Many people believe that writing well means crafting the perfect turn of phrase. While cleverly chosen words are nice, what’s even better is a message every reader can understand and remember.

Before we launch into our topic, it’s useful to remind ourselves what the objective of copywriting is: to sell a product or service. But remember that effective copy moves people to action by selling outcomes and value, not products or prices.

Frame it as a conversation between you and your target customer. To avoid focusing on yourself, try visualising your prospect sitting across from you. Don’t talk “at” or “to” your reader – engage them by speaking with them and to their interests. Remove any barriers to action: Make your story logical and easy to understand so people can follow you where you want them to go.

It all starts with a great content brief

When creating content for a business, writers need a content brief, or specific guidance so that they understand the brand’s content strategy, mission, and goals. Without knowing exactly what we want to help readers achieve, copy is unlikely to be written in a way that genuinely serves the audience.

To start putting together your brief, ask yourself questions about …

The business:

• Who are they and what do they stand for? (company bio, mission statement, values)
• Where do they sit in the market? (brand positioning)
• What is their value proposition?
• What separates them from the competition?
• Do they serve any niche markets?

Your target audience:

• Who are you writing for? What is their age and gender?
• What is their current state of awareness?
• What do they do? What’s a typical day like for them?
• What are their problems and pain points?
• What brings them happiness or satisfaction?
• What stage are they in your sales and marketing funnel?
• What exact needs or pain points you are addressing for the reader? Will it help solve a problem, educate, inspire action, or entertain?

Your topic:

• What are you writing about? Why?
• What makes your product timely or relevant?
• What is your goal? Are you trying to inform, inspire, or convert?
• What action(s) do you want your reader to take?
• Will they be in a better place after having read your article? How?

Once you have clearly articulated your answers to these questions, the next step is to …

Structure your information

Think about why someone should want to read your article and make that value proposition clear. Think about the context, key things that readers should know, what angles most people overlook, and how you plan to organise this information.

Create a content outline before you start writing so you know where you’re going. Come up with a structure that makes sense. How granular you get is up to you, but at least have an idea of what points you’ll be making and in what order.

Limit your article to just one big idea, both for the sake of clarity and not boring your reader, who typically has a limited attention span, especially online. Create structure using relevant subheadings and lists so people can skim topics before deciding whether they’re interested in diving deeper. But don’t fixate on being perfect; expect that you’ll be shifting pieces of copy around and making adjustments as you go.

Know your topic

It’s always easier to write with confidence when you actually know what you’re talking about. The writing may be the sexy part, but without adequate research, you’ll have nothing of substance – or value – to present your reader. People don’t have time for clickbait fluff.

The Internet makes researching much easier than it used to be, so there’s no excuse not to do it. But because everyone has access to it, creating truly unique content can be a challenge. The best way to cut through the clutter and set your writing apart from other articles on the same topic is by using primary sources.

You’ll want to speak directly to at least one person in the business who knows the company’s operations, products, and services inside out. Ideally, you’ll be able to speak to some customers as well. For authenticity, interview people, record them with their permission, and use their language to describe things where possible. In this context, it’s fine to “tidy up” their language for readability; no one wants to sound inarticulate.

