Copywriting is the process of writing the words that promote a person, business, opinion, or idea. It may be used as plain text, as a radio or television advertisement, or in a variety of other media. The main purpose of writing this marketing copy, or promotional text, is to persuade the listener or reader to act — to buy a product or subscribe to a certain viewpoint, for instance. Alternatively, copy might also be intended to dissuade a reader from a particular belief or action.

Copywriting can include body copy, slogans, headlines, direct mail pieces, taglines, jingle lyrics, World Wide Web and Internet content, television or radio commercial scripts, press releases, white papers, and other written material incorporated into advertising media. Copywriters can contribute words and ideas to print ads, mail-order catalogs, billboards, commercials, brochures, postcards, online sites, e-mail, letters and other advertising media.

On websites, copywriting may also refer to the methods of writing and wording used to achieve higher rankings in search engines. Often referred to as content writing, it includes the strategic placement and repetition of keywords and keyword phrases on webpages. As search-engine algorithms get smarter every day, this search engine optimization (SEO) copywriting is more and more about writing for human visitors as well as for search engines, about offering fluent and readable content written in a SEO-wise manner.