The Internet is a great leveler. Although current spate of pay-per-click search engines has made battle ground a bit uneven, it is still favorable to small, but innovative businesses.

It took a severe economic jolt to make these businesses realize power of written word – copy of your pages that you put on Net. For long its significance has been put on backburner, and lots of breast-beating has gone into cause of "latest development technology." Well, technology has its place, but what makes a customer do business with you is, written message.

It all depends on words you use, way you use them, combinations you use them with, and way you decide when not to use them - it's all about words.

Sadly, small-sized businesspersons do not take copywriting seriously until its too late. 95% of businesses fail because they fail to convey their message. Their copy is not convincing enough.

Whenever you sit down to work on a new copy or edit an old one, just keep one thing in mind: how you can deliver “the message” in minimum words. Remember that literature written for sake of promoting a product or a service needs to be succinct and direct, and above all, understandable. The average reader of your literature is a person who is in a hurry. He/she is bombarded with similar messages already (and he/she might be cynical).

Keep end result in mind and create copy around that. Relinquish your inherent proclivities and biases, and just focus on message. Present copy in a way that it is highly informative, convincing, and compelling. Before sitting down to write, think of your target readership. Are they children? Are they housewives? Are they teenagers? Are they hardcore technocrats and scientists? Formulate your language and presentation according to that.

A method I find useful is, make a list of all words that can be associated with current copywriting project. It is fun, and it helps you create supersets, sets and subsets of your project.

I have seen many copies where creative writers lose focus, get carried away with their “creativity”, and end up creating a message that can win accolades as a piece of art, but makes no sale for client. The way you present your message should not dominate actual message. Your writing style should not impede actual message and end up creating a distraction.

I myself am a writer. It is often extremely hard to resist temptation of sprinkling powder of my style on copy, but I have to resist it for sake of message (and my income). I have learnt to become detached. I keep telling myself: it’s just a copy for my client for which I’m getting paid, and it is not a piece of literature that I’m creating to further cause of my art.