How to be a Copywriter
This is a piece I’ve wanted to write for a while. Back when I started out as a freelancer, copywriting was my first gig. I wrote for a company that had teams of writers producing content for clients and I also wrote on the side for companies I networked with and met while advertising writing services online or in person.
Copywriting is a great entrance into the world of freelance writing, but it isn’t just something you can jump into blindly. During my time as a copywriter, I had a lot of people say, “Oh! I want to be a copywriter; it would be nice to make a little extra income.” That’s a great idea, but I always asked what their writing experience was, and a lot of people told me they had none. I’m not sure where the idea of writing copy has come across as easy, but it is a skill you need to learn since it isn’t just simply writing…
What is Copywriting?
Copywriting is creating content for advertisement in the marketing and sales industry. The purpose of this content is to bring more traffic to a company website and to increase the conversion rate of visitors to sales.
In layman’s terms, the writer creates content for a company’s website to engage and attract bigger audiences. New and persuasive content can increase the chance that a website visitor becomes a potential buyer.
Even simpler, if you have a social media page and you rarely make posts on it, will you get a lot of activity? No. If you post engaging content on a regular basis, will you get more activity? Yes.
That is what a copywriter does. They create the content to boost business sales and activity. As you can imagine, that’s quite the endless process. There will always be a need for new content.
What You Write
In my experience, I created web content and blogs.
Web Content: Service pages, product pages, and areas served pages.
Blogs: Lifestyle and advice articles themed around company services.
These pieces can vary in size, but usually they are simple and informative. This content will go on one website page and will include things like links, and keywords. Keywords are the most important part of copywriting because Google and other web browsers use these keywords to rank websites and decide which ones are more visible when searched for online. This is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO.)
Each marketing company has their own rules, and I of course cannot tell the rules I had to follow, but keywords need to be sprinkled evenly within the text to improve discoverability. If you are writing copy for a library, a keyword might be “library services” or “library catalogue.”
Another important part of a copywriting piece are the headers. Headers are the titles and subtitles on a page. These will include keywords and important information for both the customer and search engines.
Copywriting Tips
I was fortunate to be taken on and trained to write as a copywriter and a lot of businesses will do this because everyone has their own way of doing things. Here are some essential tips you must follow everywhere you go:
No flowery language.
Clear and concise writing.
Get straight to the point.
Do not show off.
In other areas of writing, it might look nice to show off a detailed piece of writing, but in copywriting it is all about being as clear and concise as possible. Stick straight to the point of informing and converting customers into buyers. As with any type of writing, avoid being too wordy because this can weaken the effectiveness of the piece and might make it difficult for the reader to understand what service or product is being written about.
Let’s pretend I am writing about a company that sells trees.
Bad example: Pine Gardens provides beautiful varieties of flowering and hardy deciduous trees and plants to create an exquisite escape into nature in your very own backyard.
Good example: Pine Gardens provides quality tree and gardening services for you home.
While the bad example could be used if it is whittled down, can you see how it gets a little too picturesque? It is important to stick straight to the point and do not over explain anything.
Conclusion
Copywriting can be strange if you have never worked with it before. I always took it as a fun challenge because the writing is pretty repetitious. When you write for a certain industry, you will be reproducing and rewriting themed blogs and structured service or product pages over and over again. I had a wonderful manager who would check in to see if I still liked what I was writing about and I was always enthusiastic. Each piece of content had the same information (with varieties between client companies) but had to be unique from one another. This felt like a puzzle, and I always loved creating new ways to share the same information.
Anyways, that’s what I have to share about copywriting! I hope you all enjoyed diving into this corner of the writing world.
Best,
Danni Lynn, Evangeline40003