If you’re like most marketers, you’ve probably considered hiring a custom writing service at one point or another.
But if you’re like most marketers that are new to delegating their online writing, there’s another side to that: you’re also probably not sure what to expect from working with a custom writing service.
We’re here to shine a light on the topic!
If you’ve ever wondered what a custom writing service is and what you can expect when you hire one, this post is for you. Read on to learn more.
Let’s Define a Custom Writing Service
A custom writing service is any company, individual, or firm that writes custom web content for customers.
Seem simple? It is, but it’s also very varied.
A custom writing service can write anything from blog content to print books, depending on what the customer wants and needs. Custom writing services are run by expert copywriters, marketers, and SEOs, and are designed to help busy marketers get the custom content they require, without the hassle of stressing over producing it in-house.
Check out a short list of what we do, from our pricing page (over 40 products in our Content Shop!):
To see a full list of what our copywriters can handle, check out my guide: How Copywriting Works.
5 Standard Expectations to Have with a Quality-Oriented Custom Writing Service
If you choose to hire a custom writing service, you’ll be in for a unique experience. Because custom writing services are highly individualized by definition, the service you receive from the company or individual you hire won’t necessarily be comparable to anyone else’s experience.
The custom writing service is there to define, understand, and exceed your unique needs – that’s the whole point!
You can, however, count on a few standard protocols and methods from any custom writing service you hire. These are as follows:
1. A custom writing service will take time to consult with you about your needs
To serve you effectively, a custom writing service needs to understand what you hope to get out of the partnership.
For example, are you looking to populate a new site with content? Do you want to improve your leads and enjoy more conversions? Are you publishing an ebook and looking for someone to help you write or organize the copy? Maybe you’re looking to start a blog, but you don’t have time to manage it.
Whatever your needs may be, the first thing any reputable custom writing service will do is seek to understand them. This information is critical for the writing company because it allows them to do the following things:
Gain a deeper understanding of your company
Develop a plan to meet and exceed your goals
Craft custom content that caters to your corporate aspirations
Adjust existing content to support your business’s trajectory
When you first hire a custom writing service, you’ll want to be prepared to be as open as possible about your goals. This will help the company better serve you.
2. A great custom writing service will evaluate your current content
They won’t just throw a quote at you – a good writing service will actually evaluate where you stand and go from there.
If you’ve already got content on your site or blog, or if you’ve provided a layout for a bigger project, like an ebook, the custom writing service will evaluate it and reach out with suggestions, questions, or observations.
This helps the writing team you select get an idea of how long you want your content to be, which topics you’d like covered, what voice you’re looking for, and what goals you’d like the content to achieve.
For best results, be sure to maintain an open line of communication with the custom writing service. Remember: great writing flows easier when both of you communicate freely about the direction of the project. More tips on that in our guide on outsourcing your writing.
3. They will develop a content plan
Depending on the goals you set out earlier in the process, the custom writing service will now help you develop a content plan designed to meet the objective. For example, if your primary goal was to increase your social media following, the custom writing service may design a social content plan that includes several posts each week on all of your platforms. This plan would likely include a mix of curated, original, visual, and textual content to intrigue and inspire your readers.
This is a point at which you can expect to work very closely with the company. Does the plan adhere to what you had in mind? Is there anything you need clarification on? Do you want more detail about why a particular keyword is being targeted or why the use of infographics, for example, is so smart? All you have to do is ask! Any custom writing service worth its keyboards will be happy to help shine a light on these things for you.
4. Your custom writing service will optimize content for SEO
If you’re publishing web-based content for the purpose of marketing or lead generation, you can expect your custom writing service to optimize it for search engines and readers. Remember, your readers come first, but SEO is vital too.
Today, 81% of consumers research online before they decide to buy a product, and having content that is optimized for SEO is one of the best ways to ensure that your content appears when and where readers need it.
If you’re not familiar with SEO, a good custom writing service can help you understand it more deeply. Essentially, SEO is the process of optimizing content for search engine visibility and a positive user experience. This often entails methods like keyword inclusion and meta content optimization, to name just a couple.
The fact that so many custom writing services now optimize for SEO is one thing consumers love. Because today’s most visible content has all been optimized for SEO, hiring a quality custom writing service can help you remove the middleman and get professional, expert-level, properly optimized content from a single source.
5. They will publish content for you, upon request
If you’re looking to be as hands-off as possible with your content, it’s easy to find a custom writing service that will handle everything from the topic mining to the distribution for you. This is particularly the case when it comes to web content like social media posts and blogs. Dozens of custom writing services handle all of the publishing and distribution for their clients, and this is one simple thing that many marketers love about hiring a custom writing service.
Expect to pay more for this – if it’s done right, you’ll get a meta description, writing, and post optimization along with publishing.
5 Reasons Hiring a Custom Writing Service Is a (Very) Smart Idea
There are tremendous time savings and ROI benefits to hiring an outside writing service.
Now that you know what custom writing services do, let’s talk about why hiring one is such a good idea. Don’t be the marketer that underestimates the importance of custom content.
As it stands right now, 90% of shoppers find the presence of custom content helpful, and 61% of customers are more likely to make a purchase from a company that delivers custom content. With that in mind, it’s clear that creating custom content is not just important, but critical, for any business that wants to build success in the world of online marketing.
If you’re still in doubt that hiring a custom writing service is a smart move, consider the following points:
1. A custom writing service will make you more competitive
Today, more than 86% of B2B marketers and upwards of 77% of B2C marketers take advantage of content marketing, and while many of them have in-house content creation teams, many hire their content creation out to custom content companies. If you’ve not yet jumped on the custom content bandwagon, the chances that you’re missing out on traffic are high.