Writing dos and don’ts

1. Cut the bloat. Don’t use five words when three words will do, and don’t use more adjectives than you need. If two are similar, pick one, and don’t use more than three. Eyes tend to glaze over letters so use symbols instead of words ($, &, %) and numerals rather than spelled-out numbers (7 not “seven”).
2. Read and re-read your copy. Look for any inconsistencies or opportunities to eliminate redundancy, remove unnecessary words, and replace long words with shorter words. Shorter words are usually clearer, easier to understand, and easier to scan. They also flow better. Even when reading silently, people “hear” what it sounds like in their head. Fewer syllables create a smoother rhythm, allowing people to read without stumbling.
3. Focus on “what’s in it for me?” Remove instances of “we” and your company name and replace them with “you.” Focus 100% on what your prospect gets – not what you offer. They don’t care about you, but they do care that you care about them.
4. Explore layers of benefits. Every feature has a primary benefit, with additional benefits that flow on from that. For example, an online course may allow users learn any time of day. The secondary benefits might be spending more time with family, work schedule flexibility, and the ability to go at your own pace.
5. Repeat important messages. People don’t absorb everything the first time or even the second time. Don’t assume that because you put it in your headline readers will remember by the time they reach the end. Repeat persuasive copy wherever it will help visitors transact.
6. Write a descriptive social snippet and meta description. Focus on keywords as well as readability. Make sure your meta description reads like a normal sentence written by a human or people will assume your result leads to a spammy site. Social snippets should draw the reader in, perhaps by asking a question or telling them something controversial they may not know.
7. Get your content proofed. Have someone you trust read your copy. It’s always hard to spot your own mistakes, especially when you’ve read something multiple times. Your head may trick your eyes into seeing what you intended rather than what is actually there. If you don’t have a proofreader, at least make use of spelling and grammar checks. Apps like Grammarly can also help.
8. When in doubt, seek professional help. Assuming you have the resources, consulting an expert is ideal. Your copy may need only a few tweaks to make it work or you may need to start from scratch. Either way, being involved in the process – you become the primary source now – will lead to a better result than simply expecting a copywriter to do it all for you.

For expert help or copywriting advice, contact the team at Creative Content.

Questions to ask yourself if you are writing your own web copy

Congratulations on taking the first step to knowing thyself.

The goal of these questions is to uncover insights that inform brand positioning, both today and in the future. By understanding your target audience and where they are in the decision-making funnel, you can better tailor your offer.

Questions fall into three main categories:

1. About you and your vision

Answers to these questions will be useful for your “About Us” and “Why Choose Us” pages.

• What is your point of difference? How do you compare to or differ from the competition?
• Why are you in the business you’re in? What inspires you to keep going?
• What philosophy do you bring to the service you provide?

2. About your ideal customer

Trying to appeal to everyone is a mistake. Questions in this section should get you thinking about how to target your ideal customer.

• Who are you targeting? List all relevant demographics and be as specific as possible.
• What alternatives might your customers use? Whether it’s a different product or a different provider, consider other options your customers have tried or might try.
• What are their fears or challenges as relates to your service? What do you do to help them overcome their fears? e.g., provide a free information pack or assessment: “Contact us for a no-obligation consultation.”
• What tone is most likely to resonate with your customers? Friendly and personable? Or professional and expert?

3. About how people find you online

• What words and phrases are they likely to use when searching for your products and/or services?
• Who are your competitors? Note which business people have compared you to when deciding on a provider.
• What can your business do that your competitors can’t or don’t?
• Who is not a good fit for your products and services? Do you only serve clients of a certain type or size? Are your products not suitable for certain uses?
• What action do you most want people to take when they visit your site? Be clear on your call to action: Do you want people to call you? Email you for a quote? Or complete a pre-consultation questionnaire?

If you need specific information before you can provide a quote, let people know what to have ready so that you can assist them as quickly as possible.

Bonus Round: Frequently Asked Questions

If you require customers to go through a process or understand more complex instructions, your business needs an FAQ page. (If your aim is to drive SEO, you’re better off placing a few FAQs at the bottom of the page they pertain to.)

Start by asking yourself: What are the top 10 questions your ideal customers ask you most?

From your FAQ list, you can then:

• Create a full list of features and specifications
• Translate each feature into a benefit for your ideal reader
• Consider the problems you help them avoid
• Consider possible objections to buying from you and decide how you can address them

This can then become a summary of your value proposition, which should appear on the homepage. This summary generally consists of a headline, possibly a subheading, and three to five bullet points. Your headline can simply state what you do or mention the key benefits of working with you.

We hope you found this guide useful! If you are stuck writing your web copy don’t hesitate to give our team a call, as professional web copywriters and content strategists we can easily craft your story into compelling and converting copy.

Web copy is important. It’s how people evaluate your business and decide whether or not to engage with you. It’s your salesperson who never sleeps.
Once done correctly, your website and the evergreen content on it should last you a while. Chopping and changing copy does your organic search ranking no favours and may even confuse your customers. That’s why it’s important to treat your copy as an asset for your business and do it the right way from the start.
Many good businesses exist in every niche, so standing out from your competition will require some soul searching. But before you write a word, you must understand who your content is aimed at and what their current “state of awareness” is when it comes to your business category, the products and services you offer, and other businesses similar to yours.

