3 Reasons Why you should Hire a Copywriter
In 2019, you absolutely MUST produce high-quality content for your website on a consistent basis in order to succeed in digital marketing. Gone are the days of writing boring articles stuffed with keywords every few months. Today you need compelling, useful, relevant, entertaining copy, and you must be posting it regularly. Content is challenging! GOOD content is even more challenging.
You know your business the best, so it seems logical that you would be the best person to write your website content….right? There are three main reasons we recommend you NOT write your own website copy, but hire a copywriter instead.
While you are an expert at your business, you may not be an expert at writing copy. Especially copy that engages readers, compelling them to take an action like picking up the phone or filling out a contact form. You are, however, an essential resource for creating the material! That’s why having a good copywriter you can work well with is crucial. Here’s why…
1) You don’t have the time.
That is the number one reason you should hire someone else. You are too busy running a business and working a full-time job already. Quality content takes thoughtfulness and time. You can’t whip out a brilliant landing page on a napkin while eating lunch.
This is also the reason that your website launch date will push out farther and farther. Don’t let copywriting hold your project back from being finished on time! An experienced writer can get the job done faster. It shouldn’t be painful to write your content; that’s not how joyful, engaging material is born.
The pressure to write on a deadline can turn this task into a dreadful chore. Causing people to put it off, which then stretches out the project timeline and holds up future sales! Getting behind will cause more stress, which is not going to help you get anything done. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
2) How users interact with online content is different, and your copy needs to reflect that.
Copywriting is not like academic writing or even journalism. The style you spent most of your time learning throughout high school or college is not the type of writing that works well online. Mastering a new style can take time, and you don’t want your website to be the testing ground.
Online, less is more. You know and love everything about your company, but your customer doesn’t need all of that information at once. It can be hard to know what to cut when you love everything.
Writing website content is about getting in your customer’s head: trying to understand what they want or need and providing it to them on a silver platter. It’s easy to be excited about your business’s origin story, or the details of how your product was developed. You are trying to write about you or your product, but the goal is really to write for the customer.
You can get emotionally connected to phrasing or topics. It may be a beautifully written section for others in your industry, but that language usually isn’t accessible to the average user browsing your site. Hiring a professional brings an objective eye to your project, and they can help you make some hard decisions.
Copywriters also understand how keywords and SEO fit into your content without letting it take over. This can be difficult for well-practiced writers, let alone a novice.
3) Website copy should be executing a thought-out strategy – guiding users through your site to end at the desired goal.
Your content should provide readers with information they need, at the right time, in the right place. The site should be leading them towards an end goal, which you have predetermined to have value for your business. With only the steps and information necessary to get there. Any extra steps or tangents veering off start reducing the likelihood of a conversion.
Professional writers can put together content that actively leads your users through a specific funnel that results in a newsletter sign up, call, or sale. They know how to write a heading to pull someone in, and a call to action to close the deal.
Not all writers are created equal. But that’s a blog for another day.
The internet is full of blogs telling you the “tricks to writing persuasive copy” or the “ 6 simple ways to produce your content”. This makes it tempting to give it a go on your own. But if you are asking for our professional advice, hire an expert to do your writing.
As a copywriter, this article speaks to me 🙂
Thanks Alan!