Today, consumers don’t just want custom content – they expect it. And if you’re the only company in your industry that’s not giving it to them, you’re missing out on business. By hiring a custom writing service, you can populate your site and social profiles with high-quality, original content that caters to your individual consumers and helps to boost your conversion rates across the board.
2. A great writing service will diversify your content voice
Maybe you’ve been creating content in-house for quite some time now. And maybe it’s been going well. Perhaps you’ve noticed a drop-off in reads and shares, though, and you’re wondering why. Even if you have an established reader base, keeping your content fresh is difficult, and even the most loyal customers will begin to drift off if your content becomes stale or uninspired. Because of this, it’s essential to keep things fresh and do whatever it takes to ensure quality content at all times.
Hiring a custom writing service is a great way to do this. Because a good custom writing service has a team of skilled writers rather than just one or two individuals, you get the benefit of many people putting their heads together to create unique topics and write inspired content for your company. This benefits your readers just as much as it does your brand, and can go a long way toward improving your content’s performance on all of your distribution channels.
3. An excellent custom writing service will help you stay on track
If you’re running a business or trying to get a company off the ground, you’re busy, and it can be tough to hold yourself accountable to create a few blogs or social posts each week. Unfortunately, letting these things fall by the wayside doesn’t do anything but hurt your company in the long run. Today, custom content is more important than it’s ever been before, and if you neglect its creation because you’re trying to build a functional website or fix bugs in the system, you’re going to see a drastic drop-off in your visitors and readers.
When you hire a custom writing service, though, these problems cease to exist. While running a company is still hard, having the professional help of a custom writing service can make it much, much easier.
Because a custom writing service can take over your content creation efforts and free you up to focus on things like building your product, it’s the perfect tool for busy founders who need a break. When you hire a custom writing service, nothing has to suffer for everything to come into place down the line. Instead, you get the benefit of a successful company and quality content to reflect it.
4. Learn best practices from your up-to-date writing team
If you’re a little out of touch on best practices in content marketing, a good custom writing service can help bring you up to speed. Because the writers at a custom writing company write marketing and promotional copy for a living, they’re highly knowledgeable about the current best practices and industry standards.
While it may seem tempting to throw these things to the wind under the assumption that they don’t matter, best practices are more important today than they’ve ever been before, and finding a team that understands them and knows how to adhere to them is critical.
5. A custom writing service can offer technical know-how, as well
While good writing skills are essential, technical expertise is, as well, and a custom writing service can pick up on all of the picky aspects of SEO that you don’t understand (or simply don’t care to understand). By doing things like optimizing your meta content, adding alt. text to your images, and ensuring that your targeted keywords are utilized properly throughout your content, a custom writing service can deliver quality content that’s as functional for search engines as it is for people.
A Good Custom Writing Service: Your Secret Weapon for Success
A skilled, reputable, professional custom writing service is exactly what you need to build a successful online presence and ensure that you’re providing the content your customers and would-be customers need from your company.
While it’s tempting to think you can go it all on your own, a custom writing service can take the burden of content creation and distribution off of your shoulders and help you build a solid online company with a reputation for authority, leadership, and intelligence across the board.
Most copywriters know exactly what this conversation feels like:
“What do you do?”
“I’m an SEO copywriter!”
“Oh…great! So, what do you do?”
When you say you’re a writer, most people assume you’re an aspiring Hemingway, tapping away at your typewriter in pursuit of the next great American novel.
Unless someone has experience in the digital marketing, content marketing, or online world, few people know what a copywriter does. (Not a copyright-er. I have another post on that.)
That said, though, everyone is familiar with the work of copywriters, whether they know it or not. In a world as marketing-dense as ours, copywriters essentially make the digital web spin. They write the scripts for television commercials, radio ads, mail and email marketing materials, and articles that help people find answers to problems and learn new things.
In other words, copywriters are everywhere!
As such, it’s never been more critical than it is right now to understand how copywriting works, and what a massive role it plays in our modern world.
What Copywriters Are (and What We Aren’t)
First things first: not all copywriters are clones of Don Draper.
Although romantic to imagine, that was way back when. Today, it’s 2017. There’s much less drama, smoking, and drinking in the office in this industry than what you see in the Mad Men series. 😉
That said, however, copywriters today fulfill a vast selection of positions.
Here are just a few of the things that define what copywriters are:
1. Copywriters Write Copy for Various Industries and Specialties
Depending on a copywriter’s unique job description, he or she might create marketing copy for a website or work one-on-one with an SEO company to write their website or create their Facebook posts. In other cases, copywriters write physical text material, like books, pamphlets, and educational sheets. No matter what industry they work in, copywriters work with words daily.
2. Copywriters Work with Other Teams to Create Marketing Copy
In most cases, copywriters work with other specialists, like SEOs and sales teams, to create well-rounded marketing copy that fulfills a broad series of goals.
3. Copywriters Wear Many Hats
A great copywriter is also a part-time marketer, editor, and publisher. While copywriters typically work with teams of editors, these skills are indispensable, and the best copywriters must know how to evaluate their content for quality and figure out what will and will not work for a client.
What today’s copywriters are NOT:
1. Novelists. While copywriters do sometimes create text copy, they’re not developing books that sell as novels. Those are typically ghostwriters or other forms of writers. Instead, copywriters may create ebooks, articles, or white papers.
2. Machines. Good copywriters pay a lot of attention to each piece they create. They don’t just churn out work in a one-size-fits-all manner. Instead, they collaborate closely with teams and managers to build customized material for each client.
