An Inside Look at the Website Copywriting Process
May 26, 2009 by Melissa Donovan · 2 Comments
I’ve already touched on the basics of website copywriting. Now, I’d like to present a more elaborate explanation of exactly what website copywriting entails.
Why should I do such a thing?
For starters, I think it’s only fair that my clients understand what I do for them, what they’re paying me for, and how I treat their project.
Also, I’m discomforted by the idea that some small businesses are paying for website copy that’s thrown together in a matter of minutes. That gives me the shudders. If you hire someone to write your copy and pay a fair rate, you deserve quality service. You deserve someone who will put time, effort, and energy into your project.
I’m a methodical person, and I use methodology to my advantage in the services that I provide. Over time, I’ve developed a process that allows me to tackle website copywriting projects in a way that is both efficient and effective. Basically, I follow a series of steps, but they are flexible and allow room for creative thinking and word play. I find that using this process makes the work flow more smoothly while simultaneously making it more fun. Yep, I love what I do.
Because I know which steps I need to take and the order in which I need to take them, I can focus on creating quality content instead of worrying about how I’m going to get it done.
Here’s how I do it:
Step One: Understand the Project
The first step in any website copywriting project is simple: understand the clients’ needs. I need to know where the copy will be published, whether there are any space limitations, and if I should be using any keywords for SEO. I also need to establish the desired call to action. In other words, when website visitors read the copy, what should it encourage them to do next?
Step Two: Get to Know the Client’s Business
I can’t write a single word until I have a good, thorough understanding of my client’s business. It’s not enough to know that they sell carburetors. I need to know what kind of carburetors they sell, whom they are sold to, how much they are sold for, and whether or not they offer carburetor installation or just the actual carburetors. I also like to know how the business got started, who runs it, and their mission and philosophy.
Step Three: Collect and Review Materials
Before I start writing, I usually collect all my information into a single file. Sometimes it’s just a Word document filled with notes, links, and other tidbits that I’ve copied and pasted from email communications with my client. Just before I start composing, I like to go over everything so it’s fresh in my mind, and so I’m ready to write the outline.
Step Four: Outline
I love outlines. Some writers refuse to outline, and that’s okay too. But an outline usually only takes a few minutes and provides a road map for the rest of the project, which means I can travel through it quickly without losing my way or getting off track. Basically, it allows me to complete the work much faster, and this is a saving that I can pass to my customers.
Step Five: Draft Copy
The outline is like a skeleton. When I start drafting, it’s much like filling in the skeleton — putting meat and muscle on the bones. This is where I get creative and have fun choosing the perfect language, images, and style to properly convey my clients’ message. This where I get to tell their story. It’s also the most challenging and time consuming step, but so very rewarding.
Step Six: Revise, Edit, Repeat
In order to let the light of creativity shine while I’m composing the rough draft, I cannot get hung up on technical details. If I’m worrying about commas and apostrophes or spelling and grammar, I cannot keep my attention focused on crafting sentences that compel website visitors. So, once the draft is done, I go through it several times to clean it up and make sure it’s technically correct.
Step Seven: Polish
Here’s a little writer’s trick: After you have revised your copy, let it sit for a few hours, preferably overnight. Then, come back with fresh eyes and give it a final polish. Inevitably, you will find some unnecessary word that can be cut, some gap that needs to be filled with a catchy adjective, or even an empty space where a comma should be. Polishing leads to website copywriting that sparkles and shines!
Step Eight: The Send-Off
Once the copy is buffed to perfection, it’s ready to get sent off to the client. This is always a good feeling, the delivery.
Step Nine: Revisions
Everybody has personal preferences, and I’m no mind reader. Sometimes, in the initial project plan, a small but important detail gets left out. Like including a phone number in the website copy. Or using a special phrase (a tagline or slogan, perhaps) in the text. Maybe I used a word that rubs the client the wrong way. We all have our language peeves, and small business owners are no exception. I always invite clients to request a round of revisions to the final copy. This is usually a quick process and involves going through and changing a few words or adding a line or two. Most of the time, revisions aren’t necessary at all, but I still like to give everyone the option.
