Do any of these scenarios sound familiar?

• You’ve finished the site but there’s no content.
• You don’t get paid the final balance until the website goes live.
• Your client has promised the content many times and hasn’t delivered it.

Cash flow and time are important in any business.

If a client delays supplying their copy, you don’t get paid the balance on time, and the chances are they’ll choose to send it just when you’ve immersed yourself in a new project.

So, how do you get around this common web design problem?

• Work out a figure your client is potentially losing every day in lost online sales/enquiries and tell them what it is.
• Tell your client you know a professional copywriter who can turn their project around quickly and to a high standard.
• Ask your client how much it’s costing them to have a member of their in-house write the content in terms of an hourly rate.

What client would say no to a 24/7 sales force that required no monthly salary, no commission, and no bonuses that could start right away?

A professionally written website is a hassle-free, round-the-clock sales/lead generator for your clients. And as soon as their site is live with content that sells, the sooner it can start making a positive return for them.

Professional copywriting can kill two birds with one stone – you get paid quicker and your client doesn’t miss out on days/weeks/months of lost online sales.

Find out more about our web copywriting services. 

Image Credit: nkzs

• At Primary School I had a fantastic teacher called Mrs. Russell who encouraged me to write and be creative. This resulted in me winning a BBC Radio Scotland competition for my entry “Jack the Bucketman”.

• I studied Graphic Communications Management at Napier University in Edinburgh after leaving High School.

• I then worked for a few different printing companies in and around Edinburgh on the production side.

• My career then took me to the production department of a student promotions & publishing company. It was here my passion for writing and marketing was reignited. I was involved in email marketing campaigns for students as well as writing restaurant reviews for some great, and not so great eating establishments in Edinburgh.

• One day I saw an advert on Gumtree from a global digital agency with an office in Edinburgh looking for copywriters. I wrote some sample text and got accepted. Within a couple of months they were offering me more work than I could fit around my day job.

• Thanks to the support of my wife, I quit my ‘day job’ and took up copywriting full time. The agency I mentioned above kept me in work for quite a while, including writing around 100 websites for one of the world’s biggest hotel chains.

• The financial crisis hit and outsourcing work to copywriters was seen as an unnecessary expense, so the agency work dried up. I immediately sent out a mailshot and got around five or six good clients within a week or two (some of whom I still work for now). It was around this time I set up Ocean Copy.

If you’re a copywriter, it would be great to read your story in the comments below.  

Forgetting that the web is primarily used by humans looking for information is a huge mistake.

Since the Google Panda update, most of the truly awful SEO content has been given the back-handed slap it deserved. This hasn’t stopped many reputable and not so reputable businesses continuing to churn out poor content though.

Below are five quick mistakes to avoid when it comes to SEO content;

• Keyword stuffing

So you run a mobile disco in Cardiff do you? Yes, I know that and am starting to get annoyed because you’ve told me you run a mobile disco in Cardiff at least five or six times in one paragraph, and if I ever need a mobile disco in Cardiff, I’m highly unlikely to choose your mobile disco in Cardiff. Get it?

• Writing without thinking

Quality content is more important than ever. Why just churn out an article saying the same things as everyone else? Taking the time to do some keyword research and think about your topic from a different angle can help improve its relevance to your target audience, and relevance is king.

• Rewriting articles you found online

Who will ever notice if you take an article written by someone else, change a few headings and pass it off as your own work? Google for one will notice and you might also get a nice email or call from the person you’ve ripped off too.

• Spammy meta tags

Cramming your meta title and description full of keywords is old hat and spammy. Google only really needs told once that you run a mobile disco in Cardiff in your meta title and description, repeating the same thing until you run out of space lacks imagination. You’re also missing an opportunity to entice people to click through to your site from the search engine results.

• Repeating these mistakes over and over again

If you’ve been making the four mistakes listed above for days, weeks, months or even years, then please stop.