3. Outbound Marketers. The wheelhouse of copywriters is to create material that makes people want to connect with a company. They don’t typically push themselves or their content on other people. Instead, they work hard to create content that delights readers and makes them want to interact with a brand.
The following graphic applies very much. 😉
What’s Under the Hood at a Copywriting Agency: What Express Writers Does
Here at Express Writers, we know a thing or two about copywriters. Not only do we hire them – we are them! Before I founded my company, I worked as a copywriter on various freelancing platforms. I landed hundreds of gigs and dozens of clients, and within three months of self-teaching as an online copywriter, I went on to start my agency. (Check out my full story here.)
Today, my agency has a full-service Content Shop with over 40 products:
ALL this content is created by our handpicked copywriters, strategists, and editors, who specialize in different industries, content types, and services.
This gives you a pretty good idea of exactly how diverse copy offerings can get!
What Qualifications do Good Copywriters Have?
The field of copywriters is a very diverse one. While some copywriters attended school for degrees in English or Journalism, others have spent their pre-copywriting lives working as attorneys, cooks, or dog mushers! Copywriters come in all shapes and sizes, and this unique assortment of backgrounds allows copywriters to bring their experiences into the field, creating more diverse and interesting copy.
As it stands today, there is no one-size-fits-all educational program for copywriters. Instead, a copywriter that’s going to succeed in the industry just needs to possess a few key traits. These are as follows:
1. Creativity
First off, copywriters need to be creative. While many people assume creativity is only necessary for people writing novels and short stories, and not people writing marketing copy, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Since copywriters write for such a diverse selection of clients, they need to be agile enough to think on their feet. Storytelling is central to great copywriting, and the best experts out there know how to access their creativity to weave compelling, unique copy that will engage an audience and help a brand meet its goals.
2. Strong Writing Skills
While copywriters don’t need a college degree to excel in the field, they do need strong writing skills. While it’s true that copywriters write about everything from firearm safety to SEO, the center of all that work is writing, and it’s essential that those skills are rock-solid. Copywriters need to be comfortable with the written word and know how to bend and command it to do what they want.
3. An Ability to Work with Others
While many copywriters work remotely, they are not lone wolves. Instead, copywriters work with teams of SEOs, advertisers, designers, and sales professionals. As such, the successful copywriter has strong teamwork skills and knows how to work collaboratively with other people to create a comprehensive product.
4. Strong Research Skills
One of the questions I frequently get as a copywriter is “what do you do if you don’t know the industry?”
Although some copywriters specialize in certain sectors, such as the financial or medical industry, many copywriters write on all topics for their clients. Because of this, it’s critical to have strong research skills. For example, if a customer asks you to write about choosing an engine lubricant for your sports car, and you’re not an expert on sports cars or their engines, you need to know how to use the web to find quality information that can help you write the article.
If you didn’t receive any formal training as a copywriter (and even if you did), criticism is a central part of the job. You can’t always “nail it,” and great copywriters expect to get the occasional negative feedback from editors and clients. In these cases, excellent copywriters take the feedback and learn from it, while people that won’t make it in the industry crumble beneath it.
6. A Hunger for Knowledge
Copywriting intersects with other industries, like SEO and digital marketing, and copywriters who will rise to the top of their industry are continually seeking to learn about these things. In addition to strengthening your writing, these simple tricks will also allow a copywriter to stay on the bleeding edge of his or her industry.
7. A Willingness to Learn
Copywriters who aren’t familiar with the industry before they start need only to want to learn it. Things like social media, proper blog formatting, and good SEO practices can all be learned, and dominating them is what sets one copywriter apart from the next.
The answer to this question varies depending on how much a copywriter works, who he or she works for, whether they’re employed by a company or by themselves, and where the copywriter is.
According to Glassdoor, the national average salary for copywriters is $55,000 annually.
That said, though, it’s not uncommon for copywriters to earnfar more – as in five figures per project when they work for large corporations or run a successful self-employed business. Joanna Wiebe, famous conversion copywriter, doesn’t work for less than $60,000 per project.
As the world of digital marketing changes, copywriters who also learn relevant and in-demand skills, like video script copywriting and some graphic design, can supplement their offerings, provide more value for their clients, and make more money. Copywriters can also boost their worth by creating a longstanding history of quality content for a variety of customers. When companies see that a copywriter has successfully increased conversions, helped companies draw new customers, or overhauled a company’s online presence, that copywriter becomes more in-demand in the industry.
Public speaking (especially at TEDx stages) can also significantly boost a copywriter’s rep and net them far higher-earning projects and prospects.
How to Find Copywriting Jobs
If you’re a copywriter looking for work, your options are virtually limitless. You can work for almost any major company, on your own, or with a dedicated content creation agency, like Express Writers! Here are just a few places to start looking for work:
Express Writers. We’re almost always hiring! Send in a resume as a writer and an editor. You must have at least 2 years of writing or editing experience for either open position area.
The ProBlogger Job Board. The premier copywriting work resource, the ProBlogger Job Board features thousands of writing jobs refreshed daily. It’s a wonderful filter for high-quality writing jobs. This job board features many major, well-known accounts, such as Canva and Thrive Market. Targeted directly at copywriters. The brainchild of one of the best copywriters out there, Darren Rowse, this is a job board made by writers for writers.
Private Companies. Content marketing is growing at an astonishing rate and, as such, virtually everyone needs copywriters for their businesses. As such, you’ll find that many private companies need copywriters to help them develop their online material. If there’s a company you admire, look at their job board to see if they’re hiring copywriters. If they’re not, you can always reach out and pitch your services according to best pitch practices.