That’s it. My entire process. It might sound long and tedious with all those predetermined steps, but it’s a clean and proven way to provide the very best copy possible.
Website Copywriting
Are you doing business online? Want to hire a professional for your website copywriting? Please visit Scribizzy’s Website Copywriting page or get a quote online.
An Introduction to Doing Business Online
May 19, 2009 by Melissa Donovan · 1 Comment
Many of my clients do business offline. And by offline, I mean they do all of their business in the three-dimensional world that exists far from the computer and way beyond the internet.
Some of them are new business owners who are just starting out and want to make sure they establish an effective online presence. Others have been in business for years and are finally ready to harness the Internet to expand their customer reach and product or service offerings. Many want nothing more than to update their website with current information, a fresh design, and compelling copy. A few would prefer to keep it entirely offline, but they know better.
Since Scribizzy’s primary service has been website copywriting, these spirited entrepreneurs usually hire me to write a few pages of copy, and as we work through the project, various comments and questions arise about doing business online.
- Do you think this logo looks outdated? What do you think of this tagline I came up with?
- I just had my site redesigned. Any feedback is welcome!
- Is the site missing anything? Are there pages I should add, remove, or change?
- Should I have a products or services page even if I don’t sell my services online?
- What? You mean there’s a way I can sell my wares on the web to thousands more customers?
Funny thing about the web. It’s relatively new. Folks who’ve been in business for twenty years got started before the business website was commonplace. People who are becoming entrepreneurs in their retirement or starting up a small business because they lost their jobs in the down economy may not have any knowledge about the web, website design, or online marketing. They may not even know how to use the internet beyond checking their email, connecting with old friends on Facebook, and shopping on eBay or Amazon.
So, some of these entrepreneurs know very little about online marketing. Most know just enough to be dangerous. But just about every single one of them knows that in this day and age, doing business online is imperative. Even if your website is nothing more than a few pages with basic details about your shop or office.
Getting Started
No matter what you sell or where you sell it, establishing an online presence starts with a website. Your website should clearly communicate your offerings and explain how your products or services will benefit customers. It should include a way for visitors to visit, contact, or order from you, so they can become paying customers.
You also want them to become loyal customers, so your site should espouse outstanding customer service, competitive pricing, and a friendly, positive atmosphere. Loyalty can also come from establishing brand recognition. Make sure your business has a clear, identifiable logo. A tagline or slogan will help make your brand recognizable as will your business’s tone, color scheme, and the general impression it makes.
When visitors come to your website, how does it make them feel? Safe or scared? Confident or confused? Weak or strong? Welcome? Comfortable? Does the information on your site speak to your target audience in language that they understand? Does it include all the details they’re looking for about your industry of field of expertise, products, services, pricing, location, or hours of operation?
Doing Business Online vs. Offline
If your business operates entirely offline, you still need an online presence. People will conduct localized searches for your products and services, and you want them to be able to find you! If you have existing customers, they’ll expect to be able to check your website to grab your phone number, find out your hours of operation, or obtain directions to your location.
You might be planning or already running a business that operates entirely online. Maybe you sell information products and communicate exclusively through email. Perhaps you run a consulting business and your rates depend on the project or the client’s needs. You might even have a blog or some type of website that doesn’t sell anything at all (yet). You need to determine what information is relevant to your visitors — people who you will be dealing with entirely online.
Want the best of both worlds? Lots of businesses are combining online and offline offerings, keeping their local and loyal customers happy while reaching out to millions more potential buyers. If you own a cafe, you can sell recipes online. If you are a handyman, you can make recommendations for do-it-yourself repairs and earn income from affiliate sales by promoting your favorite tools and supplies on your site. If you run a consignment shop, you can take photos of your wares and sell them with e-commerce technology.
