The dreaded Blank Page. It won’t write itself.
Copy Writing For Small Business Websites
Content is king — but also the most common cause of unnecessary delays in web design projects. Content delays often cost more in missed opportunities than professional writing would. They even kill some website projects before they ever launch. So this website content writing package can help to keep small business website projects on track.
Why You Need Professional Website Content Writing
A website is a frame for presenting your content effectively. So it’s more effective to design that around your content.
Ideally, you’d be able to provide well-written, search-engine optimised sales copy for your website up front. After all, it’s your site, so you should write the content, right? Maybe — but that’s harder than many people realise.
The Problem With Creating Website Content
Most people underestimate how long it takes to write business website content — and its value. It isn’t simple, and mistakes will cost you sales.
So no, you can’t just write whatever you want, and no, you weren’t taught to write effectively for the web in school. Online reading habits don’t match traditional writing models.
How To Write Website Content
Didn’t that make sense yesterday?
Web audiences expect websites to answer several basic questions within fairly standard structures. So get those right, and you can launch — then plan to add more content later. Adding fresh, useful content regularly is great “content marketing” in any case. So many businesses invest in CMS websites to allow that.
Still, you’re the expert on your business. So you will need to create a detailed content plan. It’s just best to do that with professional help.
Then you’ll need to focus on your audience and answer their questions, not write for yourself. It’s best to double-check each statement, no matter how well you know your topic.
Also remember that your audience doesn’t know what you know. Some points — especially industry jargon — may need further explanation. Others may need supporting references, like quotations or links to non-competing sites that add weight to your statements.
Next, you’ll need to check for typos, spelling, punctuation, grammar, structure and readability. Professional writers rely on sub-editors and editors for proof reading, because it needs “fresh eyes”. Otherwise, you’ll need to wait a day or two before you can see the flaws in your own work. Then read it aloud — and hone it repeatedly.
The only kind of writing is rewriting — Ernest Hemingway
Small Business Website Content Writing
Wait — so I’m competing with Apple?
Even then, the core pages of business websites don’t just need well-written copy. They need persuasive, search optimised sales copy. SEO and sales copy writing are valuable skills in themselves.
Good structure and readability help SEO a lot, but picking the right topics and search terms to focus on is critical, too. So here’s the catch — the keywords you want to rank for are probably wrong.
SEO experts see a lot of stats on what people really search for. Often, the popular search phrases aren’t quite what you’d expect. Even when they are, a brand new website may not have enough authority to compete on the most popular ones. You may need to target less competitive terms first.
Another common mistake is not writing enough. Like it or not, the more words you have on a page, the more phrases it’s likely to rank for, especially if they are all on one topic.
Besides, search engines may undervalue pages under three hundred words, so five hundred is a safer minimum target. Longer articles of up to a few thousand words often work even better.
Small blocks are also easier to read and to write. So homepages often consist of multiple small text blocks, with longer articles with simpler layouts for the rest of the site.
Are Pictures (And Videos) Worth A Thousand Words?
Why delay? Wouldn’t you rather get on with this?
Images don’t impress search engines much, but do help your audience. Illustrative images build trust because we process and remember them faster than text.
So if you haven’t got relevant professional quality images lined up, you’ll need to source at least one for each page. Whilst stock images can work for this, they aren’t ideal. The more clichéd ones can even undermine your credibility and sales. So it’s worth investing in professional photography if you can, or at least a decent paid stock media library.
Video marketing is even more effective. Professional-looking videos build trust and measurable engagement — which tends to reduce marketing costs.
Do You Need Content Creation Help?
All that barely scratches the surface of what’s involved in professional website content writing for small businesses. Would you rather spend weeks on all that, or on setting up and running your business?
The sooner you launch, the fewer opportuniities you’ll miss. So I offer a basic copy writing package to help you get your project moving.
A Basic Website Copy Writing Package
This package covers up to 5 pages of copy writing (~500 words each), with one stock image per page and up to three rounds of revision. Normally, this covers your “Home” and “About” pages, plus up to 3 Service or Product pages. Contact, Testimonial and Gallery/Portfolio pages rarely need this service. Likewise, bulk ecommerce product pages tend to be shorter, so please enquire about help with those.
This service doesn’t include the qualified legal help you’ll need to create your site’s legal pages. For those, I recommend specialist legal solutions for T&Cs and Cookie/Privacy Policy pages.