Copywriting

This blog was originally written for Australian Businesswomen's Network herbusiness blog on the 15th February, 2012 - by Bianca Board 

If you’re in small business, chances are you need to become a publisher to survive online. The way people buy these days has changed dramatically. Your buyers seek out information when they want and how they want, whether you like it or not. 97% of people will research you online before they even call or email you, so it’s vital you provide them with the information they need to make an informed choice.

You no longer have control over the sale. So I say, jump on board and enjoy the ride! Embrace it! Have fun with it. I know I was scared to death at my first blog post years ago but now I love it.

I’m going to show you my proven method for creating great content quickly and I promise, it won’t hurt a bit.

So grab your egg timer, set it for 60 minutes, turn off your phone and let’s go!

The question stands, how do you create a website? All those tech terms and jargon those I.T. Geeks use is really confusing, and in the end you are still left asking ‘how do you create a website, because you didn’t answer my question!’

Frustrating, I know! 

A website is always (and should be) a work in progress. In order to entice visitors to come to your site again and again, you need to keep the content fresh! But as a busy business owner, we know that it can be hard to find time to come back to work on your website once it’s already up and running. Updating content doesn’t have to be a huge drain on your resources. With a little foresight and organisation, keeping the content on your website up-to-speed with your business will be easy as pie.

We’ve all heard that it’s a bad idea to judge a book by its cover, but with no fewer than a bazillion websites out there (give or take a few), sometimes the “cover” of a website is all you can go by! The average internet user reads only 20-28% of the text they see and spends roughly 7 seconds on a page before they click away to the next page or site.

Grabbing and keeping the attention of visitors to your site is something that requires a certain level of finesse, but with a few tweaks any site can be more clickable. Here are some rules of thumb for how to make your website worthy of clicks -- one of the first and most important steps for attracting customers.

Even the best looking websites are let down by boring content. No website can exist on flash and dazzle alone. Beyond the sexy visuals, there needs to be website content to match. And there's a lot you need to know when it comes to writing your website.

Engaging. Charming. Seductive. The sort of content the reader couldn't possibly tear their eyes away from. Fortunately, it's relatively easy to make your website content as alluring as the visuals. Just follow a few rules and you'll keep your readers reading.

Now that you’ve done your keyword research you should have a list of the words and terms your potential customers are plugging in to Google.

You can advertise on these keywords using Pay Per Click advertising but you’ll also want to use these keywords and key-phrases in your website content.
 

How to go about writing copy for your new website

Your decision to build your own website is a smart one.  Don't blow it by filling it with dumb copy!  Writing dumb copy is the easiest thing in the world to do – anyone with half a brain can do it, including professional copywriters.  So before you have a go at writing copy for your new website, take some time to consider what copywriting actually is, and what it's supposed to achieve. Because there's more to writing copy than stringing together a few clichés and the occasional cute line.