Archive for Website Content

A Blog is the Bridge to Success

A Blog is the Bridge to Success

Many businesses appreciate the value of using a blog to market services and reach out to a wider audience, but many organizations simply don’t have the time to create regular blog content. If you want the best of both worlds, why not hire a blog writer to create your posts? If you are serious about finding professional bloggers, there are a few ways to go about it:

Syndicate Blog Content

Many online companies let you buy syndicated content to fill out your blog, quickly and easily. You can buy posts on a one off basis or sign up for subscription services that provide regular updates to your blog, refreshing it and keeping your readers entertained. The problem with this approach is that the same syndicated content can also be used by your competitors. The search engines punish duplicates and you will find it difficult to attract hits to your site. The other issue with using syndicated content is the lack of professionalism; if blog readers see the same content scattered around the internet, they know that you can’t be bothered to provide them with unique content. They will feel that you are wasting their time and insulting their intelligence.

Scour the Freelance Writing Sites

A search on the freelance writing sites, such as ODesk, Elance, and Freelancer, will throw up blog writers at a very low cost, helping you to populate your blog with posts without spending a fortune. The problem with this is that you can easily fall into the trap of getting exactly what you paid for: a non-native English speaker, poor grammar, plagiarised posts, and an obvious lack of expertise in the topic are just some of the potential problems with chasing the lowest common denominator.

Hire a Freelance Writer for Blogging

The best option, if you are serious about providing an informative, enticing blog is to hire a freelance writer. You can use them as ghost bloggers, writing in your voice and style, or under their own name if they enjoy a good reputation. A freelance writer will add high quality content to your site and help you to develop a good name. This will attract hits and also encourage people to share your blog posts on the social sites or press the Google +1 button, an extremely important part of achieving search engine success.

Hire Blog Writers for Success

A skilled writer knows how to adapt their voice to suit any audience and communicate your ideas and concepts, all the time adding rich, unique content your site. Hire a blog writer for maximum impact, and attract a large following.

Image: Darren Wyn Rees at Aberdare Blog

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Sales Copy

For Sale

Most people have little idea of how to judge sales copy, and that really isn’t a bad thing. If people consciously thought about what they were reading, the best efforts of your sales writer for hire would be in vain. It is a professional writer’s job to use emotion and voice to entice the reader to invest in your services, using their expertise in how to write sales copy.

If you are looking for a freelance sales writer for hire, what sort of copy do you want them to produce? What makes sales copy powerful?

Sales Copy: Quality Writing vs Powerful Writing

The problem with sales writing is that it does not always correlate with quality writing. Somebody can write wonderful, flowing prose yet produce ineffective sales copy, simply because they don’t understand the little tricks and nuances required to sell products. While there are many other good reasons for producing quality content, the most important judge of sales copy is how many products you sell.

The key to good sales copy is understanding how people behave online. The vast majority of readers skim through an article, trying to pick out relevant information quickly. If they don’t find what they are looking for within a few seconds, they will simply move on to one of your competitors. That is where a professional copywriter earns their money, because they can write a sales pitch that balances quality, impact, and SEO requirements.

A Few Sales Letter Format Suggestions

Here are a few suggestions of how to judge good sales copy and determine if your sales writer knows their business.

Strong Start: The first paragraph is the most important part of your sales pitch, because it has to grab the attention and tell the reader that it is worth reading on. The first paragraph should be punchy yet information packed, identifying a problem and suggesting a solution.

Clarity: Sales copy should be clear and focused with an economy of style, telling the reader everything they want to know. The writing needs to carry passion, because you are appealing to the emotions of the reader, but it should avoid long sentences and useless adjectives.

Cliché Free: The vast majority of people are sick of hyperbole, and a pitch filled with exclamation marks and sales words such as ‘great,’ ‘super,’ amazing will fail. As a rule of thumb, if you find the word on used car forecourts, don’t use it in your sales copywriting. Subtlety is your friend.

Overcome Objections: As in real-world sales, one of the keys of selling is answering all of the potential questions and overcoming objections. If you manage to do this, your sales conversions will soon rocket.

Build Trust: Internet users are increasingly savvy and know how to avoid most of the sharks. Build trust with words and don’t insult the reader’s intelligence. Again, gentle prodding is much better than trying to metaphorically punch the reader in the face.

Sprint to the Line: To match your strong opening paragraph, you need a very strong closing paragraph, known as ‘The Call To Arms.’ This is where you persuade the reader to click through to the sales page.

Impersonality and Availability: Treading the Line

Ultimately, selling online is a different preposition to selling offline. Online, you lack the personal interaction and the ability to counter objections as they arise. You need to think ahead, because you only have one chance to impress the reader. The advantage is that you don’t need as much physical effort; once the sales copy is written, it will work 24/7 with little further action on your part.