In this article, we outline the website content best practices you should follow with the goal to provide you with a website copywriting template that you can use to write engaging and relevant copy.

How to write a website

First, you need to identify what’s different about your business. To really hone in on your point of difference—what’s new, unique and/or interesting about your business—ask yourself questions about:

You and your vision: Why did you get into this business? What gets you out of bed in the morning?

Your current customers: Are most of your customers of a particular type or size? If you’re B2B, are they a one-man band, SMB or enterprise client?

Key messaging: Who is your ideal customer and what tone is most likely to resonate with them? What niches would you like your business to grow in?

See the full list of questions in this blog post

The goal of these discovery questions is to provide insight on company brand positioning and aspirations—where you currently sit in the market and where you’d like to be tomorrow. Whenever possible, ask team members who really know your products to weigh in.

Know what makes your clients love you

Copy that’s purely feature-driven is not effective. It’s likely that many of your competitors, if not all of them, have the same product features or services you do. Business growth—and even survival— depends on acquiring new customers.

When you know what your existing customers love about you, you can position your brand as a choice worth making. To do this, you must first identify what would make a client pick you over the competition.

Are they choosing you based on price, service or expertise? Do you have something unique to sell? While not every business can be unique, don’t fall into the trap of simply describing your services and saying how fantastic you are with no evidence of why that’s true. Offer benefits, reasons and testimonials as proof. Your web copy should ultimately demonstrate what you can provide in a way that makes people go, “Yeah, I want that.”

Google yourself

Do some research on Google to find out what prospective customers are searching for when looking for businesses like yours. Your research will inform your keywords, which will eventually be sprinkled throughout your headings and copy.

● See who else Google recommends under “People also search for …”
● Note who is currently ranking in position 1 (and who else is on page 1): What does that business say or do that you don’t?
● Make a list of keywords, always keeping in mind search intent

Ask existing customers for feedback

Interview people whenever possible, as you’ll get much better-quality responses that way. With a live conversation, you’ll be able to clarify questions and guide deeper answers. The end goal is to demonstrate your credibility and show that clients are happy with your services. For a simple testimonial formula, ask:
● Why did you choose our business?
● What was your experience like?
● Describe the business in three words

Plan for what pages you’ll need

Once you’ve developed your understanding of brand voice and positioning, you can start mapping out your site.
● Every site should have: Home, About Us, Our Team, Why Choose Us, Our Services, Contact
● Additional pages may include: blog, case studies, articles and other unique content
● Quality imagery is a must: Have professional photos taken and use high quality stock photos when necessary

Write the homepage copy last

It may seem counterintuitive, but the first thing customers see should be the piece you write last. Why? Because your homepage speaks to the essence of who you are and what you offer.
Most of the time, this kind of high-level clarity only emerges after asking those deep questions of yourself and your customers, thinking carefully about the responses, identifying common trends and distilling those findings into your mission statement.
Adhere to a formula across pages
By writing to a consistent formula on all pages, you’ll train people visiting your site to quickly absorb and extract information. Once you have your structure down, replicate it across all pages as much as possible. Here’s a simple formula I like to use. Feel free to tweak it to suit your business.

Example 1: Our Services
1. Overview: a summary of what you do
2. Detailed description: specific services you offer, including anything unique or hard to find
3. Benefits: what problem(s) you solve for your customer
4. Testimonial: feedback from customers in their own words
5. Footer (recommended): practical details appearing on the bottom of every page—location, hours, contact information, social media icons

Example 2: About Us
1. Overview: a summary of who you are
2. Detailed description: your company history, what motivated you to start the business, aka your “origin story”
3. Benefits: what values matter to you and your team (and carry over to customers)
4. Testimonial
5. Footer

Example 3: Why Choose Us
1. Overview: a summary of why your customers love you
2. Detailed description: how you serve people, what’s different about you
3. Benefits: how people feel after working with you
4. Testimonial
5. Footer

As you can see, your primary focus will be on defining the first three items for each page. (The testimonial and footer are optional; just be sure that the footer appears on all pages if you decide to include one.) Make sure that each page is it’s own and that you’re not just repeating the same things in different words.

