A forum post on my copywriters board suggested that too many italics, bolds, underlines, yellow highlighting and the like are not good. One referred to them as “speed bumps,” which reduce usability and readability.

I don’t necessarily agree with this premise.

First, understand that formatting tricks help to drive important points home, or emphasize key points in the copy you want your reader to read, focus on and remember.

When in a face-to-face encounter, a sale is not only made on what you say but how you say it. Including inflection of your voice, rhythm, tone, volume, pausing, nonverbal communication and others.

Because “how” you say it can emphasize, support or contradict your message.

Lower your voice during an important point in your sales pitch causes people to lean forward to make sure they hear everything. Inflect certain key words or phrases can help drive important ideas home. And so on.

Now, on the web, there’s no face-to-face interaction. You don’t have the same luxury. And therefore, formatting can be used as an effective tool to underline (and I mean that literally and figuratively) important points.

Granted, I agree that “speed bumps” do reduce ease of reading. But you don’t want to make it too comfortable for the reader. Especially with web copy.

What I am saying is that speed bumps, used sparingly and judiciously, are good.

Why? Because copy is different than, say, an article, editorial or entertaining piece of text. If you make it too easy for them, they will doze off, lose track, comprehend less or leave.

Here’s a little story.

Brian Keith Voiles and I once offered contradictory advice. When I told my clients and students to use red headlines, particularly when statistical split-tests showed red increased response, Brian said, “Never use red in your headline… It means STOP!”

First, Brian is right. However, Brian is primarily an offline copywriter. But online, that’s exactly what you want people to do. That is, you want them to stop (stop scanning, that is).

Remember the 3 immutable laws of human behavior, especially on the web:

1. People never read
2. People never believe
3. People never do

So you need to apply the “3 P’s” (or have it in the back of your mind when you write online copy). They are:

1. Pull them in
2. Prove your case
3. Push them to act

People online never read anything at first. They skim, scan and scroll. You want them to stop scanning and start reading.

“Speed bumps,” if you will, cause little distractions along the way that 1) prod the reader constantly to keep reading, and 2) avoid them from reading text that, if it’s all the same, starts to appear as one big blur and puts them to sleep — or into a trance-like state.

They get bored, tired and lose focus. Best case, and since their time is short, they get tempted to scroll again to save time.

Mind you, great copy should do a good job to keep the reader interested. The content alone should be powerful enough to keep them interested and hanging onto every word.

But…

Formatless copy is like turning a face-to-face sales presentation that’s meant to persuade into a boring, monotone and limp lecture that only educates, informs or entertains at best.

(How many pieces of copy caused you to start reading, and then after 1-2 pages — or even 1-2 paragraphs if not sentences — made you stop and start scrolling up and down again?)

Dan Kennedy teaches a lot about “copy cosmetics,” because the formatting of your salesletter is just as important as the words.

That said, there are a few caveats:

1) Ultimately, copy is not meant to educate.

It’s meant to educate, yes. But first, it’s meant to attract attention, then educate, and then persuade. In that order.

Remember the AIDA formula? It means “Attention,” “Interest,” “Desire” and “Action.” Your first job, above all else, is to capture people’s attention, and then it’s to captivate them… and to keep them captivated.

Large headlines in a color other than black (e.g., red, burgundy, blue, etc), for example, are proven “scan-stoppers.” They draw attention to themselves, which is what you want.

This doesn’t apply to headlines exclusively. Headers (subheads throughout the copy), emphasis on certain words within the copy, Johnson boxes with borders, and so on all help to draw attention to those elements.

So they are indeed “speed bumps.” But on the information superhighway, where people browse at the speed of electrons, people are “speeding by” and will often scroll your copy up and down, quickly trying to find something that interests them — or a reason to justify reading the copy in the first place.

That’s why most people try to look for the price. The problem is, they are not looking for the price to justify their buying decision, but to justify the need to read your long copy in the first place.

And without reading the copy first to understand and appreciate the full value of your offering, prices alone will often push them away.

2) Scientific split-tests have proven it.

For example, “clunkiness” does outperform clean copy. I know this intimately! One piece of copy I wrote bombed. It’s was beautiful — both the message as well as the look. We tested the same copy after adding a few strategic bolds, italics and underlines.

