Believe it or not, copywriting is one of the most important content-creation skills a designer can possess. If you think about it, design exists to support and deliver content—not the other way around.

As a designer, content should be the driving force behind many of your decisions, whether you’re creating the content or someone else is. So if you can understand how to write effective copy (and understand the purpose that it serves), you’ll be able to better serve your clients and ultimately create better designs.

In this article, we’ll cover some helpful copywriting tips for designers to help you build better experiences.

Sales Copywriting vs. UX copywriting

First things first, understand the nature of the copy you’re writing for. There are some subtle differences between sales (or persuasive) copywriting and UX writing.

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The UX Writing Starter-Kit

Sales copywriting is all about getting users to make a purchase or sign up for a product or service. UX copywriting, on the other hand, is all about helping users reach a goal efficiently and effectively.

Make your copy easy to scan. People reading on the web don’t want to read huge chunks of content.

There are overlaps between the two, for sure. But while sales copywriting is often about convincing a customer to do something, UX copywriting is about helping them do something they’re already trying to do. You don’t have to sell them on the goal, just help them achieve it.

Make your copy easy for visitors to scan. That means keeping paragraphs short (2-4 sentences is a good rule of thumb), using plenty of headlines, adding bulleted lists where they make sense, and even using bold and italic text (sparingly) to highlight the most important parts of the content.