Local Companies. Local companies in your area may need copywriting services to grow their online presence. Keep your eyes peeled for companies in your area in need of copywriting services and offer your expertise when you find them!
How to Hire Copywriters
We put a guide together on how to work with your copywriter! Check it out here.
One of the tips our Content Development Specialist, Tara, had to share is a great key of working with writers.
Our content creation agency works hard to staff the very best copywriters on the web. What’s more, we offer some benefits that individual freelancers don’t, namely the ability to take on far more content and the assurance that your content will always get finished, even if a freelancer falls ill or has a family emergency. As if that weren’t enough, we also staff a selection of industry-specific copywriters so that you can find a professional financial, marketing, or medical copywriter for all your online needs.
5 Things That Make Online Copywriting Great
Now that you know a little bit about how copywriting works at the foundational level – who copywriters are, what they do, how to be one, and how to find one – let’s talk about what separates the wheat from the chaff regarding the actual writing that goes into copywriting.
If you’ve ever read a batch of college essays, you know that not all writing is created equal and that ten different people writing about the same topic can create a series of ten very different results. With this in mind, how do you tell what’s great copywriting and what falls short?
The answer is simple: great copywriting possesses the following things:
1. Detail
Copywriting is nothing without extensive detail. Today’s readers are more discerning than ever, and they’re not easily placated by fluffy, low-hanging content that doesn’t do much to appease their needs or help them find solutions to their problems. As such, great copywriting digs deep.
Here’s an example: if two copywriters had an assignment to write about coal mining in America, the sub-par copywriter would give a definition of coal mining, talk about where and how people do it, and then be done. A great copywriter, on the other hand, will do some research, provide in-depth statistics about how coal mining has grown and changed over the year, discuss the challenges facing modern coal miners, and provide a realistic outlook for the future of coal miners.
The more detailed online copy is, the more useful it is for your readers. This, in turn, helps you create material that ranks well and allows you to stand out as an authority in your industry.
2. Quality
No copy ever rose to the top of the web for being riddled with spelling and grammar mistakes. Today, quality is more essential than ever in online copywriting. In fact, Google itself even made this explicitly clear back in 2015, when they released their Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines. Their “Characteristics of High-Quality Pages” section stated explicitly that pages that were to rank as high-quality must possess “a satisfying amount of high-quality main content.”
Today, it’s easy to create low-quality content that doesn’t take user experience, SEO, or flow into account, and writers who do that are a dime a dozen. To truly stand out, though, copywriting needs to be high-quality, free of spelling and grammar mistakes, and tailored specifically to a company’s unique audience. When all these things are in place, content can not only do its job of educating and entertaining audience, but it can also claim and maintain a prominent spot on the web.
3. A Focus on SEO
Neil Patel has said that SEO and content go together like peanut butter and jelly, and he’s right! Without content, search engine optimization (or SEO) can’t function, and without SEO, content would just drift around the web, homeless and hungry for an audience and a place.
To succeed in today’s digital world, online content needs to marry SEO best practices with quality writing. This means including relevant keyword phrases naturally throughout the material, utilizing strong internal and external links, keeping sentences short and the reading level low enough to appeal to various audiences, and using headers and subheaders to break up text and make it accessible for readers on all devices – from mobile phones to desktop computers.
If copywriting doesn’t focus on SEO, it’s simply not worth investing in!
4. The Right Voice
While a brand like Poo-Pourri can get away with writing in a lippy, off-the-cuff fashion, the ACLU can’t. The difference is the culture of these two organizations. While Poo-Pourri, a “spray before you go” toilet product, is sassy to its core, the ACLU is a serious legal organization where people expect to find professional, informative information. As such, the voice for these two platforms is very different, and great copywriting takes this into account.
Today, a large part of what makes copy successful is its voice. Even if content is well-written and compelling, it won’t perform well unless it’s speaking directly to a platform’s audience and readers. As such, great copywriters must know how to adapt and adjust their voices depending on publication and platform.
5. A Willingness to Play the Long Game
There’s a distinct difference between outbound marketing and inbound marketing. Outbound marketing goes out, from the organization it begins with, to capture and engage customers. Think purchased email lists, unsolicited phone calls, and door-to-door sales.
Inbound marketing, on the other hand, seeks to provide material that’s good enough to bring customers in. Think blogging, social media, and video marketing.
While copywriting can be used for outbound marketing (copywriters create most of the material you find in your mailbox), most copywriting jobs today are in the inbound marketing sphere. And this is for a good reason. Today, content is much more effective when it doesn’t shove readers. For evidence of this, all you need to do is look at the rise in ad-blocking software (which Seth Godin wrote about back in 2015) and the fact that the majority of direct mail is never opened.
Today, people want content that builds relationships, rather than trying to jump right into their pockets. As such, the most successful copywriting currently on the web is the stuff that builds trust, explains difficult concepts, offers solutions, and doesn’t try to sell anything at all. While it may be tough for companies to understand why they would invest in a copywriter who won’t try to sell things to their clients, the truth is that, in 2017, the best sales pitch is no sales pitch at all.
Great Digital Copywriting: The Stuff That Makes the Web Go Around!
Today, the web runs on great copywriting. It’s everywhere you look!
From the banner ads that pop up as you cruise a website to the social media posts that make you laugh and the blogs you turn to when you need to learn how to change a bike chain or navigate your newly updated Instagram feed, copywriting is what makes it all work.
