity can pop up in copywriting as well. This can happen all too easily when trying to prove a point. In a writer's quest to be an expert on a subject, he or she starts arguing the point a little too much, to drive it home.
It's a slippery slope from there. Instead of using positive examples to make a point, the negative writer finds topics that he or she knows will make others angry. Negativity doesn't just limit itself to articles, though. The angry writer then turns it on in his or her social media marketing work.
We've seen those tweets that make us cringe. "So and so (fill in the blank) is un-American." "Don't read this blog. The writer is an idiot."
At first, it's fun to read the rantings of a negative writer. It's like a train wreck that you just can't turn yourself away from. But after just a short while, reading those rantings just gets...tiring. When your writing becomes tiring, people get tired of reading it, and when you're no longer getting readers, there goes a site's SEO ratings. And that really is something to get negative about.
So how can you tell that your site is getting negative?
1. It's no longer fun to write. You're finding that random topics make you angry, not energized, and before long, all topics make you angry.
2. You're using negative examples to make your points, not positive ones. It's okay to point out something that is good when you run across it - and even better to provide a link that could lead to you getting a backlink.
3. You're getting comments on your blog items, but they are all from people who want to argue with you. When people want to argue with the points you're making, you're not convincing them of anything, and if you're not convincing them, you're not showing that you're much of an expert on anything.
4. Your website and social marketing traffic is either dropping, or you're attracting a whole new kind of follower - other people who hate everything. If they hate everything, are they going to buy anything?
How do you get around the negativity?
Next time you see something you like, make a note about it somewhere and then write about it. Say how that blog or news item changed your mind and show how others can use the lessons learned from what you saw.
And next time you find yourself uttering the words "I hate," stop right there and change it to "I like." Make it a habit and put it to work for you and eventually, the negativity will begin to rise - and so will your SEO rankings, once again.