The rules of SEO content have changed. Don’t keep throwing good money at a cheap copywriter that doesn’t know what they’re doing, or spend hours wondering why your rankings are still rubbish.

While the term SEO content is used a lot, remember you’re trying to make a connection with human beings when you publish web pages or articles online.

Don’t just write a load of generalised information crammed with keywords; think about what people might actually want to read.

SEO content is as easy as, well, SEO;

Specific, Engaging & Original. 

It definitely pays to do a search on your own name every so often to see what others are saying about you online.

If you find something bad, you’ll want to take immediate action; this could be asking a site owner to remove libellous content, or populating the search engine results with more positive information.

If you ‘Google’ yourself and find nothing, you should still take action. As Oscar Wilde said “The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.”

So, how do you go about ‘branding’ yourself online? Below are five simple steps.

1)      Create a personal blog and fill it with positive content about who you are, your achievements, work history and anything else that portrays you in a positive light.

2)      Guest blog – approach authoritative websites in your sector and ask if you can write regular blogs for them. In return your online profile will get a boost, especially if you get an anchor text link for your name pointing back to your own blog.

3)      Start a LinkedIn group – get some discussions going around your industry and topics affecting it, and your name will soon become known in wider circles for all the right reasons. If you’re looking for a job, this is also a great way to get noticed by potential employers.

4)      Get tweeting – the chances are that most of the influential people in your industry or companies looking to recruit will have a Twitter presence. It’s easy to interact with people on this popular social media platform, and if your blog posts get retweeted, who knows who might end up reading them?

5)      Spread the word – there are many social bookmarking sites online where you can place links to your content to give it a wider audience. These links may then be tweeted or commented on by others; raising your online profile for free.

SEO and copywriting have a major part to play in branding yourself online. If you don’t have these skills yourself or the time to learn them, outsource your blogging or guest blogs to someone else.

What’s the web saying about you and do you really want others to read it?

Image credit: ilco

Anchor text links

Anchor text links are the words you use to link out from one website page to another. This could be on your own website or an external website.

In terms of SEO, it’s best to incorporate your keyword(s) into your anchor text links where possible i.e. “website copywriter” rather than “click here”.

Calls to action

Calls to action are instructions for people looking at your website. For example, if you’d like them to call you or order online, you need to ask them to take action i.e. “Call us now to arrange a free quote”.

It’s no good just randomly throwing calls to action into your website text, you should build up to the point where people have enough information to order or get in touch.

Keyword research

Keyword research is critical for any website. If you choose keywords your target audience isn’t typing into Google, they won’t find you.

Choosing realistic and relevant keywords is a must for online ranking success.

Meta descriptions

The meta description tag is the two lines of text underneath the main title in the search results. The meta description should be unique for each page of your website and include relevant keywords as well as enticing people to click through to your website.

Meta titles

The meta title appears in people’s browser bars (top left) and as the main title in bold on the search engine results.

Your meta titles should include your chosen keywords/phrases and be unique for each website page.

U – URL

URL is short for Uniform Resource Locator and is your website page address i.e.  http://www.oceancopy.co.uk is the URL for our homepage.

Contact us now to discuss your copywriting project.

I researched some long tail keywords (think longer phrases rather than individual words) with a low cost per click and off I went with my very limited budget.

The result was I spent £20 which has so far generated me over £1000 worth of ongoing work from two clients.

PPC is dead?

I find it funny when people say PPC is dead because it’s too expensive. There are still lots of long tail phrases out there which don’t cost the earth.

There was a decent amount of competition for the phrase I advertised on, so why did these two clients choose me?

Was it pure chance or were they attracted to my PPC advert text and convinced by the copy they read on my website?

Think about your own business; would some words written by a professional help you stand out and win new clients?

You could find out by contacting us now or maybe just do nothing and hope for the best.

Image Credit: iprole

The reason I was given for this was that ‘please’ sounded desperate. I was using it sparingly and of course if I’d written “please please pretty please buy our stuff” I would have completely understood.