To find out more about the ins and outs of online copywriting, check in with us at Express Writers and follow The Write Blog. As one of the premier copywriting agencies on the web, we know a thing or two about hiring writers, connecting writers with companies, and keeping you up to date on all the great news, happenings, and events in the world of online copy!
In recent years, there’s been some concern that robots will eventually replace human writers.
Automated systems have successfully replaced people in thousands of factory assembly jobs, surgical positions, security posts, and farming positions. Why not writing, as well?
While there’s no doubt that writing has been, and will continue to be, aided by technological advancement, I say it’s unlikely that robots will ever fully replace the human copywriter.
Why?
Robots can’t process a human level of creativity, thinking, and subsequently, writing.
While robots, algorithms, and automated systems may have methods in place to “crawl” and interpret data, they will never understand the distinctly human joy of curling up in front of the fireplace with a cup of tea and a great book.
Think about these scenarios for a moment:
Robots will never know how exciting Tolkien’s world can be, or how a great novel or short story can transport you to another time, place, and headspace.
Robots will never know what it means to read a Content Marketing Institute article that punches you in the gut, that you feel compelled to share so everyone can learn what you just learned (content marketing nerds unite).
Robots can’t ever wipe away their own tears at the last lines of Shakespeare’s dying Romeo, or Mufasa’s passing in the Lion King.
For these reasons, human copywriters will not be replaced anytime soon.
While robots might be capable of incredible things, only we understand how deeply human the act of writing is, and how much heart it takes to produce material that other people want to read.
Why Robots Won’t Replace the Writer: The Raw Power of Human, Conversational Content
You know what else robots are lacking that humans have down pat? The power of conversation. Sure – robots can be programmed to talk, answer questions, and tell jokes, but they’ll never be the conversational natives that humans have always been.
This gives us a serious edge when it comes to copywriting.
If you’ve been working in the digital marketing space for a while, it’s likely that you can think of a few examples of funny, conversational, relatable content you’ve read and enjoyed that features a distinctly human touch.
Here are a few of the brands that come to mind for me when I think of conversational content:
1. Dollar Shave Club
Dollar Shave Club is almost always on the top of these lists because the brand has done such an incredible job of making itself approachable, funny, and relatable. There’s no doubt these guys have real, hard-working humans behind their digital content. While there are dozens of examples of how the company does this, check out this screenshot of the “How it Works” portion of their website for a great demonstration:
2. Poo~Pourri
What I love about Poo~Pourri is their genius level of creativity in every bit of copy and marketing material.
If that’s not fun, relatable and conversational, I don’t know what is. We all can give a little belly laugh in the name of joining a “potty” community ready to spritz the bowl and “trap-a-crap” (a product name, not kidding you).
Show me a content scraper, algorithm, or robot that can evoke thathumorous level of creativity.
3. Headspace
Headspace built a meditation app that provides access to fast, accessible meditations for situations ranging from anxiety to anger to general wellbeing. While meditation often feels like a lofty and unapproachable practice, Headspace hits the ball out of the park when it comes to making the pursuit user-friendly and approachable.
One of my favorite examples of their conversational their content is their “How the Headspace App Works Video.” Watch it and then tell me you’re still feeling intimidated about developing a meditative practice:
5 Reasons We Have to LearnConversational Writing
While the brands above are all killing it at conversational writing, the people behind this content didn’t just come in off the streets and start excelling at it. While it’s true that people are conversational natives, writing marketing copy (and everything listed above is marketing copy) that connects with readers requires a set of learned skills.
Most of us are familiar with marketing messages that feel cold, pushy, overly sales-y, or cheap. This material makes us recoil and click “delete” as fast as we can. While a human may have written it, it doesn’t do anything to make us feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
With this in mind, we have to learn conversational writing. Here’s why:
1. School didn’t teach us
If you’re like most people, you remember being told you were too wordy, informal, or grammatically incorrect in your school papers. While this may have made sense when we were learning APA or MLA formatting or constructing a senior thesis in college, it doesn’t hold up in the real world.
Sometimes, approachable marketing writing bends grammar rules. Sometimes it’s less formal than a college essay, and sometimes it pushes the envelope – but that’s okay! In fact, that’s necessary.
While school taught us to abide by hundred-year-old grammar rules, it didn’t teach us how to be approachable and conversational in the material we write.
2. Conversational writing takes relies on the audience
What your audience might find approachable and what my audience might find approachable may well be two separate things. While some aspects of conversational writing carry across all industries and target personas, there’s no doubt that being compelling in marketing copy requires you to know your target audience intimately. If you don’t, you can’t expect to speak directly to them.
3. It takes time to get good at this
While there’s a fine line between being professional and robotic, there’s also a fine line between being conversational and downright rude or unprofessional. Conversational writing, like all things, requires a delicate hand and a certain level of skill. You don’t develop this overnight, and it’s important to give yourself time and space to hone the craft and develop your unique style.
4. Old habits die hard
For some people, breaking out of the box of academic writing and learning to be more conversational and approachable is a severe uphill battle. It’s tough to un-do old teaching, and writing in a conversational and friendly way can feel counterintuitive, at first. This is one of the biggest reasons we must learn to write like this, rather than just expecting it to sprout up overnight.
5. Great writing shouldn’t sound like writing
Take a moment to wrap your mind around this one.
Elmore Leonard once said:
“If it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.”
The best sales pitch shouldn’t feel like a sales pitch, and the best marketing writing shouldn’t sound like writing – it should sound like a casual conversation between friends.
10 Impressive Ways to Write More Conversational Content
So, now you know why we must learn to write conversationally. Now, let’s talk about how.
