A word about copywriting
30.06.2009
Often many clients ‘forget’ to include budget for copywriting, because they don’t realise how important copy is, and what a big difference professionally written copy can make. Copywriting is one of those stages that clients sometimes like to ‘shelve’ when we present them with the estimate for a job. “We can write the copy ourselves” is a line you hear now and then, and your heart sinks. We know we are going to have to spend a lot of time working on that copy - proof reading, polishing it and sometimes re-writing it to try and make it usable. But, it will never be as good as it could be. False economy, I would say. If money was spent on using a professional copywriter (which isn’t that expensive anyway), one would get good quality copy from the beginning, and not have to spend time (and money) trying to get it right at the last minute.
A copywriter generally writes for promotional purposes - to promote a product, business, person or idea - and can work within a wide range of media such as print, web, television or radio. They differ from other writers, who might write books, magazines or newspapers, and are called journalist or writer, not copywriter - even though they all write copy. A copywriter is trained in seeking out your business’ core values and promotes them in the right tone, to optimise understanding and credibility of your business. Consulting a copywriter will not just ensure correct language and grammar, but you will benefit from on-brand copy, using the correct language style to suit your messaging. Professional copywriters work against jargon and make sure the text actually communicates what it is intended to, for the right target.
Copywriting becomes increasingly important when it comes to writing web content. The web is where most of us search for what we need, and it is here you can (literally) get your copy to work hard for you, driving traffic to your site through SEO (search engine optimisation). Text appearing in specific locations (for example in the navigation, title, headings and page content) attracts search engines, which compare this information with the information from other sites. SEO copywriting strives to get the your web page to rank high in searches through the strategic placing and repetition of keywords and uses unique copy to distinguish it from other pages that would come up in a similar search. However, just as important with SEO copywriting is to produce effective, persuasive text, to keep the reader on the site and generate sales. However good the SEO is, if the text isn’t of highly quality, potential buyers will leave the site. That is when copywriting has become a very costly business. You can’t really afford not to spend money on good copywriting, since bad copywriting = bad results, whatever the media.
Tags: copywriting, SEO