For this reason, it is vital to get it right first time, ensuring that your copy sells and keeps on selling. A good freelance writer for hire knows how to use words to create instant impact, selling you and your products to potential clients. Hire a professional sales writer who knows how to write sales copy, and watch your profits grow.

Image Credit:

JMGriffin

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The article mills have diluted the writing market, making businesses believe that they can hire a professional copywriter for a few cents.

Article mills are the bane of the internet, fueling the low wage, low quality web copywriting culture

Search engines, the driving force behind internet habits, are moving towards promoting high quality web copywriting. Rather than reward businesses that flood the internet with sub-standard articles, the search engines are adapting their algorithms to promote high-quality content and rid the internet of the spammers and empty articles.

Because marketers became fixated upon generating backlinks, to the detriment of providing quality web content, businesses used cheap freelance writers to produce countless keyword dense articles, often written in barely passable English. Internet users are sick and tired of trying to find useful information online, only to be confronted by empty content sourced from the notorious article mills. They want to find what they need, quickly and efficiently, without navigating seas of thinly disguised sales copy and painfully poor articles.

The big search engines are aware of this, and they know that consumer power can make or break their market position; they must adapt or die. The same applies to any business with an online marketing strategy; they must start to produce quality content or be left behind in the sandbox as the competition forges ahead.

Instead of going for the cheapest option, now is the time to use a professional freelance copywriter, who will be able to guide you through the transition. In hard economic times, as the advertisers focus on quality rather than saturation, the businesses producing quality will be the survivors when the internet content bubble finally bursts.

Investing in a Freelance Copywriter for Web Copywriting

Many business owners are happy to pay professional marketers and web designers good rates to promote their business, but are strangely reluctant to pay fees for a professional writer. They shop in the bargain basement and try to find freelance writers for a few dollars an hour, yet expect high-quality content. In the vast majority of cases, this approach fails. Content is king, and racing to the bottom reflects badly on your business.

The fast moving nature of the online world means that you only have a few seconds to impress potential clients and, if you confront them with poorly written content, written in poor English and with no direction to the writing, consumers will click the back button on their browser. The high rates that you paid for a marketing consultant have been wasted, all because you tried to save a few dollars. A freelance copywriter knows how to use subtle language to close the deal and entice consumers to spend time browsing your site and seeing what you have to offer.

A professional freelance copywriter will work alongside your marketers and is fully aware of the SEO techniques required to reach out to clients. A pro writer can take keywords and blend them seamlessly into flowing paragraphs and elegant prose. Search engines love high quality web copywriting and, by using a freelance writer as part of your marketing team, you can outperform other businesses still stuck in the old mentality of quantity over quality.

Your highly paid SEO marketing consultant love talented web copywriters, because it makes their life much easier. High quality, natural web content is much easier to promote than keyword soup and, if they are paid by the hour, this will also impact on your bottom line, saving you money. A marketing consultant given good content can concentrate on what they do best; helping your site climb the search engine rankings, rewarding your policy of hiring the best writer that you can find.

A Freelance Writer is a Deal Closer

Internet users are becoming very sophisticated and wary of the many fraudulent websites and products plaguing the internet. Amongst other things, they look at the quality of your website as a benchmark of quality, using it to gauge your product, professionalism, and customer service.

Marketers go out and find potential clients; a talented web designer uses eye-catching, slick designs to convince then to stay; and high quality content, written by a professional freelance copywriter, closes the deal. Using this trirumvate is the key to success, built upon the tried and tested sales techniques that existed long before the dawn of internet shopping.

As an example, I recently browsed the internet to look for some new door fittings, and was disgusted by the sheer amount of poor quality articles online, thinly disguised sales pitches that consisted of a couple of paragraphs written in poor, broken English.

Do these businesses seriously think that I am going to visit their site if they cannot be bothered to act professionally? By trying to save money, they lost a sale, all because they tried to write their own content or hired an enthusiastic amateur.

Web Copywriting – The Flexibility and Professionalism of a Freelance Copywriter

An experienced, skilled web copywriter is a professional with years of training and experience, so you are not going to find one for a few dollars an hour. In the same way, you will not find an accountant, marketer, lawyer, or mechanic for that rate. These professionals are fully aware of their value and set their prices accordingly.

So, why do businesses begrudge paying freelance writers a decent rate? They have been swayed by the article mills and content submission sites, and believe that you really can find a writer for cents. Sadly, in most cases, they end up with poorly written content, with little power, passion, or authority behind the copy or, in the worst cases, plagiarized content copied from other sites.

Freelance copywriters are hired guns, able to refresh marketing campaigns and imbuing them with life and honesty. Professional; freelance writers understand the world of internet marketing and can integrate seamlessly into your team, providing valuable insights and ideas on how to reach a wider audience. Most of all, they make sure that your web copywriting compels and projects your core values and integrity.

The question isn’t about whether you can afford to hire a freelance copywriter for your web copywriting. The question is can you afford not to?

