Content Writing vs Copy Writing: What’s the Difference?
Content writing vs copywriting. It’s a debate that often confuses marketers. However, don’t underestimate knowing…
Have you got a fantastic product or do you run a fantastic service, but you don’t know how to explain to the world how great it is? Many business owners are faced with this dilemma, especially small business owners who want to do everything and be fully involved with their business. Still, sometimes it’s worth admitting that we can’t do it all and getting in a professional to help us out.
Just as it’s probably a good idea to outsource your accounting, it’s probably a good idea to outsource your copywriting to a professional copywriter or copywriting agency for maximum impact. If, however, your budget doesn’t stretch to outsourcing all of your copywriting, there are a few tips that we’ll go through in this article to ensure that whatever you do decide to do yourself, you’re able to get the most out of it and follow good practice.
Copywriting is the art of using words to convey a message in the business world. You’ll find examples of copywriting everywhere from web pages and landing pages, to blog articles, to packaging and products.
Copywriting is as much a science as it is an art, and a good copywriter will know the difference between writing a promotional piece, writing an informative piece, and writing for social.
Unlike other forms of writing, such as medical, academic, or legal, copywriting for the web must be plain and straight to the point, without deviating too far off-topic. Web copywriters must strike a delicate balance between being entertaining enough so that people will continue reading and being informative enough to get the message across, all the while making sure their website copywriting writing meets the strict search engine optimisation (SEO) standards that seem to change on a daily basis.
Copywriting has been around in one form or another for centuries. From the promotional political satire leaflets of the 1700s, right up to yesterday’s tweets by Innocent Smoothie, copywriters are always looking to create content with a new edge, using the next best way of getting the message across.
Businesses who invest in good copywriting understand how much of an impact it can really make. From getting the packaging right on your products, right up to investing in professional SEO copywriting for SEO content friendly blog posts to boost your website rankings, copywriting is vital and, just like taxes, an inevitable part of every business.
If you’re looking to do your own copywriting, whether that’s because you feel you’re good at writing or that your budget doesn’t quite stretch to a professional copywriter yet, there are a few things you should consider before you dive in. Getting these right will dramatically increase your conversion rateA conversion rate is the percentage of visitors that take a desired action on your site. and improve your user experience across the web and on any leaflets and flyers you produce.
This one almost goes without saying, get the grammar and spelling right for your copywriting. There are numerous ways to do this, from Google Docs to a plugin such as Grammarly. These two combined can help all writers improve their writing and fix even complex results.
Good grammar and spelling are essential to ensure that your business is seen as a real and legitimate venture, and there is no excuse for lack of attention to detail. If you’re concerned about your grammar and spelling, be sure to ask someone to give what you’ve written a quick proofread before you post it just to be sure.
Who are you writing for? This seems like such a simple question, but so many companies don’t seem to know the answer. Finding your tone of voice online can be a really tricky task; you may think your company is hip and young, but if it’s really not, then you’ll look and sound very odd trying to fit in with the youth.
Equally, if you’re trying to push products that are aimed at tweens and teens, being overly formal with your style won’t go down to well.
Make some marketing personas to define your target audience and decide how you want your business brand to sound before you jump into the writing.
This tip is more of a technical tip for blogs and articles. After reviewing hundreds and thousands of blog articles, it has been found that articles over 1350 words generally tend to bring in more traffic than shorter articles. This is generally because there is more information and more opportunity to go in-depth, but at the same score, people don’t like reading blocks of text.
Don’t be afraid to mix up your articles with bolding, bullet points, lists, tables, and of course, make sure you use the correct heading <h1/2/3> title tags in your HTML to let Google know which bits are important.
KeywordKeywords are the words and phrases that potential customers might search for to find your business. research is not the same as keyword stuffingKeyword stuffing is a technique that attempts to give pages higher rankings in search engine result pages by inserting the same keywords over and over again.! That’s a very important thing to point out!
If you are writing an article about dog beds, for example, you don’t actually want your keyword to be “dog” because it’s far too vague, just as you wouldn’t want a sentence to sound something like:
“Dogs love our dog bed because dogs love to sleep. Does your dog enjoy sleeping on a dog bed during his dog days with you his dog owner?”
It is not easy to read. We don’t like it, your customers won’t like it, and neither will Google. Therefore, research your keywords first, and don’t be afraid to use long-tail keywords and keywords that are similar and enriching. Long gone are the days when Google couldn’t figure out what you were talking about without it repeated every five words; now, Google fully understands context and will actually penalise those who keyword stuff.
Good copywriting is vital for businesses to succeed. While most people can write fairly well, well enough to get by, employing professional copywriting services will ensure that your product or service gets the attention to detail it deserves, as well as the correct spelling, grammar, and context.
It’s really important to ensure that your copywriters know exactly what you want and why you want it, so they can adjust their writing to suit your needs.
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