What Is Copywriting? Research, Skill & Time

What does a copywriter do? They make your website work for you.

Content shapes design, so copywriting is at the heart of your web project.

Website content that gets results from both readers and search engines can be fairly tricky to write. I’ve put together a bit of an outline to give you an idea of what stages to expect in the copywriting process. Some might call it an “editorial checklist of desired content characteristics”, but I just call it a checklist.

Planning, production and publication of website content

What is copywriting? Well, it most certainly is not an afterthought, and it is not something to be done at the last minute. Creating and developing content is a process.

The content production process

What happens when? How long does it take? Who is responsible? Do you know who is going to (re)write all the content for the new site? Yes: Good. Not sure: that’s where I can help.

Tips

Calculate the actual hours of work (effort) required to complete each stage. Write the agreed number of hours against each stage and add it up
Identify risks in the process. Are there lots of people with a say in the content? Is an unfair workload falling on one person? Do they have the required skills? Could things get political or contentious?
Don’t underestimate the time it takes; it nearly always takes longer than you expect for good copywriting to happen.

Research

Writing effective web copy takes planning. Why? Because good copy is based on research. Copywriting isn’t about guessing at what people want. Good web content comes from questions: what are your audience’s needs, wants, expectations? What problems do they have? How can you solve them? Asking these questions shapes webcopy and the overall website experience.

The most compelling and effective copy comes from audience language. Everything in good webcopy centres around them, not the company or the product. The job of the copywriter is to pull together language and ideas from a variety of sources and build them into interest-grabbing, high-converting copy.

My research, quite clearly, always starts with the product. To understand the ins-and-outs, what the product is and what it’s not, who it is for and who it is not for, I look at competitors and the industry as a whole.

Tip

I go through Google searches, websites, blogs, testimonials, reviews (negative and positive) and Facebook posts and I break down sales messages. I take customers’ responses, likes and frustrations and I turn them around and weave them right into your customer-driven copy: web copy in customers’ own words.

Content strategy

Before I can produce successful web content, I need to know:

everything about your target audience
which keywords to target to attract said audience
how difficult the keywords will be to rank for
which keywords the competition is ranking for
which keywords are more likely to convert to sales.

This all starts with SEO keyword research which is neither fast nor easy. Each web page needs to have a unique focus keyword, but I won’t always aim for the really popular keywords. High trafficked keywords are very competitive and therefore difficult to rank with on Google; it is questionable as to how effective they will be in marketing your site online. Only ranking for relevant, quality keywords will result in the right kind of visitors to your business.

A keyword can be one word or a phrase. Most keywords are actually three- to five-word phrases and are often referred to as “long-tail keywords” and long tail searches often hold the highest conversion rate. As people get more specific in their searching they are probably closer to buying or picking up the phone. We will look at using long-tail keywords, and where relevant, location-based keywords for your target marketing area.

Writing

Now that I have what I need to produce your actual content, the writing can begin.

How long does it take to produce a single web page?

Tricky: how long is a piece of string? A reasonably detailed information page could take 10 or more hours of total effort to produce and publish, particularly for someone who is not used to writing on a regular basis. A short product blurb page should take less, but an important, much-discussed, landing page could extend to more.

Tip

It can be hard to write about yourself, your business or your products when you are living and breathing your topic every day. A professional copywriter brings an outsider’s perspective to write web copy, and one which your customers can relate to.

Types of web pages

Landing pages: These contain the content you see on a home, about and services pages. They should have distinct calls to action, such as “call us” ‘email us” “check out our testimonials”, “check out our services” or “buy now”. The page needs to include the SEO keywords you’re trying to target and be somewhere in the range of 250-450 words long. Most clients need five pages of content written.

The purpose of landing pages is to put together what site cruisers need to hear before becoming customers. Poorly written content can seriously affect your sales. Landing pages are the most difficult to write out of all the web content.

SEO blog posts:

These short articles are one of the easiest ways to increase your website traffic. Blog posts give people a reason to visit your website, and once readers are there, they tend to click around a little. Blogs drive SEO, they introduce people to your brand, and in an indirect way, blog posts drive sales — or at least, they do when they’re written correctly.

What does a landing page need?

People scan websites. They read quickly, searching for the information that they need. If they can’t find their answers, they’ll leave.

Think short: short paragraphs, shorter sentences, short words. Writing short allows for white space which gives readers’ eyes a place to rest, so paragraphs should be 1-3 sentences and sentences should be ten to fifteen words long.
Use bullet points and lists. Readers can scan lists quickly for the information that they’re looking for.
Use headings and sub-headings. I use targeted keywords woven into a benefit and make a headline. People look for the positive, so I hit them with a benefit straight up. Using clear headings and sub-headings helps readers find what they’re looking for quickly and easily; they won’t stick around to dig through web copy, even when it is well written. Although not a major ranking factor, headings also affect SEO.
Call to acti Make it easy to take action. Calls to do something aren’t only for sales pages. Each page on a web site should outline one action for visitors to take: call us, email us, share this post, leave a comment, see other people’s comments or check out the services page.
Links: Don’t forget about internal links. They make it easier for visitors to cruise around your site and internal links can improve your SEO. In Google’s view, links pass authority from one page to another and they make it easier for spiders to crawl your site.

Review and revise

Content reviews are an important and often difficult stage in the process.

Tip

It is always best sleep on any written content before passing it on. Errors are glaringly obvious when read with new eyes. Even though there may be a burning need to get the web copy that’s been slogged over published as fast as possible, resist.

Typically, the first stage of the review process is where subject experts (business owners or managers) will be asked to check the content is factually accurate, on message, and complete. The content is then checked for style and consistency. I then interpret the feedback, update the copy, and reissue a new version.

The reissued content is reviewed for approval / sign-off. It’s then ready to be uploaded to your website.

Web page review / sign-off

Time for quality assurance and to make sure headings are consistent, the links work and no nasty wee typos have cunningly crept in.

Web copy has the power to make or break your online presence. If the content is good, it conveys the right messages, helps boost your online presence, traffic and conversion rates. Poor web copy, on the other hand, can damage or even destroy your website; all that time, energy, effort and money wasted.

What is copywriting? To produce quality content for your site, you need a skilled content writer. You also need a content strategy to use keywords in a way that will get your target audience to convert into paying customers. It’s something I’ve done with great success for my many clients over the years.

I take care of the writing so you can take care of the business. I’ll arrange your words into effective web copy to bring your brand to life and connect you with your clients. Call me on 027 6025178 and let’s talk about the value of copywriting what I can say for your business.