Establish a tone that resonates with existing and future customers and keep your content aligned with that. For example, professional services tend to take a more formal tone that inspires confidence in their expertise while trade occupations are very service-oriented, highlighting their efficiency, ethics and any qualifications.

All seem a bit daunting? Hire an experienced Web copy writer

Of course, writing effective web copy is challenging, especially if you’ve never done it before. Whether you’re not much of a writer or just need a professional perspective, Creative Content can provide you with any level of service you require, from advice to hands-on help from our professional copywriters that frees you of the burden of creating content. We’ll eliminate the guesswork and do the hard work for you.

If you’re dead set on doing yourself, we commend you! Use our full list of discovery questions to gather detailed qualitative information. Remember to complete all of the outlined steps as thoroughly as possible and validate your findings with your team, your customers and even the content marketing experts at Creative Content. Good luck! We’re cheering you on.

Are you worried about ranking behind your competitors when people do a Google search on your industry? You’re certainly not the only one! Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a crucial tool to put companies directly in front of their audience, first.

Optimised copy answers the search intent of your audience while remaining readable and natural. The days of simplistic Google algorithms to determine the ranking of search query pages are gone, but many old SEO myths are still going strong. The ranking system has become more intelligent and complex to display the most relevant and high-quality copy first.

If you are thinking about writing your own copy rather than using professional copywriting services, we have prepared a list of tips for creating your own content.

DON’T keyword-stuff your copy

Many site owners believe that creating a relevant web page for a search query requires stuffing your copy to the brim with a target keyword as much as possible. Of course, your page needs to contain relevant target keywords, but sentence after sentence with the same word looks ridiculous and certainly makes for bad reading! Potential clients don’t respond to poor quality writing, and neither does Google.

DON’T write unnecessary copy.

It may seem that in order to cover all points of relevance to your audience, you have to write a lot of copy. Google does value in-depth copy, but you have to keep your audience in mind. Readers respond to compelling, well-thought-out text that gets to the point. If they see an overwhelming amount of copy, they might choose not to read it at all! Whether it’s a blog post or a landing page, make your copy comprehensive, succinct and genuinely enjoyable to read.

DON’T include hidden blocks of text with SEO keywords.

The ‘SEO trap’ is a common technique, but in truth, it is a waste of time and resources. The smarter Google gets, the more it values transparency!

DO take the time to understand your audience.

You can incorporate all the SEO techniques you like, but if your copy and entire website aren’t as relevant to your target audience as possible, you will not generate the traffic or leads you are hoping for.

To craft your website content to reach your ideal customer, consider what they want from your product or service. What tone are they expecting? What problems are they looking to solve? What information do they need to see on your web page in order to make contact or hit the purchase button? The more you understand your consumer, the better you can create copy that satisfies the search queries they make, and therefore rank your website highly.

DO incorporate Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI).

LSI keywords are semantically related to your main keyword. A lot of people think LSI keywords are synonyms. Synonyms are useful LSI keywords, but LSI incorporates all keywords frequently found together because they share the same context.

For example, ‘Apple’ and ‘iPhone’ and ‘smartphone’ are LSI keywords. However, ‘apple’, ‘juicy’ and ‘orchard’ are also LSI keywords; LSI ensures that the search query display shows pages relevant to the industry and topic your audience is looking for. Incorporating LSI, therefore, helps you better serve your user search intent.

Overtly stuffing your content with LSI keywords will, again, have you penalised by Google. Use them to help you rank, but do not let them interfere with the quality of your content. The idea of LSI is that you would naturally include the keywords as you write. You still need to create high-quality, well-written copy, but definitely with LSI keywords in mind.

Incorporating SEO into copy can take a lot of research and time – it’s completely normal to not know where to start! SEO research is particularly complex when it comes to small, niche (and therefore low search volume) businesses and products. To get it right first time and ensure the best results possible, you can bring in SEO and copy experts to optimise your site. At Creative Content, we use in-depth processes and advanced keyword research techniques to make your site as ‘optimal’ as can be!