Here are ten smart tips you can put into action right now:
1. Stop trying to be everything to everyone
Imagine this: you’re sitting down at your computer to write your weekly email newsletter. You want it to be exciting, compelling, and valuable for your audience. The tough thing is, though, your email list contains every internet user on the globe – about 3,424,971,237 people.
That’s an impossible task, right? Right. There’s absolutely no way you can appeal to all those people, and you’d be wasting your time trying.
The first step in creating more conversational content is to hone your audience. Instead of trying to be everything to everyone, you want to be a very specific something to a very particular set of people.
When you sit down to write your copy, you should be able to pick one individual that’s representative of your target audience and write to that person and only that person. This will make your writing infinitely more approachable and unique.
2. Don’t try to sound casual
Any time you try to show off, things take an immediate turn for the worst. This is as true in sports (ever tried to look cool on a ski hill, only to face plant in front of the large group you were trying to impress?) as it is everywhere else in life. Don’t try to sound casual, or cool, or funny in your writing. Your readers will know immediately that you’re trying to impress them, and you’ll lose interest. Remember: the best writing doesn’t sound like writing. Keep it natural for best results.
3. Talk to people, not at them
Think about how much easier it is to stay engaged with a conversation than a lecture. Now, bring this into your online writing. When you write to people rather than at them, you create room for a two-way exchange, which is much more valuable than a soliloquy.
4. Be yourself
When you read Dollar Shave Club’s web copy, it doesn’t feel like they’re trying to be something they’re not. Instead, you get the distinct idea that the company has a host of funny, cool, witty people on their team – people you’d probably like to get to know. The easiest way to be approachable and conversational in your content is to be yourself. When you’re not trying to fit yourself into someone else’s mold, your voice shines through, and you immediately come off as more authentic.
5. Ask your readers questions
To show your readers you care what they think, ask them questions. Simple things, like their feedback on a recent site redesign or input on a blog post topic are excellent access points and can make you a more accessible brand straight away.
6. Cut the fat
Today, the human attention span is limited. To be precise, it lasts about eight seconds. This doesn’t mean you have to compress all your writing into micro-sized packages, but it does mean you need to slash anything that’s not obviously contributing value. Flabby content doesn’t reflect well on your company, nor does it grab your readers. Trim the fat for more engaging writing.
7. Feel free to bend or break grammar rules
While you want to keep your writing readable (that’s the whole point, after all), it’s okay to break grammar rules here and there. Many of them are antiquated and ill-suited to conversational writing, anyway. For best results, keep it reasonable – use broken sentences here and there, start sentences with “and” or “but” occasionally, and break up your paragraph structure for more impact. While your English teacher of yesteryear might not appreciate the approach, your readers will.
8. Write to a close friend
Lifestyle coach and fitness nut Tim Ferriss is famous for saying he had an awful time writing his books when he was trying to write a book. As soon as he sat down and wrote like he was writing an advice email to a close friend, after a glass of wine, however, his writing changed entirely. Maybe this is why he’s become a multi-time NYT bestseller!
9. Evaluate your process regularly
Like all things associated with writing, creative and conversational copywriting requires regular check-ins. For best results, check in with your results on a regular basis. Are people still responding? If they’re not, consider altering your approach. Being flexible will keep you relatable now and in the future.
10. Keep it simple
Conversational writing is a skill rather than a science. When you keep it simple and avoid the temptation to make it hard and complicated, you’ll automatically increase your chances of success.
Today, audiences want material with a human touch, and it’s conversational, highly-readable content that gets shared and talked about today.
We’ve all heard the saying, “if you want to be interesting, be interested.”
The same goes for writing – “If you want to be read, you have to write to be read!”
If you’re looking for professional copywriters that can nail the art of conversational copywriting, look no further than Express Writers. Contact us today!
To find even a few ounces of gold, you must move mountains of earth.
The same thing goes for writing!
When you sit down at your computer to write (whether it be a blog, page, copy), you tap out thousands of words–only to go back and sift through them all.
You move some here, delete some hundred there, separating and refining them in search of that one valuable nugget, that one shiny sentence that makes the entire process exhilarating, rewarding, and worth it.
Not everyone has the time, patience, or skill to give the writing process the attention it deserves, however – just like not everyone has what it takes to strike it rich as a gold miner.
Because writing well is a craft that takes so much attention and dedication, that only those who are willing to develop those things will earn rewards. The writers who are prepared to move the mountains of earth to find the richest vein, or put their heart into their writing until it turns to pure gold, are the ones who will ultimately succeed.
The Secret of Writing Great Copy & Finding Your Vein of Gold
There’s no shortcut to success, and this is as true with copywriting as it is with gold mining.
Keep reading: I’m going to talk about how to find your “vein of gold” in online copywriting, and why truly great writing is the only type of writing worth doing this year.
To be Great, You’ve Got to be Tough
There’s a thin line between being excellent and being “good enough.”
The great (and awful) thing about the web is that most content creators fall into the latter category.
Hey, that was me, when I just started out in 2011-2012.
I’ve since deleted a boatload of blogs from those days. I wasn’t tough on myself. I didn’t analyze every content piece, stressing over every sentence, perfecting every single H2. I wrote, edited, threw together a graphic, called it a content piece, scheduled it, got it “out.”
Those days are long gone. And I’m so glad.
The content creators that just want to be good enough, which truly means “get content out,” are like miners who refuse to invest in the right equipment, or won’t put in the long, hard hours in the sun.
While this can be terrible for readers, who must slog through tons of mediocre content to reach the great material they deserve, it’s good news for content creators who are willing to go the extra mile. When nearly everything else is sub-par, standing out gets a bit easier.
