Do you need help with your website words? Have you considered using a professional copywriter? We offer professional website writing services, delivered by Nigel Temple, who has been a professional copywriter since 1986, which is over 25 years! Nigel has helped thousands of businesses owners, webmasters and corporates to improve the effectiveness of their webcopy.
Nigel’s website writing services – sometimes called content writing – include feedback, advice, editing and webcopywriting. Nigel’s first book was entitled Writing Copy for the Web, which was published by Hodder & Stoughton (Nigel is currently working on a revised version of this book). Interestingly, they found Nigel via his website http://www.nigeltemple.com, which goes to show the power of words, doesn’t it?
Here’s a short copywriting story by Nigel…
This reminds me that the other day, a client of mine in Berkshire raised an invoice for £3,500 because of one word I wrote within her Google friendly website. The one word was used within a search. It brought a prospective customer from London to my client’s website, like a lightning bolt hitting the steel rod on a tall building. “You were at the top of page one for Google and I have been reading your website. I understand that you have exactly what I am looking for,” the customer said when he called. What a great result. The SEO brought the customer to the site and the webcopy created a feeling of confidence, which resulted in the call and subsequent order.
First impressions are vital, when a new visitor opens up your website. A professional design and well written wording creates a good first impression. If you love to write and you have a great deal of experience in this area, you have a strategic advantage. However, most independent professionals, business owners, marketing professionals, directors and managers feel that they could use some help, when it comes to writing for the web.
The key issues include:
* Understanding your target market
* Creating and using an appropriate voice for your business
* Finding the right headline for your homepage (and ensuring that it is
wrapped in ‘H’ tags, so that Google recognises it as a headline)
* Considering how your copy positions your business, in the customer’s mind
* Understanding the features and benefits you offer
* Creating customer engagement, so that they keep reading
* Including appropriate calls to action
* Generating sales leads / sales enquiries / direct sales
There are two levels of webcopy:
Level 1. Clear writing, which flows well and is grammatically correct. As you travel around the internet, do you find websites which are peppered with spelling mistakes and dodgy grammar? How does this make you feel about the people running the website? Are they ignorant, careless or both? We have asked thousands of delegates this question, during our internet marketing seminars. They think that the website owner should, at the very least, get someone else to check their webcopy. We can tell you that this sort of thing really annoys people.
Many people tell us that they wouldn’t buy from a website with these sort of mistakes, as it is a clear message about the website owner. “It’s sloppy, isn’t it,” a women said, during a seminar. “If a Bed & Breakfast can’t spell accommodation, I’m not going to stay there. This inattention to detail will be reflected in their kitchen and the way that they clean things. It’s the same for websites,” she continued. “Poor spelling and hard to read wording turns me off. It jumps out of the page. One click and I’m gone.” There was a murmur of agreement from the audience, when she said this. Interesting, isn’t it?
Incidentally, it takes about 10,000 hours of practice to achieve fluency with Level 1 writing. In Nigel’s case, he spent three years as an apprentice copywriter within a marketing communications agency. His boss was relentless. “I can see his red pen now, hovering over my double lined spaced printed first draft, waiting to strike.” By the way, Nigel has written books, brochures, leaflets, print advertisements, Google AdWords, exhibition display stand material, websites, blogs, newsletters, social media campaigns, scripts and captions for quite small photographs.
Level 2. Compelling copy, which makes the website visitor want to find out more, arrange a sales meeting with you, or place an order. This is partly art and partly science. It probably helps that Nigel was trained to sell by Rank Xerox and was also a coach on the Solution Selling sales training programme. Nigel worked as a quota bearing sales professional for five years of his career. He has been thrown out of quite a few offices and he still walks with a limp, all these years later.
Today, when he is writing for a clients’ website, Nigel likes to weave professional selling techniques into his copy, which partly explains where all the sales leads come from.
Search Engine Optimisation
SEO is important for most website owners. After all, they want to get significant amounts of traffic to their websites, don’t they? Ideally, they want to achieve this without paying for advertising. We’re happy to work with your list of keywords or advise / consult on this subject, as we’ve have taught SEO for many years. We also use SEO and social media to attract traffic to our many websites (which may explain how you found this page).
Do you already have a list of keywords and phrases? If not, you are welcome to join The Marketing Compass and ask about SEO. We are always happy to quote for SEO consultancy, as part of a project (or separately).
Here are some of the ways that Totosites can help you:
* Writing the entire website for you
* Writing key sections, i.e. the homepage
* Giving you feedback and guidance
* Teaching you how to write better website words, via Skype, coaching, in-house training or presentations to large groups
* Building a WordPress website and writing some / all of the content.
Totosites help enterprises of all sizes, both within the UK and internationally.
If you are interested in website writing services, either email us or call Joanna on +44 (0)1628 773128. We look forward to hearing from you and wish you all the best with your internet marketing.