For just about every business in the world, there is a way to expand beyond merely having an online presence and start actively, profitably doing business online.
Get Serious About Doing Business Online
Scribizzy offers services for entrepreneurs and small businesses that want to establish a successful online presence, grow their offerings, and expand their customer reach.
Learn more about our web content services and get a quote online.
Web Content Development Step One: Brainstorming
May 12, 2009 by Melissa Donovan · 3 Comments
Have you ever heard of the five Ps?
Proper planning prevents poor performance.
This saying is simple and easy to remember, and it conveys an important message: The best results come from a well-laid plan. That’s what smart web content development is all about — proper planning.
If done right, a good content development plan will ensure a stellar performance, one in which your website plays the starring role. This all starts with a blueprint, a map that you can follow to take your website from concept to completion.
Every good plan kicks off with a brainstorming session.
We’ve already explored the basics of web content development. The very first step in developing web content is to establish the concept for your website. In this step, you brainstorm all of your options. Later, you’ll develop a streamlined list of content that you will build and launch over time. This becomes your plan.
In the picture above, you can see a man working at a board laden with sticky notes. This is a great way to brainstorm. However, a few large sheets of paper will serve just as well. In any case, you need to set up a workspace where you can jot down all your ideas and notes.
Make sure you have your computer handy too. As you build your list of possibilities for web content development, you’ll need to conduct research at almost every step. Keep this in mind as you go through the rest of this list — for example, if you’re not sure what all your social media options are, you’ll want to conduct a search.
Web Content Development Brainstorming Tips
- List your core web content — this includes your website and its most essential pages (Home, About, Products or Services, and a Contact page). This content should contain information that is absolutely necessary to communicate your offer and message to the online community. Don’t forget that images, video, and links are content too!
- Create a list of additional pages that could benefit your website. These could be articles, sales pages, or individual products and services pages. Remember that you’re in the conceptual phase, so write down anything and everything that comes to mind.
- Remember that web content is any content you own on the web. This goes beyond your website and expands into countless opportunities for online exposure, such as social media. While your content may exist in various places on the web, its core purpose is to drive traffic to your site. Brainstorm beyond your website.
- List social media sites. What kind of content will you need to set up a presence on those sites? For example, if you set up a Twitter account, you’ll probably want a custom background and maybe even a few pages of potential tweets to kick-start your Twitter campaign.
- In a sense, your website advertises your products and services. To drive traffic and potential customers to your site, you’ll have to advertise the site itself. That means listing your website in directories, posting ads, or buying advertising space on other websites. You might want to try a Google AdWords campaign as a way to drive traffic and customers to your site. Compile a list of online advertising channels that you’d like to explore.
- Check out the competition. Visit sites that offer goods and services similar to your own and check out their web content. This is an excellent way to get ideas. You can also conduct reverse searches to find out how your competitors are getting inbound links.
- Conduct searches. Use Google to see what’s buzzing in your industry. Try a wide range of search terms, including terms related to your industry, products, and services. You could spend hours doing this, possibly all of eternity. Keep track of the search terms you enter in search engines and make notes about anything interesting that comes up. Read the articles, check out the images, and visit sites that are related to your own. They don’t have to be competitors; be sure to look for sites that offer products and services that complement rather than compete with your offerings.
- Take your search to social media. Here’s where you’ll really see what’s buzzing. Want to get your finger on the pulse of the universal water cooler? Just take a look at Twitter’s trending topics. Enter your most condensed search terms in social media sites like Facebook and Twitter to see how folks are treating your subject matter and what they’re saying about it. Tip: Don’t forget to search YouTube (you’ll find some really interesting stuff there).
More Brainstorming Tips
Here are a few bonus tips that deal with any type of brainstorming session:
- Start with your primary objective. Whether you’re selling widgets or trying to build a readership for your newsletter, know what your main goals are. Let every aspect of your content development contribute toward achieving those goals. I recommend writing this objective in big, bold letters and keep it visible during your brainstorming sessions. If you have more than one goal, then identify your core goal and note lesser goals as well.
