It’s the holiday season. If you’re like me, you’ve been buying and/or making gifts for those close to you. Maybe you’ve even bought yourself a present. I know I have (can you say Galaxy tablet?).
I love treating myself. And if I can treat myself to something that will improve my life or my business, so much the better.
So I have an idea for you. If your website content isn’t selling you as well as it could be, why don’t you give yourself the gift of web content?
I can hear your reaction from here. “I can’t afford to hire a copywriter,” you’re saying. I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to. You can hire a web content coach instead.
Over the last few months, I’ve worked as a writing coach with a number of clients who had modest budgets but needed great web content. We started off with an interview, which I taped as I was taking notes. I sent them the interview’s audio file as well as a copy of the notes I had taken. Then we met to discuss the next phase—the website’s navigation.
How users navigate through your site is critical. You have to think about the experience from their perspective rather than yours. Enlisting the help of someone who’s not in your business to figure out a logical approach to your web content helps.
As we discussed the website navigation, we also played with tag line possibilities. The goal at this point wasn’t to nail a tag line—although that did happen more than once—but rather to get those creative juices flowing. That exploration would continue during the sloppy writing phase, which I assigned as homework.
I’ve blogged about sloppy copy before because it’s one of my best tricks. When you write without worrying about how well (or how poorly) you’re writing, your copy inevitably comes out sounding more natural and more authentic than it would otherwise. Besides, bashing out content which can then be edited or even rewritten is a whole lot quicker than angsting over what you’re trying to say as you stare at a blank screen.
Once the sloppy copy assignment had been completed, I read the copy and made some editing suggestions. In one case, the client actually hired me to do a quick line edit. In another, the client—Sara Wiener—chose to handle the light rewriting on her own. Her Sara Bella Upcycled website re-launched a couple of months ago. Check it out! We still need to add back some copy to the home page, but the site and the copy now do justice to her fabulous line of upcycled products made from rescued plastic bags.
My goal is to create a personal website with four main themes – see thetonyjournal.wordpress.com –
I need someone to help me write and structure the site in a way that attracts potential customers
Hi Tony:
Apologies for the tardy response. After a quick look at your site, I’m not quite sure what you’re selling. But I’d be happy to help you with your site’s structure and content. You’ll find information about how I work and my rates on this site under Web Content (check out the subpages).
Thanks for your interest!
Cheers,
Linden