Strange Practices

Copywriters exist to help you sell. But you will find that one unexpected bonus of employing an outside copywriter is often great ideas.

When you explain your enterprise to an outsider you will often highlight strange practices, things taken for granted or accepted as the norm.

A New Brain

A freelance copywriter will look at your project with fresh eyes, unbiased by prior knowledge of your company. So there is a good chance they will see possibilities that were invisible to your staff.

Picture courtesy of Tiago Daniel Silva

You may have wondered: who needs a copywriter?

The question arises because people think that anyone can write the words for a web site. Many people imagine that writing for the Internet is a simple process of adapting business literature to suit the web.

Often, the task of writing a company’s corporate copy, the text that represents their online identity, falls to a person within the company who is best at writing well. That may be a middle-manager with a gift for poetry, or a secretary known for her accurate spelling, but rarely does the task of copywriting get the full attention it needs.

Writing for the web requires more than traditional writing skills. In fact, many writerly traits must be restrained when writing for the Internet.

A copywriter must also work with the following (and more) in mind:

• Usability
• Calls to Action
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Internet Conventions
• Improving Conversion Rates
• Selling Benefits
• Reassuring Users
• Personality Types

And that is in addition to good grammar, clear style and perfect punctuation!

I will be discussing the elements listed above in more detail in future posts. In the meantime, if you intend to write for your site, get studying!

Image courtesy of Andrew Beierle