My friend’s problems really started when he finally (5 weeks after it was promised) got the copy back from his client. The fact it wasn’t very well written was an issue, but there were also serious design implications.

The design of the site had been completed and signed off by the client. However, this didn’t seem to matter as they wrote content that just wasn’t compatible with the layout of the site due to its structure and length. The client insisted the content should be used exactly as supplied.

The result? My web designer friend had to look out his virtual shoehorn and squeeze the poorly written text into the already approved design as best he could.

It turned out he couldn’t do it without tweaking the site accordingly, causing more delays in the site going live and an additional cost for his client.

Unfortunately, the client in this case ended up paying more money for a poorer overall website that took longer than it should have; all because he wanted to be in control of the content.

I understand there are some clients that just can’t be convinced about the benefits of using a copywriter, but the PDF below looks at how you can combat many common objections, and make sure your clients get the best website possible. 

http://oceancopy.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Website-Copywriting-Benefits-Objections.pdf

My name is Alan

This post is for web agencies and their clients looking for a quick and easy way to write better content.

Use the word “We” less and “You” more. 

If nothing else, this will give your text an outward look rather than an inbound one.

Think about what your/your client’s customers really want.

If you’ve ever been to a business networking event, how big a turn-off is it when someone just talks about their company and nothing else? The same applies to websites.

So, the next time you’re ready to work on some web copy, remember:

Knowing We, Knowing You – Aha! 

One of the things he mentioned was how he thought poor writing on clients’ websites could give potential customers a bad impression of his company if they saw this in his portfolio.

As a copywriter myself, it’s pretty obvious what my view is, but I’d love to hear from you.

If you were looking at the portfolio page of a web design company, would what’s written on each site help form your opinion of that company or would you purely focus on the design?

This is a short post based on my interview with Alan Bradley of Zine UK.

This comment made me think:

“Usually our clients generate copy themselves as they are small businesses working with limited budgets”.

Why do so many small business owners have the budget for a website but not for the content?

• Would they buy an expensive house and fill it with cheap furniture?
• Would they spend more on the presentation box than an engagement ring?
• Would they buy a brand new car and put illegal low grade diesel in it?

The way a website looks is just one part of the package.

Small businesses should make part of their budget available for professionally written content, because even the most beautiful website in the world is worthless if the content doesn’t help to sell products and services. 

Image Credit: brokenarts

1)      What inspired you to start your own business?

I have always been driven to set up my own company, there is nothing quite like being the master of your own destiny.  Working with a great team of experienced professionals, enjoying what we do as well as the long term relationships we develop with partners and clients is extremely satisfying.

For me, there is no greater enjoyment in business than clearly seeing your potential position in a marketplace and achieving that, constantly researching and developing new products and services.  We work in a fast paced environment and the continual challenge of change and growth is something I find incredibly rewarding.

2)      In your view what are the five most critical elements of a website?

The five most critical elements of a website in my view are:

• Understanding target users
• Relevant, quality content  (text & images) and the way this is presented through interface design and information architecture
• Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
• Calls to Action
• Measurement / Review – Metrics

3)      What would you say is your biggest challenge in designing a great website for a client?

The biggest challenge in designing a great website for a client is developing a thorough understanding of:  client objectives, success criteria, target audience, key messages, and positioning with regards to competitor sites.

4)      What are your goals for Zine in 2012?

In 2012 our goals for Zine are threefold:

• To increase our UK coverage from 26 to 45 Zine Digital Media offices nationwide, we have developed a proven growth model now. Interest in the Zine Digital Media Franchise opportunity is vibrant with over 100 enquiries a month from prospective new franchisees.

• To expand our reach into international territories – we are already working with potential partners in Switzerland, Australia, Ireland and Malaysia.

• To continue to develop our social media services for clients, build on our sterling search engine optimisation campaign results with a new guaranteed keyword service we have developed offering  100% guaranteed Google Page One results or your money back, and launching our new mobile web service.

5)      What kind of clients do you work with?

We work predominantly with small and medium sized businesses; these companies though small form the backbone of the British economy and account for 79% of the UK’s businesses.

Our portfolio is diverse and ranges from country hotels www.themorritt.co.uk to renewable energy www.newdayenergyservices.com, Antiques Auctions www.addisons-auctioneers.co.uk to Classic Car Restoration www.carrosserie.co.uk

6)      Apart from web design, what other services do you provide?

We also deliver search engine optimisation that delivers measurable results, social media branded interactive landing pages, training in how to use social media for business, and graphic design for print.

7)      When it comes to having the content written for websites, do you use a copywriter?

Usually our clients generate copy themselves as they are small businesses working with limited budgets, however, when required and budgets permit we do encourage clients to use a professional copywriter.

8)      What would you say are the disadvantages of having web design, SEO and copywriting done by three separate companies at different stages?

If communication is lacking along with a poor understanding of the brief, this can lead to inconsistency in message, time-wasting ergo budget-wasting, lack of focus and coherence.

Effective SEO can easily be undertaken as a completely stand alone exercise to website development.  To understand, research and deliver successful SEO campaigns no longer requires website and SEO to be delivered as an integrated service and can be separated.

9)      What advice would you give to someone looking to start a business online?

Research, research, research – make no assumptions and make sure you can see the whites of your competitors’ eyes and the colour of your target audience’s eyes.  Be realistic about total cost of ownership of an online business, notably including your ongoing marketing budget.

Just because online provides a more cost effective and flexible business model than a bricks and mortar business, business processes and promotion are equally important.  Choose your digital media partner with great care; find someone you will enjoy working with who is responsive, open and able to be with you for the journey.  Make sure you can control, change and amend your website yourself without additional costs, that their support is built in and you check references and speak to others they do business with.

Zine is a national web design company with local reach. They operate throughout the UK and Northern Ireland. Their locally based Zine web design agencies help small to medium sized businesses make the most of the internet. They also offer a web design franchise for those looking to take their place in the UK’s blossoming digital economy. 

• We can write the copy ourselves

Yes, but do you know how to blend text that not only gets your website ranked higher in the search engines but also encourages more sales/enquiries?

Would you send someone from your accounts department to try to sell to your most important client?

• We don’t have the budget for web copywriting

Okay, who’s going to write it then; your sales manager on £50 upwards per hour? One of the firm’s Directors?

There’s a cost to your business whoever does your copywriting. Savvy companies pay for a professional copywriter to get it right first time.

• No one knows our business like we do

Of course, but who are you selling to? Your customers don’t know your business like you do, and nor do they want to.

Potential clients want to know what’s in it for them – why should they choose your company/buy your products?

A professional copywriter doesn’t try to sell your ethos, company history, or even features of what you do – they will cut straight to the point and tell your target market what the benefits are.

• We don’t want to deal with yet another supplier

We understand that, but the relationship between you and the copywriter doesn’t have to exist. We can deal with everything for you to make sure your finished website is complete and ready to drive new business from the day it’s launched.

• What if we don’t like what’s been written?

Our copywriting quotes include two sets of revisions if necessary. We’ve never had a client ever need more than two sets of changes to the text we’ve supplied.

• What if it holds up our web project?

Professional copywriters do their job day in day out. It will be quicker for us to liaise with someone whose sole focus is on producing your content.

The alternative is having someone in-house having to juggle the content with their existing role, and not having the expertise or confidence to produce quality content quickly.

Great design is only one half of the big picture. When it’s combined with effective copy, your clients will reap the benefits, and your own reputation will grow. 

Image credit: osaka19

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