Encyclopedia Britannica increased sign-ups by 103% by applying web copy best practices. The Problem: Encyclopedia Britannica is a household name, renowned for producing accurate and up to date content. Encyclopedia Britannica Online is a subscription based digital service that offers a range of informational tools and articles. The site also offers a free trial subscription that lets interested people try out the service before committing to a purchase. The web page on which users could sign up for the free trial was performing adequately, but it was bogged down by structural and copy mistakes. The brand was not sharing a value proposition or driving users to complete the desired on-page action signing up for the trial version. The Solution: In order to increase sign-ups, Encyclopedia Britannica completely transformed the copy on the free trial page of the website. Some of the changes made included the following: Heading: The heading and subheading were rewritten to grab the reader and express the value and content of the offer. The heading changed from the rather generic Why try Encyclopedia Britannica? to a clear, specific offer: Get unlimited access to all 32 volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica during your FREE TRIAL. Copy: the amount and type of copy on the page was drastically reduced. Rather than paragraphs of persuasive power copy, the new version launched directly into the content of the offer, making clarity the guiding principle. Benefits: Member benefits were moved from an out of the way column on the left to the center of the page and were reformatted into bullet points with bolding for emphasis. Images: The old page included lots of images but none of them were specifically relevant to the product or offer. This was changed to a single large image displaying the encyclopedias and a computer screen. The image was also given a caption that reinforced the value offering. Call to Action: Several aspects of the CTA were changed to make the offer more appealing. The main button was rewritten from Take a free trial to Get instant access now (emphasizing that the user would receive something rather than having to take it). The saving was also included and highlighted in yellow to draw the readers eye. Form: Rather than having the user click away to another page, the reworked version included a form with the catchy title Activate your free trial making it clear that the user would get the benefit by providing their information. This allowed the users through process to flow directly from understanding the benefits to signing up directly. The Result: The new version of the page, filled with effective and targeted copy, had a click through rate of 2.03%, compared to just 1% previously. This garnered a 103% increase in conversions in other words, more than doubling the number of people who signed up for the trial version. Aside from this, the brand was able to communicate their offer and express their value proposition upfront, leading to greater clarity.

b) Identify the web writing challenges that were included in the new version of the Encyclopedia Britannica website.

a) Explain the advantages of a web copy need to be easy to read?