- You can always add to your list. Keep your brainstorming materials accessible (or transfer them into a computer file) so you can add to them whenever that light bulb goes off in your head (and trust me, this will happen). You also may want to revisit your ideas later, which is another good reason to keep your brainstorm on file.
- Remember that brainstorming and research can take time. You might need to spend several hours or days on this phase. If you put a lot of sweat into brainstorming, conceptualizing, and planning, then all the other phases of your web content development will go smoothly.
Next Steps
Once you’ve got a massive list of ideas for web content, your next step is to prioritize, eliminate, and explore further. If you’ve done your legwork, then you should have a good idea which content should be developed first. You will also have some ideas that don’t look like a good fit for your specific business offerings. Finally, there will be some ideas that are unclear or require further research.
Keep working at your list, refining it until a concrete plan starts to emerge. You can always get started building your web content before your plan is completely finalized. For example, you may be trying to figure out just how much you can squeeze into your budget in a single year and aren’t sure if you can do social media sites and an ad campaign. But you know you need to get those core pages on your website underway. Multi-task, and if you’re too busy, then try delegating or hiring out some of the work.
Web Content Development
Web content development can be a lot of fun for creative types who like to plan and brainstorm. If you’re internet savvy, brainstorming will come a lot easier. If you’re not very familiar with the many marketing outlets available on the web, you might need to spend a lot of time researching — to get a list of possible sites where you’ll feature your content and then to hone that list down targeting only those that are a good match for your business offerings.
If web content development doesn’t sound like fun to you, then you can always hire a professional. Scribizzy offers web content development services and can help you put together a comprehensive plan for the future of your website. We can also help you execute that plan! Find out more by getting a quote online.
SEO School
May 5, 2009 by Melissa Donovan · 2 Comments
The Introduction to SEO explained how search engine optimization (SEO) can increase traffic to your website. But how does one implement SEO? How do you know which keywords to use, and what do you need to do with those keywords to increase your rank on search engine results pages (SERPs) and draw more traffic to your site?
And if you’re thinking about hiring an SEO consultant, how do you begin to understand what you’re paying them to do?
In short, how do you learn SEO?
If you want to learn about search engine optimization, you can spend weeks or even months perusing the Internet, gathering free information. Eventually, you’ll pick up enough knowledge to launch your own SEO campaign.
Or, you could just buy a copy of SEO School, spend a couple of hours reading, and then launch your SEO campaign. With the information in this ebook, you can optimize your website and see real results – in both your keyword ranking and your overall traffic.
In less than a month, I was able to apply the information I learned in SEO School and test it on one of my websites. And what I found out was that it works. Plus, I was able to learn SEO quickly and easily!
Learn SEO
Over the last few years, I studied SEO at a distance. I paid attention to articles and blog posts that covered SEO, and I had a basic understanding of how SEO worked. From everything I gathered, it was a complex, convoluted field – one in which there were no guarantees and in which the rules were constantly changing.
Last summer when Naomi Dunford of Itty Biz launched her ebook SEO School, I was intrigued enough to buy it right away. The price was right (about half the cost of most other SEO books), and I knew Naomi’s writing style was witty and obscenely engaging, so it was sure to be an informative and entertaining read.
After breezing through the entire ebook in just a couple of hours, I knew one thing for certain: I was going to learn SEO and then optimize my websites.
The thing about SEO is that it’s not that difficult. It’s just extremely time consuming – though even the amount of time you spend depends on the number of keywords you’re optimizing for and how competitive the keyword field is.
SEO School: Enroll Today
SEO School is a perfect introduction for people who want to learn SEO basics and who want the nitty gritty details on how to actually optimize a site. It’s ideal for website managers who want to start optimizing, and it’s a fantastic resource for small business owners who are thinking about hiring an SEO professional but want to understand what’s involved in the process of search engine optimization before they shell out the cash.
