5 Reasons You Want a Pro to Write Your Website Copy
I’m a creative problem-solver driven by the desire to see small businesses improve their image and succeed. I’ve got over 20 years experience and have worked with clients as large as Nike and as small as a local sole-proprietor. I’ve been an advocate for education, a member of prestigious design organizations, won awards, and been invited to judge design competitions. Over the years, I have also written blogs and articles for a number of online sites and print publications. I have a heavy background in art, photography, graphic design and thinking outside the box. When not working, you’ll find me getting outdoors, practicing Qi Gong, snowboarding, camping, collecting rocks, and driving around in a sweet 1970 Camaro.
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If you’re on the fence about whether to hire a copywriter to write the copy for your website because you think you’re a pretty good writer, this is for you: hire a professional to write it for you. Obviously I don’t know if you are a great writer, but I’d encourage you to work with a copywriter even if you are. There are a lot of reasons that keep spinning around in your head for why you should just write it yourself. They sound so rational when you’re making your plans! Let’s take a sober look at some of them right now:
#1 I can’t afford to hire a copywriter.
You probably can’t afford not to. (See also reasons 2 through 5.) If you’re in business for yourself, you should be able to put a dollar value on your time, and it’s probably priced at a premium. Your business may be small and you are wearing a lot of hats, or maybe it’s larger and you’re able to focus more on your area of expertise. Either way, your time isn’t cheap. If you spend time writing copy for your site, that’s like paying top-dollar to somebody whose skill set is not really copywriting. Would you pay your accountant to write your copy, even if she were a great writer? And you will be less efficient than a pro, so it will take more time overall. Don’t forget—even if you don’t write the copy, it’s not as if your website will magically fly together without any direction from you. Before your site is up and running, you’ll still be putting in plenty of your time. In fact, when it comes time to get the copy to the web designer so that they can get good clean copy onto the site, that will go a lot more smoothly if you leave it to someone who does that often, ultimately saving you money and headaches. Leave the writing to somebody who is going to be more efficient in that particular role. It will get done better and faster.
# 2 Only I really understand how to communicate about my business.
Even if that’s true, there’s value in going through the process of communicating that with your writer. Unless marketing is their specialty, it can be very difficult for business owners to communicate their brands through language. I had a teacher who used to tell me, “If you can’t explain it to somebody, you don’t really understand it.” While you may understand your business, talking about your brand with the writer will bring the important bits out into the daylight, and the writer can help you understand your business from a website visitor’s point of view. A good copywriter will ask you important questions about your market, your product, what differentiates it, how you brand your business, etc. The writer will make sure the purpose of each page or section of your site is clear and will ensure it’s doing its job. For someone who does it every day, the process of hammering this out is almost second nature. Then the pro can take what you said and use it to inculcate the copy with your brand. Your site is your best chance to quickly flash your brand at visitors and make an impression so they stick instead of clicking away. You can’t afford to blow it.
#3 My writing skills are totally up to par.
But are they really? Even the expert writers occasionally miss on grammar, clarity, consistency, and concision, but their record is going to be better than yours. Sure, most people won’t notice a little error or two, but don’t underestimate your customers. Your business’s credibility is worth everything, so you can’t afford to blow people off your site because your idea of what shiny copy is looks to them like the web equivalent of napkin scribblings. Improve the odds that your copy will cut the muster by hiring a pro to ensure professional, clean copy.
#4 Website copy is just marketing copy; I write that all the time.
Maybe you do write a lot of marketing copy. That’s great! You’re ahead of the game and your copywriter will be very happy that he or she isn’t starting from scratch. But let’s have some real talk about the Internet. It’s like an ocean with your site drifting around in it like one molecule of H2O. Maybe even like just the hydrogen in that H2O molecule. That’s why SEO (yes, search engine optimization) is such a huge deal. It’s one thing to have a slick site with all the whistles and bells. It’s quite another to actually drive any traffic to it. A good copywriter will work with an SEO expert to make and write optimized copy that attracts your customers. Depending on what you want to do with your site, it would be an excellent idea to continue to work with an SEO expert to mange the analytics for you. But if you don’t pay attention to your copy, you may not have much data to crunch.
#5 I can make the time to write the copy.
You just hired someone to help out in the office or you got some new software or the skies opened up and heaven rained free time down on you. Is this really the best way for you to use that time? Let’s say for a minute that you really are a trained writer with a marketing degree and a minor in SEO, and that on paper you have all the qualifications. Are you the best person for this job? You may not have the distance from this that you need in order to write effective copy for this site. If you do, when was the last time your day went the way you thought it would? Let’s say it was yesterday—it went totally to plan. Then it’s all systems go on that copywriting work. Now tell me that there isn’t something better you can do with your time. Really. You don’t need to be researching your next market or product? You have all the talent you need in place and your team building with your staff is beyond reproach? Your family sees so much of you that they’re sick of you? Okay, you can write your own copy. Everybody else—not so much.
Have we convinced you to go pro with your copy? Give us a call.
I’m a creative problem-solver driven by the desire to see small businesses improve their image and succeed. I’ve got over 20 years experience and have worked with clients as large as Nike and as small as a local sole-proprietor. I’ve been an advocate for education, a member of prestigious design organizations, won awards, and been invited to judge design competitions. Over the years, I have also written blogs and articles for a number of online sites and print publications. I have a heavy background in art, photography, graphic design and thinking outside the box. When not working, you’ll find me getting outdoors, practicing Qi Gong, snowboarding, camping, collecting rocks, and driving around in a sweet 1970 Camaro.
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