The Creative Content process:

As a professional web copywriting agency, we make it our priority to create informative and inspiring website copy for our clients. We share our exact process for you so you can understand what is needed to complete a comprehensive plan for your business web content writing.

First, we need to understand your business including the services, the people and the company ethos. To do this we have developed a web copy questionnaire. Our goal is to understand what is unique about your business and the priorities of your potential clients. This helps us map your customer journey. We want to know how well-informed your customers are about your product or service before they visit your site, and what types of keywords you can think of that they would search to find you.

For particularly niche businesses, we have developed even more in-depth questionnaire to help web content writers create content specific to your very narrow audience. At this stage, we also do an analysis into the customer state of awareness about your product or service. For example; are your customers problem aware, but not solution aware? If so, we need to spend time explaining how your products solve their problem.

As part of our copywriting services, we use the questionnaires and work further alongside you to create the value proposition for your business. In essence, we identify why and how your customers would say ‘yes’ to your offer, and craft a succinct key message that often appears as a major heading on your home page, so readers are clear on the value of your business from the outset.

Armed with new knowledge about your business, we then utilise SEO software tools to generate target keywords and LSI keywords for you.

We follow proven structure elements that make your site easy to navigate and optimise it for search.

The ideal web copy structure

Headings that name the product in a way your target readers will understand.

Sub-headings briefly describing the benefit of the product to your market.

Summaries providing all essential information about your product. These have to be extremely well-crafted, as often people won’t read beyond summaries! The text needs to address the problem your product solves and why yours the best solution.

Quotes from you showing the human side of your company and the ethos behind your service.

Customer quotes describing how they experienced the benefits of your product – we help collect these testimonials.

Calls-to-action that encourage and provide avenues for readers to take the next step. In order to get more conversions, you need to get more potential customers to carry out a specific decision on your website. Usually, that action revolves around accepting an offer or contacting you.

We discuss our SEO copywriting strategy further here.

SEO copywriting is crucial to making your small business site as visible to your potential customers as possible. Correctly implemented techniques generate a surprising amount of traffic and leads for your website. You’ll be quickly convinced by the results of your new SEO strategy!

If you’d like to discuss SEO copywriting with us further, or find out how our professional copywriters can help you, get in touch with us.

Check out our other tips for small business marketing here.

The goal of copywriting is to persuade, and the goal of a content strategy is to create purpose. So, does a content strategist have the same role as a copywriter? The answer is no! 

Over 170 million blogs are active online today, but it’s estimated only around 20% of blog content is actually linked to and read. You want content that is found easily in a search, is read by users, and has a positive impact for your business. It’s critical to the success of your marketing messages that you have a strategy for what you write about.

What does a content strategist do?

A content strategist gives your content a purpose and vision that is directly linked to your marketing and communications strategy. They ensure any copy written will be useful, usable, and relevant to achieving your marketing goals.

A content strategist blends their editorial skills with their understanding of the user experience to create content that is a communication pathway with purpose. Their focus is to generate copy that provides real value to your clients while showcasing your unique value proposition.

This requires an understanding of your business niche and your clients as well as thorough knowledge of the “decision-making  journey” to map a content pathway to attract, onboard, and convert the  audience.

Content strategists ultimately create an overall purpose to the copy, called the core strategy.

They put themselves in the shoes of each business owner and their audience to consider a website or marketing campaign. With these different perspectives they look at:

What are the business goals and how can the website copy or marketing campaign accomplish that?

Is the content pertinent to the audience?

What is the desired call to action for people to do after consuming this content?

How can we provide the best user experience?

What does a copywriter do?

Copywriters focus on crafting compelling copy that tells a story. They combine wit, writing skills, and empathy to create a call to action that will compel someone to purchase a product, sign up for a service, or fill out an inquiry form on a website.

A good copywriter understands sales funnels and will ask plenty of questions about their target audience before they start writing. Copywriters now handle most of the writing on a given website or within an integrated marketing campaign including: 

Website copy

Blog posts

News articles

Press releases

eBooks

White papers

Billboard advertising

Posters

Flyers

Radio and TV scripts

Interactive social media posts

How can content strategists and copywriters work together?

A content strategist determines where the content needs to go, and then works with a copywriter to write the copy. After the content is published, the strategist will evaluate performance and make sure the strategy is delivering value to the business in line with its goals. 

