Why Can’t I Just Write My Own Website?  Three Reasons Why You Should Hire a Professional Copywriter

So…after months of deliberation, you have finally decided to get a website made for your business.  Congratulations!  You’ve hired a terrific graphic designer, you’ve put together a fantastic logo, you’ve chosen an exciting color palette for your site… and now your designer turns to you and asks you for the copy. 

“Copy?” you say, somewhat taken aback.  “What’s…‘copy’?” 

“The words,” replies your graphic designer.  “What do you want your website to say?”

“Don’t you do the writing?” you ask in dismay.

“No,” replies your designer.

“Oh!” you say, surprised.  

…Now what?

Well, now you have a choice: you can either write your own copy or you can hire a professional copywriter. If you are like most people, you will be tempted to just throw some words together that describe your business, get your best friend (the high school English teacher) to proof read it and you’re on your way, right?  Wrong!

There are three basic reasons why you should hire a professional copywriter:

1. You will generate more revenue
2. You will receive more results
3. You will attract more hits

Let’s look at each of these points a little more closely:

More Revenue
Would you pay $700 to make $7000?  Hiring a Copywriter Means Benefits to Your Bottom Line

Sure, hiring a copywriter means adding extra fees to your budget.  And you may be tempted to eliminate those fees by trying to write the copy yourself.  But think again.  Writing your own copy could be a very costly mistake in the long run.

It is crucial not to underestimate the importance of clear, concise copy written by a professional copywriter who understands the basics of marketing your unique product or service to your target audience.  In an age where millions of advertisements and online sites are competing for your prospect’s attention, good copy can determine whether or not your business will stand out from the crowd. 

Even though it would cost you nothing to write your own copy, chances are the results you generate will also be nothing!  However, you could spend a little of your budget to hire a copywriter and end up generating enormous results – results that will bring you a substantial return on your initial investment and fatten your bottom line in the long run.

More Results
Generating Response with Results-Oriented Copy

To write effective website copy, you need to do more than simply string a few grammatically correct sentences together and describe your company in a snappy or clever fashion.  You need to know how to write in order to generate results.  Results can be anything from higher sales to further inquiries into your product or service, an increase in contacts, or a wider audience to distribute information to.
How can copy create results like that?  Well, that is what a copywriter is trained to know -- and that is why you should hire one!

Essentially, effective website copy is all about marketing.  Whether you are writing a product description or a ‘Contact Us’ page, it is still all about marketing.  Good copywriters understand the basics of marketing, and they also understand how to write to inspire your prospect to take action – to take that next step and buy your product, call your company or sign up on your contact list. 

Professional copywriters also know which features to add to a site that will help elicit the results you are after.  These features are the ‘bells and whistles’ that come with the trade.  For instance -- do you need a landing page? A splash page?  A banner ad?  Testimonials?  An online form?  You might need all of these things, or you might not need any of these things, depending upon your company and who your target audience is.  A copywriter knows which features are best to include in your site in order to maximize the results you desire.

More Hits
It's All About SEO

Sure, you might be a particularly good writer and understand the basics of grammar and sentence structure etc. But online writing is not just about grammar and sentence structure. Today, it’s all about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Search Engine Marketing (SEM). 

Your website copy needs to be written in a way that search engines can read quickly and, most importantly, favor over other websites with similar content. Your Google rank (what page you show up on a Google Search) depends chiefly on the words in your website, not the design. Producing SEO copy requires not only good writing skills but also the ability to do search term keyword analyses and writing keyword-rich copy and HTML tags. If you don’t know how to do this, you should not be writing your own website!  

Unless your copy is written utilizing SEO, your precious and costly website will likely end up on page 112 of a Google search, never to be seen by anyone ever again! Avoid this common mistake and be sure to hire a professional SEO copywriter.

To Sum Up…