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Improve Your Copywriting Writing Skills

by Thalassa12 January 2018~5 min read

Then → Now · 2026

Nearly all the swipe-file sites survive; what changed is who writes the first draft.

What it said (2018) ↓

Words paint pictures. "EVEN more money" avoids implying lack, "IMPROVE" beats "CHANGE", and outcomes ("my campaigns convert") beat tenure ("20+ years").

Relevance to the audience matters most. Test, split-test, optimise.

What happened (2026) ↓

Gen-AI reshaped copywriting demand. Writing gigs and pay on Upwork fell after ChatGPT, and the higher-quality writers were hit hardest. WashU Olin, 2023-08 · Digital Information World

Most of the listed resources are still up. Swiped.co is active with weekly "Swipe Studies". Who's Mailing What!, ClickBank and infomarketingblog.com respond.

Verdict · Held up: 7 / 10 · Full 2026 update

  • Careful word choice and relevance to the audience were the keys to persuasive copywriting.Still valid human judgement on framing is what AI output lacks
  • Resources such as Swiped.co, ClickBank and Google Books would help writers study good copy.Still valid Mostly still valid
  • Copywriting skills carried real career value for marketers.Partly true under AI pressure

Original post · 12 January 2018

How to improve your copywriting skills?

Let's face it. It's not just about "copywriting". It's all about "expressing yourself". It's all about being able to write things in a way that others will understand and be influenced in the way you wanted to express yourself. Right? No?

Words are powerful! They can either make your message even stronger or shatter it to pieces and make it disappear in the vast pool of messages and ads that we get to see each day. But how to improve your communication, and copywriting skills? Well, by making strong and powerful messages that tell captivating stories. Stories that paint pictures. That is how you get remembered, that is how you become remarkable.

Improve your copywriting skills! Improve your communication!

When you communicate with your customers or clients you could use different channels or methods like webinars, live events, videos, presentations and so on but you always use these specific tools to convey your meaning. Those tools are your words! The words that you use to express yourself usually create a mental picture. That's why it's valuable to improve your copywriting skills. Your messages will be really good and way better to understand if you use clear and impactful words. Words have a great impact on people when used wisely and when you speak or write these words can create powerful pictures in people’s minds.  

Examples to improve your copywriting skills

Let’s take for example the following statements: “I can help you earn more money” This one implies that the person is not making enough money.   “I have a training program that can get you in a better shape” This one implies that the person your addressing is not in a good shape.   So instead of putting those sentence like this you could say something like: “I can help you earn EVEN more money” or “I have a training program that can get you in an EVEN better shape” You see how one word can change the meaning?   So, if you as a digital nomad are on a call with a client, have a webinar or you are just promoting and showcasing your skills and talents and say to your client: “I have an idea that can change your business and you will sell EVEN more and make EVEN more money” Does this make it better? No! The reason is that you have the word “CHANGE” and that word is conveying, threat, loss, fear, disruption, uncertainty… Instead… “I have some great ideas that can help you IMPROVE what you are doing here…” If you sell yourself as an expert and say “I am a Digital Marketer with 20+ Years Experience” Would that work for you? Not really! You are not the only one in the world that has been doing this for this time, right? Instead of this write or say something like: “I am a Digital Marketer and my campaigns convert visitors into buyers” You don’t say how long you’ve been doing it. But you now have some room to discuss this. Like how do you convert them, what tactics and methods you use and so on. The words as tools will not only help you get your message across, create an explicit mental picture in people’s minds but it will also help you get attention, tell a better story and urge people to do something. The ultimate goal of copywriting is to make people buy, subscribe, promote, download or even call you as an expert in the field that you are working in. Telling a story that implies results and the benefits one could get is way better that just listing call-to-actions and USPs. You have to put your readers in the situation where they reap the benefits from what you are offering already. This is what will separate you from your competition and the impactful copywriting is the right path to achieving a good business narrative that does that   But, that is not sufficient! It's powerful, but may not yet be effective. Make sure you focus on your user, or your audience, or your client. Be aware of what is relevant for them, and make sure your language is tailored to their needs.  

Choosing the right words is the first thing, BUT....

whatever your say must be relevant to your audience. If you are a content marketer, you should know who is "consuming" your content, and be deliberate on how you stay relevant to them. Do your market research, do your landscape assessment, understand your audience, and develop your content marketing strategy based on all these insights. Otherwise, you are prone to becoming like those anonymous people who send on average one message a day on LinkedIn, or on e-mail, or wherever, making a very good story and a great promise, but failing to attract my attention because they are out of context.  

More sources to improve your copywriting skills

We would like to share with all of you some useful resources that could work as an inspiration for you when writing your narrative, story or sales pitch and that will help you to improve your copywriting skills. Some of these websites have gathered some of the best working and converting direct sales ads where you can see how powerful wording can actually be. Check them out and do not hesitate to share in the comments below some of your ideas, resources or tactics when it comes to copywriting, telling a story or writing for sales ads. One more thing! Do not forget to try, test and repeat. There is no true formula or template to what’s working best. You have to be ready to try, split test and optimize at all times. That will help you get the best working message for your ad, campaign, Press Release or Brand story.

This article is contributed by Nicky Nikolaev.

 
2026 update

What happened after this was written

Claims then:

  • Words paint pictures. "EVEN more money" avoids implying lack, "IMPROVE" beats "CHANGE", and outcomes ("my campaigns convert") beat tenure ("20+ years").
  • Relevance to the audience matters most. Test, split-test, optimise.
  • Resources: Swiped.co, ClickBank, Hardtofindads.com, newspaperarchive.com, adsoftheworld.com, Who's Mailing What!, infomarketingblog.com, and Google Books (Popular Mechanics).
  • Contributed by a marketer (private individual, not researched).

What happened since:

  • Gen-AI reshaped copywriting demand. Writing gigs and pay on Upwork fell after ChatGPT, and the higher-quality writers were hit hardest. WashU Olin, 2023-08 · Digital Information World
  • Most of the listed resources are still up. Swiped.co is active with weekly "Swipe Studies". Who's Mailing What!, ClickBank and infomarketingblog.com respond. Ads of the World and NewspaperArchive sit behind bot checks, so they exist. swiped.co · (link check 2026-09-30)
  • Hardtofindads.com resolves in DNS but did not respond: no current web presence found (not confirmed closed).

Named tools/orgs status:

Name Then Now Evidence
Swiped.co Swipe file Active swiped.co
ClickBank Sales-page access Active link check 2026-09-30
Hardtofindads.com Old ads No current web presence found link check 2026-09-30 (timeout)
NewspaperArchive Historic ads Online (Cloudflare-protected) link check 2026-09-30
Ads of the World Agency ads Online (bot check) link check 2026-09-30
Who's Mailing What! Direct-mail archive Active link check 2026-09-30
infomarketingblog.com Blog Responds ("Info Marketing Money Machines") link check 2026-09-30
Google Books Old magazines Active (not re-checked) —

Verdict: Word-choice and relevance principles: Still valid (evergreen), and arguably more so, since human judgement on framing is what AI output lacks. Resource list: Mostly still valid. The implied career value of copywriting: Partly true, under AI pressure.

Headline finding: Nearly all the swipe-file sites survive; what changed is who writes the first draft.

Re-verified 3 November 2026: 4 claims confirmed, 0 corrected, 0 hedged, 0 removed.

Researched 30 September 2026 and re-verified against the sources on 3 November 2026. Sources are linked in each point. Items marked "unverified" could not be established and are not guessed.