Charles Cuninghame

Do you know these 5 reasons why you need a website copywriter?

A successful website has two basic ingredients: an elegant design and customer-focused content. Many businesses focus on the former but neglect the latter. This can lead to a great looking site with content that's vague, badly written, poorly organised or impossible to find. Find out why you need a website copywriter.

No one builds a website to fail. And yet many business websites fail to meet basic customer needs. Poor writing is often to blame. The information is vague, badly written, poorly organised or impossible to find. 

A good website copywriter can help remedy these problems. Here are five reasons why you need a copywriter on your website team: 

1. Your brochure needs to be translated for the web 

Writing for the web is very different from writing for print. That's because reading from the screen is hard on your eyes. So rather than reading word for word, web users scan the page looking for relevant information. Good web content is written to be scanned. 

To make content easier to scan website copywriters use around 50% fewer words than in print. They highlight key words with bold type and create bulleted lists. They start every page with a summary (just like a newspaper story). And they write meaningful (not just clever) headings and sub-headings. 

2. Your site needs to be found 

Your website is worthless if it can't be found. A large proportion of the average site's traffic comes from search engines (such as Google). And most people don’t look beyond the first page of search engine results. So if your site's not on the first page, chances are people won't find you. 

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a process of developing a website's content so that it gets high search engine rankings. People generally search on two- or three-word key phrases such as "laptop computer". Search engines deliver results for queries based on what they consider are "relevant". 

Key phrase density (i.e. how often the key phrase appears on a web page) is one of the most important factors that define what is relevant. Once you have key phrase-rich content on every page of your website, your rankings are likely to improve. So copywriting is the mainstay of SEO. 

But high rankings are only the beginning. You can't just stuff each web page full of your key phrases. Good search engine optimised copy must also be reader-friendly. It flows and is easy to read, all the while driving your marketing goals. 

3. You can't afford not to 

People on the web are very task-orientated. Generally they're trying to find information, buy something, communicate or be entertained. Well written sites help them achieve their tasks efficiently. They guide them through a process to achieve their desired result quickly and with minimum effort. Good web content is a valuable asset. 

Poorly written sites frustrate and annoy people. If they can't find the information they want or the content is poorly written or nonsensical, people will leave your site and probably never return. If your website wastes people's time and aggravates them you risk eroding your hard-earned brand equity, not to mention losing business. 

4. You want to beat your competition online 

Quality writing is the best way to make your site stand out from the millions of others on the web. Why? Because the average website is poorly written. Most sites are full of clichés, hyperbole and generic marketing blather, and the information is poorly organised. Great writing gives you the edge. 

Don’t get me wrong – great design is essential too. But great design without great writing is like a car without wheels. 

5. You don't have the time, skill or inclination to do it yourself 

Of course, you could write your own website content... that's if you can fit it in your overloaded schedule. Good writing is hard. It takes time. A website copywriter can usually produce your content more quickly and more effectively than you can. 

Using a professional 

For these reasons you should consider hiring a website copywriter to help you produce the content for your site. Or, at the very least, get one to review and edit your content to ensure your website is a success.

Article Tags: Website Copywriter, Search Engine

Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com

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