Updates. Ideas. Rants. Techniques. Opinions. Blog.
5 ways to improve your website copy from a seasoned UK copywriter
I don't know you. I don't know your website. But, over the years, I've seen the same pitfalls come up time and time again - and applied the same quick fixes to make them better.
101 reasons long list posts like this are crap
Reason zero. These long-format list posts I keep seeing all over the place take a huge investment of time and energy to write. So any introduction never gives a deep sense of perspective, or motivation. It's just a rushed afterthought with the microscopic level of effort that is still available.
Let’s stop being negative about being negative
I was talking to a client the other day about negativity in copywriting. We discussed the notion that you should never use a negative word, like ‘don’t’ or ‘frustrating’ or ‘painful’. And, reader, it was painful indeed.
Why these tone of voice guidelines are taking ages
I'm writing some tone of voice guidelines and, honestly, they are taking forever. I know what you're thinking. How long does it take to write 'friendly and honest' in a nice font? We have the idea of guidelines as instructive and, providing the actual development has been done, summing it all up should be simple.
The One Thing You Should Know About Your Customers
Whether you're putting an email together or building a brand from the ground up, audience is everything. The golden rule of branding and copywriting is that you need to understand your customers - their motivations, their interests, their desires.
Six Years, Twelve Questions
The friendly folks over at ProCopywriters have just published a new interview with me - part of their series of revisited spotlights that's definitely worth a read.
A Copywriter Doesn’t Always Sell Things
It's here again. It's almost Christmas. And there are things everywhere. Things to eat. Things to do. Things to wrap. As you'd imagine, I've written copy to sell a huge range of things over the course of the year - from cars to milk. But many of my most memorable projects in 2017 haven't been about selling things at all. They've been about selling ideas.
How To Use YNAB for your Small Business
Stephen Marsh and Seth Rowden are two copywriters with one thing in common; they both swear by using You Need a Budget (YNAB) for managing their finances.
How to Balance Copywriting & SEO: The Best of Both Worlds
For a long time, the discussion around SEO and copywriting was one of conflict. Concise messaging versus a length that search engines will notice. The most benefit-driven heading for the job versus the one that includes the right keywords. Today, though, search engines are more sophisticated. With the right support from an SEO specialist and a copywriter - in most cases not one person who professes to do it all - you can strike a balance that improves visibility, gets people to your website, and then engages and converts them with strong copy.
Making Sense of your Freelance Income
With National Freelancers Day 2017 coming up on June 8th, existing and aspiring freelancers are coming together to talk about the issues of doing it for yourself. Here's a prediction: expect to see the web full of blog posts and articles about becoming a freelancer, working from home, maximising your rates, and winning work.
