We should know, we survived off referrals and recommendations because it took us two years to write our own website!
The hardest part of writing your website copy is taking the words out of your head and piecing them together in a coherent and engaging manner. This is hard because the people reading your website have never heard of your business before so getting your messages across in a clear, accurate and memorable way isn’t easy.
The other difficulty lies in not wanting to spend money on copywriting services. After all, you live and breathe your business – no one knows your customer better than you. However, the reality is it’s difficult, impossible even, to see our website copy from our customers perspective. How can we imagine what it’s like to see our copywriting for the first time?
Etymon can help.
By engaging a copywriting agency to write your website copy you’ll benefit as we’ll look at your website the same way your audience does – for the first time. We understand that you know your customers and business best and that’s why we see it as our job to first ask questions to get inside your head. Then we do research so that we can tell your story in a way that accomplishes your goals.
While you don’t want to exclude any potential buyers, the truth is, it’s impossible to please everyone. Instead, write to your main audience and reveal why you’re different. Always be respectful, but when we try to please everyone, your website copy ends up vague, dry, and unoriginal and that pleases no one. If you identify a specific place in your buyer’s mind, you’ll stand out.
One of the hardest things to let go of when writing website copy is the need to talk about yourself. The ability to ditch the pitch and show your audience that it’s all about them can make a world of difference. The inconvenient truth is, unless your story, your values or your mission helps to solve a problem that your website viewers are facing, readers pay very little attention.
You’ve probably already heard about the importance of writing website copy that tells compelling stories, and reads conversationally, and you quite possibly already know the benefits of injecting some personality. The other thing we add to this healthy mix of website copy ingredients is to constantly answer the question – “so what?”
It almost goes without saying that you need to incorporate well researched and targeted SEO keywords into your website copy but that needs to be done creatively. When you overuse keywords in a way that doesn’t flow naturally, not only do your readers tune out, but you can get penalised from Google. Other SEO tips for website copywriting can be found on our SEO services page.
Unfortunately there is no easy answer. It very much depends on the number of pages, how much existing material and brand mapping you’ve done and your website copy and SEO strategy.
We’ve written websites fairly quickly for some industries that we’re highly experienced in and which have had existing content and clear brand direction on hand to provide us, others have required more industry and competitor research and target audience assessment which requires more time. A ballpark indication could be anywhere from 1 week to 1 month, in some cases more.
We usually charge for website copywriting on a per page basis, but the same provisions as stated above in regards to how long it takes to write copy for a website would apply and this would cause the price to vary.
We recommend you develop website copy for each page of your website on a case-by-case, needs basis rather than restricting yourself to a word limit. This will help you to be able to write your website copy in a way that the story that needs to be told gets told. However, for Google SEO purposes, we recommend a minimum of 300 words per page for maximum SEO results.
FAQ’s are a treasure trove of SEO keywords. When you use common search phrases on your web pages (like we have), you stand a greater chance of ranking higher in web searches. We highly recommend using FAQs when writing copy for your website.
Another question we can’t give you a direct answer to. First of all, it naturally depends on your budget, but also how many industries you serve, and how many products you offer. For SEO purposes it is recommended to write website copy for a dedicated page per product, and a dedicated page per industry. Career pages are also a treasure trove of keywords for some companies. Other pages may be decided on a case-by-case basis.
If anyone gives you an answer to this question, be wary. There is no known specific number of SEO keywords that you should use per page. We believe you should use keywords and search phrases as often as possible, but you should do so in a way that flows naturally and doesn’t feel forced. Keyword density should not be overlooked. Using keywords strategically requires creative writing skill, which is why our copywriters and SEO specialists work in tandem.
