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Website Content Writing

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

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

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?

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.

We will still need to discuss your offers, key selling points and company back­ground in detail, and 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.

5.0 from 28 reviews
Ratings and reviews
  • 5.0 from 28 reviews
  • 24-05-2023

    Dave M.

    Thanks, Pete! Since you updated my site, business has gone crazy – I now have more work than I know what to do with!

  • 04-04-2023

    Mark R

    I use Netcentrics for all my business needs. Always a pro­fes­sional, super-prompt and to date flawless service. Excellent.

  • 02-03-2023

    Ceri E

    A fant­astic service! We are a small business just starting out with a new venture. Pete at Netcentrics has gone above and beyond to provide us with not only a fant­astic website, but also invaluable business and mar­keting advice. The whole process has been incredibly pos­itive and beyond what we expected com­pared to pre­vious exper­i­ences. He is incredibly know­ledgeable and sup­portive. His support did not stop at the end of the website build, he has con­tinued to make himself available ensuring that we know how to max­imise use of the website for our start up. We wouldn’t hes­itate to recommend Pete to anyone.

  • 18-11-2022

    Janet L

    Thanks, Pete — your advice is like gold dust!

  • 21-08-2022

    Barbara H

    Oh my goodness, thank you so much! In over 20 years of online retailing this is the best and most com­pre­hensive bit of help I’ve ever had relating to the dreaded SEO. I really appre­ciate it — many thanks again

  • 07-11-2021

    Sam G.

    You’re amazing — highly recommended!

  • 16-06-2021

    Abid Hussain

    Amazing service. Professional and out­standing company to deal with. Pete has great under­standing with online require­ments and core issue’s. Spent hours on the tele­phone explaining and working on the website to bring it up-to-date. Noting but grat­itude and respect to Netcentric. Highly recommend to any one through my exper­ience they have gone above and beyond.

  • 15-05-2021

    SakineO‑1

    Pete is the most pro­fes­sional and know­ledgeable web developer I have exper­i­enced since 2016 as I have had many since. You won’t regret. I highly recommend him.

  • 05-10-2020

    Paul Mercer

  • 26-08-2020

    Susan Baynham-Evans

    Peter expertise is exactly what I needed . When I have ideas Pete makes them work. I could not run my website without him

  • 09-07-2020

    Emma Cunliffe

    Can’t recommend him highly enough. He was extremely pro­fes­sional, laid out exactly what we needed to do and his role within that, setting expect­a­tions all round very clearly, and working within our budgetary con­straints to set clear bound­aries. He was extremely prompt and punctual in his responses and work. He was also extremely patient with his recom­mend­a­tions and explan­a­tions, which were clear and simple to follow. Excellent value for us as a charity. We’re very grateful to him — he was a real pleasure to work with.

  • 05-06-2020

    Graham Smith

    know­ledgeable and pro­fes­sional service designing and building a website for a local SME business.

  • 05-06-2020

    Keary Birch

    Very helpful staff who really under­stood the problem and dealt with it.

  • 05-06-2020

    Ali van Dam

    First rate! Knowledgeable, pro­fes­sional and cre­ative. I would abso­lutely use Netcentrics again for future projects.

  • 05-06-2020

    Barbara Harris

    Amazing, pro­fes­sional service and speedy com­mu­nic­a­tions. Very impressed and highly recommended.

  • 05-06-2020

    JWComp Sol

    Netcentrics designed, imple­mented and have main­tained our company website for many years.If you want a secure and reliable website I strongly recommend Netcentrics.

  • 21-12-2019

    Alison van Dam

    I can’t say enough good things about Netcentrics.co.uk — thorough, know­ledgeable, ded­icated and innov­ative. Highly recommended.

  • 05-12-2019

    Helen Rich

    Very pleased with my new e‑commerce site from Netcentrics. Very pro­fes­sional, know­ledgeable, and highly recommended.

  • 05-06-2019

    Mark Davies

    I have been using Netcentrics’ SEO service and they have impress­ively managed to get over 250 of my keywords onto the first page of the search results. A very friendly and thor­oughly pro­fes­sional service. Highly recommended.

  • 05-06-2018

    andrew cocchiara

    Many thank’s Pete for all your advice and expertise over the years. A first class pro­fes­sional service and excellent value for money.

  • 15-03-2018

    Tim D

    Just saw that my site is now in 2nd place on the first page of Google. I’m not sure what you have done, nor do I under­stand it, but it worked! Many thanks!

  • 24-02-2018

    Paul G

    It is a pleasure dealing with a pro­fes­sional with a high degree of tech­nical skill allied to a ‘can do’ pos­itive attitude. Your ability to explain tech­nical con­cepts in layman’s lan­guage is also a great advantage. I would have no hes­it­ation in recom­mending your services.

  • 03-01-2018

    Lisa

    Excellent and pro­fes­sional work from beginning to end. Pete was open to ideas and able to make sug­ges­tions on how to develop my site.

  • 05-06-2017

    Ian A

    Fast, friendly, effi­cient service that exceeded the spec and made a com­plicated job hassle free for me. Five stars, would highly recommend and would happily employ again for all things web and internet based.

  • 05-06-2017

    Mo Rich

    A flour­ishing web designer, who is thorough and metic­ulous in everything he does. Will create a great looking unique and pro­fes­sional website par­ticular to your needs.

  • 14-09-2016

    Ian A

    Pete is one of the most cre­ative, reliable, com­petent and ingenious people it has ever been my very great pleasure to work with. There is no problem he can’t find an ingenious and unex­pected way out of, and he has a work ethic you could bend horse­shoes around. I cannot recommend him highly enough for his breadth and depth of know­ledge and his total com­mitment to whichever project he is cur­rently undertaking.

  • 31-05-2015

    Jayne H

    DogLost is the UK’s largest com­munity of pet owners and res­cuers. Other developers have struggled to meet our needs, but since Peter rebuilt our site and support systems we have gone from strength to strength, winning major awards including the 2013 Innovation Award from the International Fund for Animal Welfare. We couldn’t have done that without him.

  • 19-11-2013

    Codyspetdeli

    Cody’s Pet Deli is an online business that sells pet food & accessories. Approaching Pete to set up a new website was the best move I have made. We wanted a system that was easy to nav­igate and look good when cus­tomers shop online.Pete made the whole process simple and dealing with him was a great pleasure. He can’t do enough to help and solve any problem that may arise. I would highly recommend Pete for his exper­ience and know­ledge and total ded­ic­ation to see the project through to final conclusion.Steve H.

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