To put it simply, the content strategist defines how the site or campaign will be structured and what information will be included. The copywriter is responsible for crafting the actual words to engage users and drive them to those goals, getting them further into the conversion funnel.

When content strategy and copywriting have synergy, the result is a high-performance website or marketing campaign that helps you drive your business forward and stay relevant.

Are you trying to sell things over email but aren’t seeing results? Hire a copywriter. Don’t even know where to start your business content strategy? Hire a content strategist. Do you need both? Invest in a team like ours at Creative Content!

How to make the most from a small AdWords budget:

From the outside AdWords looks very attractive, you simply set up your campaigns, set it and forget, and watch the inquiries come in.

The facts are, without a good strategy in place it is likely you will be throwing your money away with very little results! To create a great adwords campaign with a limited budget you will need to understand some basics strategies to implement a successful campaign for your business.

1. If you don’t have an effective landing page and your website is not optimised for mobile then stick to desktop search.

Mobile visitors are the least likely to convert on a non-responsive page especially if your landing page is not ideal.

Best practice tip: Create Targeted & Conversion Optimised Landing Pages

An important component of your ad quality score is your landing page, which is judged on the parameters of relevance, content originality, transparency, and navigability. You will not get conversions from poorly structured or outdated landing pages.

2. Limit your ads to key days/ key times that makes sense to your business.

Think about days and times that your visitors are more likely to search and when you are able to reply. If you take too long to reply to an inquiry then it is likely that they will look elsewhere.

3. Restrict your search area to localised search queries.

You can set a limit of area that your ads will appear or simply target one area close by your business.

4. Focus the budget on the keywords that are cost effective.

In some industries adwords is extremely competitive. For example, a search for “web design agency is $8.65 a click, whereas “Design agency” is $4 a click. So, it pays to look for unique and longer keywords to compete effectively on a smaller budget. Your best performing keywords are those that bring in conversions at the lowest price.

5. Make use of the “negative keywords” function.

It lets you exclude all the words associated with your expressions that don’t represent the needs of your target audience.

6. Make sure you have exact match set up for keywords instead of Broad Match.

Pro Tip: Keep your PPC expenditure in control, keep exact match or phrase match keywords. Speaking of web services industry, choosing exact match keywords such as [web design company] will not display your ad for terms like “website design company” or “web design agency”.

Manage your campaigns rigorously

7. The first rule to follow is to not spread yourself too thin.

Don’t create more than 3 campaigns at first so that you can manage them properly. Work on your segmentation and avoid keyword overlaps at all costs, so you’re not “paying” for them multiple times.

8. You can use effective ad extensions to make your ads more attractive; they have a definite effect on the click-through rates.

9. Generally speaking, you should adopt a very strict monitoring process; monitor the quality index for each keyword.

However, it’s not necessary to make changes every 5 minutes; wait until you have a certain visibility over time. Although it’s good to perform tests, it’s best to limit this practice if you have a tight budget. And above all, remove the keywords that aren’t working!

10. Refine your ads by trying as hard as possible to attract your genuine prospects and “scaring off” internet users who don’t belong to your target audience.

For example, you can specify the price of your product, which will prevent those looking for very low rates from clicking on your ad.

11. Avoid Dynamic Search Ads:

These ads are not triggered by specific keywords chosen by you. Instead they are displayed when someone searches for anything related to the content of your landing page. While this seems convenient, it often results in irrelevant impressions and clicks, which push your daily budget up.

12. Make sure you have conversion tracking in place

Not tracking conversions is essentially like driving down a windy road, in the dark, without your glasses. There is no clarity as to whether your marketing efforts are actually working. You could be wasting your money and time on Pay Per Click due to a lack of conversions.

To gain insight into what’s working and what’s not you need to by measure the conversions so you can see what campaigns, adgroups, keywords, ads, and landing pages are receiving the most conversions and make changes accordingly.

We can help you to set up all of these steps and create a cost effective adwords campaign that can grow with your business. Speak to us to set up your adwords and remarketing campaign today.

Contact Us

Get in touch with us here to receive a quote on how we can help improve your AdWords strategy accordingly to your budget.