Guess what? Response shot up dramatically.

Am I saying use bolds and underlines and yellow highlighting willy-nilly? No! For one, it loses credibility — working against rule #2 above. But more importantly, too many “speed bumps” are bad because now they bleed into one another. They transform the text into one big blur… again.

But the modest use of cosmetic enhancements is best, as they draw attention to themselves without “blending in” too much with the rest of the copy

Look at it this way.

Too much makes all the copy look the same. Overuse of bolds, italics and so on can thus become counterproductive.

For instance, if people start scrolling up and down with massive amounts of yellow highlighting, nothing stands out and grabs them by the eyeballs, stops them from scanning and forces them to start reading.

Plus, if you’re using formatting to emphasize certain words or phrases, then too much makes all the text look the same and, as a result, “de-emphasizing” other, more important words you wanted to stand out in the first place.

3) People will complain, regardless.

People who think they “are the market,” especially business owners who think they are their own markets, will make assumptions. Often, the wrongs ones. And business owners often tend to jump at the slightest complaint and make assumptions themselves based on that complaint, suggestion or comment.

But what people say and what people do are totally different.

(Especially “who” says and does it, too.)

A few rules by millionaire copywriter Dan Kennedy…

1. Long copy outpulls short copy.
2. Clunky-looking copy outpulls clean copy.
3. Personal copy outpulls impersonal copy.
4. Hard-hitting copy outpulls soft copy.
5. Sequential copy outpulls one-hit copy.

(By the way, “sequential” means following up with your prospects, such as autoresponders, or offline, doing a 2nd, 3rd or more mailing to the same market with your copy.)

By the way, here’s an actual story to show you an example of point #2.

Perry Marshall, a famous Google AdWords guru (and also a great copywriter himself), once told me this little story (not his own, but a great story he read about that illustrates a really good point nonetheless).

A retailer was going out of business.

Frustrated, the owner took a piece of dog-eared, coffee-stained cardboard with large chunks ripped from its sides, and with a huge, black Sharpie marker, wrote in big, bold letters:

“BUSINESS SUCKS SALE!”

He put it in his storefront window. The result? His business exploded! It became so busy, people were lining up at the cash counter. (Business certainly didn’t suck anymore.)

So the business owner said to himself, “Wow, that sign really works! I’m going to have one professionally made at the local printer. That should jump business even more!”

The result?

Business went back down.

Way down.

So he had a hunch. He decided to put the hand-made cardboard version back out. And what happened? You guessed it: business went back up again. Go figure. Or not.

4) Too much of a good thing can kill you.

Another side to the issue is not just the usability but also the credibility. Too many “speed bumps” can make it hard to read, which again defeats the purpose. But more importantly, they cause people to judge your entire business based on the image you project.

If you become too “clunky,” then people will assume that your business, your business practices, your products and especially your treatment of customers are just as “clunky.”

I wrote about this in my blog a few months ago. In it, I talk about the fact that first impressions do matter.

But you can still use cosmetics and formatting to emphasize certain words or phrases you wish to drive home but without your copy appearing as if it was created by some preschooler.

(Mind you, Bill Glazer, Dan Kennedy’s partner, once did a mailing campaign using a Crayola-drawn lettering and stick figures, replete with the inverted “E’s” and “R’s,” as one would expect from a preschooler. It was a highly successful campaign!)

I believe there’s a happy medium.

Remember that you do want to create a good first impression, as first impressions are not only lasting ones but also conducive to sales. Including repeat and referral sales.

The second step in my 3-step formula earlier is to “prove your case.” That means credentializing your copy, adding proof and projecting a sound, professional, trustworthy image.

And the cosmetics do communicate this, with or without you knowing it.

In the end, it goes both ways: don’t be overly fancy or “clean” looking, as well as don’t be overly shoddy or “clunky” looking, since either one will kill your sales or your credibility. Or both.

In other words, don’t focus too much on cosmetics, either way, at the expense of the most important part of your copy…

The words.

About the Author

Michel Fortin is a direct response copywriter, author, speaker, consultant, and CEO of The Success Doctor, Inc. Visit his blog and signup free to get tested conversion strategies and response-boosting tips by email, along with blog updates, news, and more! Go now to http://www.michelfortin.com.

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