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The False Economy of Cheap Website Content

Many businesses, keen to establish an internet presence, spend a lot of money on Search Engine Optimisation and marketing. Quite rightly, they assume that this will increase awareness and boost their site up the rankings. However, after spending large sums on marketing experts, they shop around in the bargain basement when it comes to generating web content. Rather than pay a professional freelance writer editor, they throw a couple of dollars to one of the freelance writing article mills, which churn out reams of regurgitated content.

This race to the bottom guarantees that all of their expenditure on marketing will be wasted, because Google algorithms are too smart to be fooled by article spinning and keyword stuffing. As their site sinks into the depths of the internet, they give up, or decide that generating business online is a waste of time. If they had invested a little money in hiring a professional writer for their websites, they could have avoided this fate.

A Professional Writer Underpins Marketing Success

If these businesses had spent a little time trying to understand the science of internet marketing, they would have finished the job, by using a professional writer to lay the foundations of their marketing drive. A website is no different from a ‘bricks and mortar’ business, and aggressive marketing is no substitute for core values, built upon developing customer service and marketing the business as quality, not cheap.

Imagine a store where the staff spend their time ignoring queues, insulting customers, and know nothing about the products. This sounds simple, but so many website owners do exactly this, when they insult their customers by using poorly written, rambling web content, instead of professionally written articles and blogs .

A Freelance Writer Editor Writes Web Content that Informs and Engages

Hiring an amateur and inexperienced writer to create poorly worded content, riddled with basic errors, is guaranteed to drive customers away. The words on your website are your only interface with your customers and you only have a few seconds to project a professional image. By assuming that your customers are stupid, you lose the sale and they will never return. The basic concept of marketing is no different on the internet than when merchants plied their trade along the Silk Route:

“Identify a Problem: Provide a Solution.”

This is a simple idea, but it is so easily forgotten amongst the jargon of SEO and the plethora of spun articles and sea of pointless words. Customers want to find information, without wasting time reading irrelevance and tired sales copy, containing the mandatory red fonts, endless exclamation marks and absolutely nothing of substance. They want carefully crafted web copy, drafted by a professional writer, which informs and gently entices.

A Professional Writer – A Sculptor of Words

Hiring a professional writer creates an interface built upon mutual respect, building trust between a business and its clients. A freelance writer editor sees words as more than blunt tools for communication and, instead, shapes them into emotive sentences and flowing language. To a professional writer, words are raw clay, to be shaped into objects of beauty.

A freelance writer editor will write concisely and clearly, using subtle layers of language to appeal to the emotions. A writer will guide the customer, rather than using blunt language and including countless ‘Buy it Now’ buttons. The days of hard sell are long gone, and internet savvy consumers hit the back button when confronted with aggressive copy, mentally associating it with spam.

Experiment Resources – A Case Study in Professional Writing

One example of quality winning over quantity is the scientific resource site,  Experiment Resources, a highly regarded authority site, with a Google Page Rank of 5. This leading site is regularly cited in journals, texts, lecture halls and classrooms around the world. The owner of the site decided that he was tired of the poor quality online articles on the internet, and set about developing a high quality scientific resource site.

He employed a professional writer, with a background in science, to develop informative content around strong keywords. With this alliance of sound Search Engine Optimisation and high quality web content, Experiment Resources slugs it out at the top of the search engine rankings, taking on websites with huge budgets. The visionary entrepreneur now receives a steady stream of e-mails asking for permission to cite the work in course notes and academic papers.

The site owner is working with his writer to develop a series of books, and the Experiment Resources brand continues to grow, an example of how employing a professional writer attracts success.

A Professional Writer is an Investment, not an Overhead

Scraping around in the basement and looking for cheap, rather than good value, is why many internet businesses fail. Businesses are increasingly seeing professional writers as an investment, not an overhead, and are waking up to the new paradigm of quality. Consumers want the type of rich content that only a freelance writer editor can provide, rather than the meaningless drivel available on the various article directories. A professional writer will save you money and attract success and give you the opportunity to gain an advantage over the competition.

Instead of presenting customers with poorly constructed web content, guaranteed to drive them away, you can use a professional writer to draw them in and entice them to buy.

Professional Writer Links

My personal website can be found at: Freelance Writer Editor

An example of my work at Experiment Resources: Islamic Scholars and Biology

In my spare time, I write at Dropout Nation: Conviviality – Starving the Ravenous Beast

Experiment Resources Cited on Wikipedia: Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc

Citation at the University of Jyväskylä: Case Study Research Design

Citation at The San Ramon Valley High School: www.grochbiology.org/Statistics.ppt

Citation at the University of Hawaii: www.hawaii.edu/lis/content/syllabi/684_harada_f09.pdf

Story in the RSPCA Newsletter: RSPCA

Categories : Website Content
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