There should be a crime against weak online content.
That’s the argument that I put forward in my guest blog post for People Per Hour – sadly no longer available online. Rebrands, hey?
But the point stands – if you’re not taking the time to grab attention, inform potential customers, and persuade them to part with their money, you may as well don a balaclava and invest in a knife. It’s your job to court customers, not grab the cash and run.
As a freelance copywriter, I firmly believe in the importance of quality online content. The web puts businesses at their most open and accessible – if you don’t do a good job online, rest assured the entire world will find out about it.
But let’s not confuse striving for perfection with achieving it. Only one of those is possible.
A Freelance Copywriter with Criminal Content
I’m not happy with some of the content on this website.
I know what you’re thinking – if anyone should have consistently great content across their website, it’s a copywriter. Unfortunately, it’s that old habit of spending all my time on work for clients and far less time marketing myself.
Now, I’m not saying there’s anything about my existing content that I loathe, but would never claim that it’s perfect. That’s just arrogant.
After my People Per Hour blog post was published, one copywriter contacted me through Twitter. She felt motivated to extend and expand her own website content, which was great.
But she also felt just a little bit intimidated, aware that writing perfect copy for her entire website was a mammoth task.
So let me be the first to say that if your online copywriting is not perfect, that’s fine.
The only thing that matters is that you know it should be.
Copywriting Never Stops
Sometimes, it’s hard to know when a piece of copy is right. Ultimately, the only way I decide I’m finished is when I’ve met the brief and there’s a deadline looming.
I know that there is little more important on the web than the quality of your written content. That’s why, given the opportunity to revisit my own website time and time again, I’ll continue to make incremental changes and improvements, tweaking bits and pieces here and there.
It’s a task that will never quite be finished, but will always be moving in the right direction.
Weak online content is criminal. But – as a caveat to that idea – the odd transgression is fine as long as you are trying to get on the straight and narrow.
And if you are, I can help with that.
