The Benefits Of Using A Freelance Web Copywriter
There are many aspects to search engine optimisation, but the balanced use of keywords is a critical factor. Publishing the right words on a website creates a huge advantage over less optimised competitor platforms, building associations with these terms when people search for them through Google or Bing. And since four-fifths of web traffic originates from a search engine, SEO copywriting is a vital – yet underrated – art form.
Given the considerable costs faced by new businesses, it’s tempting to tackle content production in-house. Similar sentiments may recur during site redesigns, where costs can quickly spiral. Yet writing is more specialised than many people realise. As well as respecting the English language’s myriad intricacies, it’s crucial to avoid spelling or punctuation errors that infer unprofessionalism. Being detailed and yet concise is a delicate balance – informing an audience without boring them. And there’s a fine art to describing something so beginners understand what’s being said, while experts learn something they didn’t know.
The writing’s on the wall
A freelance copywriter is ideally placed to meet these challenges. Their involvement usually begins by learning all about a product, service, industry or company. This knowledge is then harnessed to write about the subject matter as though it was their idea in the first place – projecting the voice of the company they’re representing. This requires a blend of confidence, linguistic prowess and attention to detail that’s beyond most people.
A talented freelance writer will be able to deliver complete SEO services for a company website, creating bespoke text for the tags and code fragments used by search engines to evaluate and rank content. They should be able to manage the CMS tools used to deliver complete SEO services, including social media output. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter provide valuable inbound web links, as well as offering boundless scope for free publicity.
For the many, not the few
Web copywriters are capable of writing a story – such as a product launch – and promoting it in a dozen distinct ways. Rewriting the same passage of text can generate cut-down versions for Twitter and Facebook, plus longer summaries for LinkedIn and Reddit. Each social media platform has a different audience, and individual posts always achieve unique levels of coverage. Making the same point many times is entirely reasonable, providing each post is worded differently. Search engines take a dim view of plagiarism.
Like any ad hoc assistance, a freelance copywriter is called upon only when they’re needed. The best writers will propose a fixed fee for each project, whether it involves complete SEO services or a one-off article. This avoids regular balance sheet commitments in favour of occasional payments for tangible results. Copywriting isn’t like PR or print advertising, where there’s often little scope for measuring success…
Word search
Writing effective online copy is often challenging, but identifying high-quality copywriting is easy. Professionally-written content will contain short sentences, usually featuring a solitary comma. Each paragraph should focus on a particular topic or cohesive theme, remaining fairly short to cater for modern attention spans. And while a degree of informality is acceptable, it’s vital to avoid jargon or unexplained abbreviations that could confuse people. Written materials need to be clear to rookies and veterans alike.
In today’s digital climate, freelance writers tend to have a detailed understanding of how to complete SEO services for clients. Techniques that worked five years ago may be detrimental now, as Google and Bing regularly refine their algorithms to prevent manipulation by unscrupulous black hat marketing agencies. Equally, new opportunities are presented by every web crawler algorithm revision. Early adoption of these new principles can elevate a website in ranking results, in ways people unfamiliar with SEO would never be able to achieve.
Not enough hours in the day
Perhaps the biggest attraction of delegating written material to an off-site copywriter is the time it saves. If you’re a hunt-and-peck typist, producing enough content to populate a website will take a while. If procrastination comes more naturally than inspiration, flashing text cursors soon become a malign presence. And if you’re trying to juggle a dozen other tasks and deadlines already, there’s a lot to be said for outsourcing web copy.
Critically, a good writer will be able to find the right words to promote your brand or business. They’ll know how to answer the questions customers might ask, whereas less creative individuals could spend several hundred words tediously explaining something irrelevant. A single sentence might achieve more than a half-hour YouTube video or an afternoon’s networking, in terms of making a proposition sound compelling. A picture may tell a thousand words, but a few words can launch a new product or service into the mainstream.