Remember: if striking gold were easy, everyone would be doing it.
The reason so many people push out low-quality content is that that is infinitely simpler than writing thousands of words, sitting back, and then filtering it all down to that one sentence, that one thought that matters.
At the end of the day, being great means being tough – in your edits of your writing, in your dedication to the craft, in your expectations of yourself, and in your commitment to blowing everything else out of the water. Sure, it’s harder than the alternative, but it’s the only approach that honors how crowded the web already is, and how important it is to add only quality material in the coming years.
How else are you going to strike that vein that offers rewards beyond your wildest dreams?
The Secret of Writing Great Copy: Being Willing to Walk Away from Your Work
It sounds almost crazy, doesn’t it?
“Write 5,000 words and then scrap 2,500 of them.”
That seems like an exercise in futility. It seems like a Sisyphean task.
Remember the gold miner, though? Remember how gold miners often have to move thousands of tons of earth to find a few ounces of gold? If you take mining for its surface value, it seems insane. Until, however, you realize that a few ounces of gold can be worth hundreds of thousands – even millions – of dollars.
Then things start to make sense.
In writing, as in gold mining, there’s no shortcut to success. You’ve got to bow your head to the work and be willing to do some of it in vain. While being great might be true that you’ll slash many of your hard-fought words from each piece you write, think of those words as the tons of earth you have to move to get to the good stuff.
There’s no way around it, and you’re not going to find the material that glitters unless you’re willing to dig. While it can be tempting to think that everything you’ve written is gold, this is just hubris, and it won’t do anything to help you hone your skill.
The Secret of Writing Great Copy: Narrowing Down to Your Best
The gold of your writing is hiding beneath the dirt, and to access it you need to be able to recognize the work involved and commit to it.
While it can be discouraging to write and re-write, the goal is to refine your content until you find the one sentence that matters, the one paragraph that gets your reader in the gut.
Once you find it, start there.
It’s your standard now for the entire piece.
Your lamppost, your guideline.
Make sure everything that follows is just as shiny and inspiring.
Cut everything else out. Trim the fat.
Remove everything that doesn’t bring something new to the table. If it’s just noise, you don’t have a right to publish it, and your readers shouldn’t be forced to wade through it.
An Example of Trimming the Fat
Content Block A
It’s critical to look at everything that is nothing better than “wordy,” and cut, cut, cut that out. Your content must shine. It must be polished, to stand out in a sea of online content that keeps rising every day. Discover in your copy what’s poor, what’s not as good as the rest. Cut out everything that doesn’t matter. Trim the fat.
Content Block B
Cut out everything that doesn’t matter. Trim the fat.
See what I did there?
I narrowed everythingdown in Content A to my two last sentences. That was the heart of my paragraph. The gold. All the other words, which took a while to compose and write, were trashed.
(Also, ironic, eh? I trimmed down to “Trim the fat.” :-P)
Don’t assume that every word you’ve written deserves to be published. That’s like the gold miner saying the dirt covering the gold deserves to stay where it is. With thinking like this, he’d reason himself right out of a job.
Be analytical and real in your approach to your copy. Don’t hold back on pruning to discover your best roots and content health.
Your Job as a Content Creator Comes with Responsibility: Use it Wisely
Today, our job as content creators isn’t simply to push out written material – it’s to create targeted, from-the-heart content that resonates with our readers, that provides something different, and that comes from a place of passion and true belief.
To get to this place, you’ve got to be tough–on yourself.
Develop an eye for excess, and understand that creating your best work often means walking away from much of it.
Remember the gold miner.
At the end of the day, his brow is bent to the earth. He’s sweaty and bronzed from the sun, back turned to the mountains of soil he’s moved to uncover the tiny spot upon which he now focuses. He’s shaking his sifting pan rhythmically back and forth, running water through it like a baptism.
You can call him crazy if you’d like, but that small spot contains riches untold, and he knows exactly what he’s doing.
When you bring this kind of attention, diligence, and commitment to striking gold in your online writing, there’s no way you can go wrong. You’re on your way to great copy, every single time you publish.
Nuggets From The Secret of Writing Great Copy: Finding Your Vein of Gold
Save this slide to your desktop and open it every time you need a reminder of how to find your vein of gold. 😉
How can an infographic get better? Add moving parts. Our fantastic design team created and designed this first gifographic from Express Writers. In it, we’re showing you the major tricks of the trade when it comes to writing and optimizing great SEO content. Tell us how you liked our first gifographic, and for a limited time, we’re taking gifographic orders! Full transcript below. Transcript
A Guide To Writing & Optimizing Great SEO Content (Gifographic)
Here’s Why Creating Great SEO Content Is So Crucial To Your Marketing
Web traffic drives content marketing. The largest portion of content marketing success, 63%, is derived from website traffic. A big reason why you should focus on having correctly SEO optimized content on your site.
2/3 of B2B Marketers say content fuels their marketing. And if your content is well-written, answers questions, and is optimized for your buyers to find it, buyers are willing to finish 57% of your buying process without even talking to a sales rep.
Google loves it! Google has said that quality content is key to rankings.
Google Panda is the gatekeeper. The Google panda update has been launched primarily to ensure only high quality content ranks the best. This Panda algorithm looks into factors specifically that include how expertly the content is written, the quality of the source and author, if it is original and not duplicate, authoritative, complete, well-researched, and not-over populated with ads.
Optimized blogs are powerful. 8 out of 10 Internet users are reading blogs and social media, which accounts for a whole 23% of time spent on the Internet.