The book kicks off with a basic introduction to SEO, and explains how search engines work and what their motives and goals are (remember, search engines are businesses too!). Next, there is a discussion about selecting keywords based on a variety of factors, such as search frequency, competition, and how well a given keyword relates to your site.
About halfway into the book, you’ll start learning exactly how to tweak your site’s code and content to gain higher search engine rankings. You’ll also learn about off-site optimization. There’s even a section just for bloggers.
Naomi’s style matches her blog, so if you’re an Itty Biz reader, this book will delight you. And if you’re not an Itty Biz reader, then head over there and subscribe right now to get some of the best online marketing tips around. However, if you are a puritan, beware – Naomi is liberal with language and her blog posts as well as her ebook are peppered with words that could get a child’s mouth washed out with soap, which is part of what makes it such a blast to read.
Case Study
I launched my own SEO campaign after reading SEO School, and the results were impressive. For the purpose of this case study, I will share my results for two keywords. Keep in mind that I was in the early, testing phase. My approach was to optimize a few pages and see what would happen. Once I could assess the test results, then I would be prepared to launch a full-scale campaign.
The main thing I wanted to know was: does SEO work? If I learn SEO and then optimize, will I actually see an increase in my rankings and my traffic? The answer was yes, and my full-scale campaign is now underway.
The case study below outlines the steps I took to determine whether SEO School would pay off.
Case Study
The site I was working with was over a year old and had almost 200 pages of content when I started. I decided to optimize the archives rather than create fresh content.
Keyword #1
I found that a keyword that generated almost 30,000 searches per month had sent 23 visitors to my site in 2008. I couldn’t even find my site in the first 200 search results on Google, so it was no wonder that I was getting such a small fraction of the search engine traffic.
After optimizing one page in December, my site leaped to position #130, and almost immediately, I noticed a spike in traffic. Over the next few weeks, I optimized four more pages on the site for the same keyword. Each time I optimized, I noted the current rank and followed up a few days later.
| DATE | RANK | ACTION |
| 01/04/09 | 130 | optimize another page |
| 01/22/09 | 53 | optimize another page |
| 01/24/09 | 36 | optimize another page |
| 01/30/09 | 34 | optimize another page |
In less than a month, I had optimized five short pages and increased my rank from practically off the chart to page four. At the time this case study was written, my site was at position 32, so it’s still climbing – and I’m not done optimizing. I probably spent 15-20 minutes proofreading, editing, and optimizing each page.
Keyword #2
As it turns out, the second keyword occurred organically. In SEO, there is something called a long-tail keyword. There are plenty of different definitions of long tail keywords. For the purpose of this study, the keyword that started generating traffic wasn’t one I optimized for at all. In fact, it was a combination of two other keywords I had optimized for.
For example, let’s say you optimized for the keywords “red” and “shirt,” and then found you were gaining traffic for the keyword phrase “red shirt.” Well, that’s what happened with my site.
The long-tail keyword that started drawing traffic gets between 3000 and 5000 searches per month. That’s not a lot, but if you ranked for several such keywords, you would see a nice spike in traffic. Also, keywords with lower search frequency are good for cutting your SEO teeth and learning the ropes.
In 2008, I received a grand total of 23 hits for this keyword phrase – that’s over the course of a whole year. After optimizing about five pages for portions of the keyword phrase, I received 182 hits from the keyword phrase in January alone. In a single month, I had increased my traffic for just one keyword phrase over 700% of what it had been during the course of an entire year.
I can’t wait to see what my stats show in February.
Summary
If you want to learn SEO on your own, Scribizzy recommends SEO School by Naomi Dunford of IttyBiz. This SEO book is a quick and easy read, and it will give you all the basics of SEO plus the actual steps you need to take to optimize your site.
Buyer beware: SEO School may contain language that is not suitable for children. But it’s really fun to read.
Want to optimize your website? Check out Scribizzy’s SEO services, including SEO copywriting, or just go ahead and get a quote online.
Social Media Connection
Scribizzy on Facebook
