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Your Advertising Copy Should be As Long As Required to Do the Job - The Problem of Too Much Copy and Not Enough Images

By
Real Estate Broker/Owner with Wayzata Lakes Realty: Eric Kodner Sells Twin Cities Homes

 

Your Advertising Copy Should be As Long As Required to Do the Job - The Problem of Too Much Copy and Not Enough Images

 

This is an old tried-and-true rule in the advertising industry and it's as valid today as it was fifty years ago.  Take a second look at your print and Web advertising, your blog and your website.  If the overall look of your pages appears to be "grey" (too much copy) and there aren't enough images or graphics or white spaces to punctuate that copy, you need to edit and cut the verbiage.

This rule of advertising is about design and style.  It means that too much copy quickly becomes monotonous to the reader/viewer. Short copy blocks are fine, but if copy dominates the screen, consider a design change.

What to cut?

In real estate websites, you'll see plenty of examples of superfluous copy that very few visitors will ever read.  If you put your 750-word resume on your homepage, chances are the viewer will never finish reading it before navigating away from your site altogether.  The same is true for plastering ten column inches of company hype on the homepage, forcing the reader to scroll down in order to digest it.  And while it might make you feel good, too much "about me" on your site looks ego-driven to site visitors. 

Ask yourself why prospective customers visit your website

Do they Google real estate websites because they want to read slogans or look at hot air balloons?  This would be something like concluding that folks who visit automobile dealerships on weekends do so because they love to look at a sixty-foot inflatable gorilla floating above a parking lot full of Chevy trucks.

So take a moment and stand back from your ad a couple of feet (maybe even a yard), then take a good look at your ad.  If it looks like a sea of words, with no white space or images to break it up, you might consider adding variety to the page layout.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Contact Broker Eric Kodner with Wayzata Lakes Realty about Minneapolis & Saint Paul area properties, including Lake Minnetonka, Edina and the Minneapolis City Lakes area (Lake Calhoun, Lake of the Isles, Lake Harriet). We also sell on the Saint Croix River and on Lake Superior, including Bayfield, Wisconsin and Madeline Island homes.  With sixteen years experience marketing and selling waterfront properties in Minnesota and Wisconsin, we know Lake Minnetonka and Madeline Island real estate.

Wayzata Lakes Realty LLC (Minnesota) and Madeline Island Realty LLC (Wisconsin)

Real Estate Brokerage licensed in Minnesota & Wisconsin

Phone or Text Message 612.670.2539

EMKodner@Gmail.com  or

MadelineIsland@Gmail.com

Wayzata Lakes Realty

 

 

 

 

Comments(2)

Pamela Seley
West Coast Realty Division - Murrieta, CA
Residential Real Estate Agent serving SW RivCo CA

Eric, I'm discovering shorter blogs are better b/c for whatever reason most do not read the entire blog if it is too long. I guess there is a reason for the tried and true.

Nov 06, 2011 07:48 PM
Eric Kodner
Madeline Island Realty - La Pointe, WI
CRS, Madeline Island Realty, LaPointe, WI 54850 -

Pamela - It can be a challenge to write blogs that are both short and contain good content.

Nov 07, 2011 02:37 AM