3 Major Types of SEO Content & Tips on Correctly Optimizing Them
Content is the fuel for what you publish on the web. Here are a few of the most common web content types:
Web pages. Web pages are one of the most commonly optimized forms of SEO content. Boost your web page ranking through the inclusion of related, well-researched keywords, well written title tags, meta descriptions, awesome headers, and high quality writing. Never skimp on the quality of the writing if you want the best results from your web pages.
Blogs. There are approximately 152,000,000blogs on the web and with that kind of competition it’s obvious that optimizing your blog for SEO is an important way to get it to stand out. Include high quality citations (links) that reference any statistics you include and shoot for 2,000 words of high quality, well-researched SEO content per blog or more.
Product Descriptions. When it comes to writing product descriptions, you want people to be able to locate them online quickly and easily. Don’t skimp on copy here either. Include keywords in your product descriptions and write descriptive headlines and meta content for each one.
Social Media. Did you know that social media can be optimized, too? Except with social media, you optimize your content so that it can be located and shared by people rather than search engines. So don’t write around your keywords; write your social content around your audience.
3 Rules of Thumb in SEO Writing
1. Keyword Amount: Stay under a 3% keyword density in your content (web pages, blogs, etc.) Using them naturally is your #1 rule. Headers, subheaders, and throughout the copy are key areas to use them. How to Calculate:
Keyword Density = (How many times you used the keyword / Total words in the text) x 100
Example: (20 / 800) x 100 = 2.5% 2. Don’t count your keywords. We mean it! Think of your audience, the quality of your content, how well you’re researching the content, and if the copy addresses every question the topic could raise. This is far more important than counting keyword density every time. Simply optimize naturally with keywords. 3. Find original sources when you’re stating a claim, and citate (link to it). See our sources at the bottom of this infographic? Those are our citations. You’ll want to actually hyperlink inside your blogs or other content where you’re making a statement or claim that you’ve read online. Make sure you use the original source when you hyperlink.
3 SEO Tools for the Web Content Creator
SEMrush is a powerful keyword tool that allows users to optimize their sites for SEO, create intuitive pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and conduct social media and video advertising research. When it comes to using SEMrush to find keywords for your ad campaign, you’ll want to look into niche-specific long-tail keywords that apply specifically to your industry. While it’s all well and good to target a high-volume search keyword, it’s also harder to rank for these keywords, which means you may be better off focusing on a less competitive, more specific keyword phrase that allows you to rank strongly from the get-go.
Wordtracker is another keyword research tool that allows users to search multiple sources for effective keywords. This tool can help you find keywords that nobody is competing on and will be an essential tool for SEO success.
BuzzSumo is an effective tool for finding the key influencers that can help you promote your content and get it noticed by a wide audience base. It can also help you find trending content topics and take inspiration for audience related content. Although it’s not specifically SEO, developing great topic ideas and feeding off of industry leaders is every bit as important as SEO optimization.
10 Key Factors of Great SEO Content
1. Write great headers! Aside from your body content, the most important piece of content for SEO is your header. A header tells people what the piece is about, grabs reader attention and gives a general overview of the topic. To make your header as interesting as possible, include your keyword and focus on writing a header that asks a question or addresses your readers’ fears. Create headers that are irresistible and make your readers want to click; include the keyword naturally. 2. Stay away from “stuffing.” Keyword stuffing is a dangerous practice that will get you in trouble with the search engines, decreasing your site’s rank and making it harder for users to find you. Plus, it just looks spammy. So when writing your content, shoot to use keywords naturally. They should be in your header (if it’s possible to include them while still feeling organic) and they should appear a few times throughout the body content. You want your keyword density under 3% for everything you write. 3. Optimize your keywords for many channels. Keywords are important for your website, but they’re also important for social media and email. To optimize for multi-channel visibility in places like blogs, web pages and social media sites, be consistent with your keyword phrases across all the platforms you use. 4. Write good meta content. That little bit called your meta description might be more important than you realize. Think of them as your organic PPC copy; what users will see if your content ranks high enough. 2-3 sentence is all you need there, and be sure to include your main keyword. Treat your title tags like a 4-8-word advertisement for best results. 5. Be unique. All of the content you create should be unique, so you’ll want to strike a balance between curated content and original content. This is one of the best ways to optimize your site for SEO. 6. Include citations. Find and mention industry leaders throughout your content to back up your content. Google cares about your sources and to rank well you’ll want to link to industry leaders. Moz’s MozBar can help you make sure you’re using good sites; the DA (Domain Authority) score should ideally be 50 or more. However, the DA metric isn’t set in stone, so use it with judgment. Additionally, in web content you’ll want to link strategically throughout your own text back to the most important pages of your site. 7. Have high word counts. Did you know that word count can play an important part of SEO ranking? To provide the most value for your audience and rank as well as possible in SERPs, write long-form content between 1,500-2,000 words. Seek to address every question that could be raised on your topic. 8. Make sure all of your content is well- Sounds simple, but it’s crucial. Content that is filled with typos, misspellings, poor-quality links, or too many keywords will harm your SEO ranking and drive readers away. Proofread everything (or hire a proofreader). 9. Earn great links. In addition to using good links in your content, you’ll want to earn high-quality links from the outside as well. The best way to do this is to create and publish useful content that includes your keyword terms and draws social shares. Over time, the links will come. 10. Post often and consistently: Content is the #1 ranking factor for SEO and when you post often, your content gets shared more, viewed more, linked to more and helps you earn better rankings. For best results, post to your various channels several times a week and never let a blog sit unattended for long.