Is there anything wrong with writing something like “Please get in touch now for a quick quote?”

My opinion is manners do have a place in website text when used correctly, but am I right?

If you translate this into the ‘real world’ and buying from shops, how would you feel if a sales assistant said “can you buy this washing machine please?” Would you consider this to be good manners or too pushy?

What do you think? Please leave your comments below (see it doesn’t sound too bad does it?)

If so, it’s time you paid heed to the copywriting advice dished out by The Noisettes;

“Don’t upset the rhythm, don’t you dare (Go baby, go baby GO!) Don’t upset the rhythm”

Okay, maybe the “Go baby, go baby Go!” part isn’t that relevant.

However, there are many reasons you shouldn’t upset the rhythm of your writing;

• Writing without rhythm is harder to read
• If people have problems reading your text they will leave your site
• If people leave your site quickly your online sales will suffer

Here are a few quick tips to keep the flow and rhythm of your writing on track;

1) Try to keep your sentences a similar length

2) Don’t throw long words into sentences full of short words

3) Avoid long-winded paragraphs with no gaps to break up the text

4) Where appropriate, use a sprinkling of alliteration

5) Read and amend what you’ve written until it ‘sings’

Now is the time for the rest of The Noisette’s advice; go baby go baby go!

Print out this article and use it to check your website text for rhythm today.

Image Credit: iotdfi

Here are a few well known examples:

• Coca Cola – Coke is it
• Nike – Just do it
• McDonalds – I’m lovin’ it

And one not so well known:

• Ocean Copy – Clear fresh writing

A closer look

As you’ll see from the famous examples above, the word ‘it’ appears at the end. This approach may work for global brands such as these when the customer is already aware what ‘it’ is they’re selling but would this work as well for a smaller company?

For example if I changed my own strapline to ‘Clear fresh writing is it’ what would your reaction be? If I read that as an outsider my first thought would be ‘is what?’

Stick or twist?

Another consideration when it comes to straplines is do you keep yours the same for eternity or change it once in a while?

A well known electrical retailer in the UK seems to favour the latter approach. Here are a few of their recent straplines;

• We live electricals
• You know where to come
• We deal in your ideal

Personally, I don’t like any of these and I guess the company concerned didn’t like them too much either since they decided to change them, or perhaps it’s because they’re in a fast-paced industry and want to make sure their brand is always seen to be evolving?

What do you think – are generic straplines only for bigger companies? and once you’ve found a great strapline, should you keep it or change it to help keep your brand fresh?

Any comments are welcome below; I’m off to think of a new strapline for Ocean Copy!

Image Credit: Ilco

If you want to take your other half out for an impressive meal, do you visit the local chip shop or push the boat out and head somewhere more expensive?

I once bought a car for £650 – was it any good? Of course not, I ended up selling it for peanuts just a few troublesome months later.

Anyone can say they’re a copywriter; even the people who charge £5 for a 500 word blog article.

Cheap stuff is great isn’t it? Well it can be for a while; usually until you read what you’ve paid for and wonder if it was even written by a human.

Why are you investing in your website?

If, like most people, you’re looking for your website to bring in online sales/enquiries and improve in the search engine rankings, you need to invest properly.

Put pennies into your website content and you’ll get pennies out (if you’re lucky) when it comes to your internet sales.

Invest in a real website copywriter

I know you’re probably thinking, “Well you would say all this stuff, because you charge more than £5 per article”. And yes, I would, and I charge a fair rate for what I do because.

• I’ve worked tirelessly for over 3 years to build a good reputation
• I’ve been trusted by global brands to write their copy
• I’ve improved search engine rankings and increased online sales for my clients

So, if you’re serious about making your website a source of regular sales and enquires, you should invest in a real website copywriter.

If you don’t, you’re always going to be driving to the local chip shop in your £650 car, just like I was before I got serious about being the best copywriter I could be.