Buzzwords Copywriting Manchester

amt0063-graceland

• Buzzwords was involved in case study writing for hundreds of clients for the upmarket flooring specialists Amtico.  This example - for Elvis Presley’s home, ‘Graceland’ - is one of the more colourful!

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The issue of ‘Copywriting Rates’ is as much about ‘how you charge’ as it is about the amount you charge. Certainly, a more expansive response is more likely to meet with client approval than a bald ‘take it or leave it’ figure.

What I mean is:

• Whenever possible, outline more than one costing scenario.  For example, you could say: If I do this, it will cost you £X.  By adding this, it will cost £Y.  And if you want the Full Monty, you’re looking at £Z-plus!
• For each price, outline in detail what’s involved.  This could be ‘research’.  You could include a re-write in the price.  Or you could create a mini-package which includes keyword-research, on-page SEO copywriting, landing pages for pay-per-click campaigns and so on.

Your initial proposals set the tone of how you do business.  As a copywriter, you’re selling your clients’ wares.  By demonstrating you’re a bit savvy when it comes to selling your own services, you’ll win more respect from potential clients who know all about operating in the commercial world.

‘Copywriting Rates’  (Dec 8, 2007) is easily the most popular post on this blog!  It underlines the commercial significance of business copywriting and the hard-headed approach people take to what is an important, and often crucial, decision.

I should say, however, that quality should score over price every time.  There are plenty of so-called copywriters out there - especially on the Internet - who are charging five dollars an hour.  To me, that’s commercial suicide - unless you’re living in a third-world country of course.

As you would expect, Buzzwords charges much more than that (call me on 01565 654 023 to find out!).  That’s mainly because I have 20 years’ experience and know-how under my belt.  But also because I’m good at what I do! 

Different types of projects are charged out in different ways.  Standard copywriting for things like advertising and brochures are charged at a fully negotiable day-rate, pre-agreed as a fixed rice for each particular job.  Copywriting for websites is negotiable on a ‘per project’ basis, whilst anything that’s ongoing - such as PR, article marketing, link building and SEO - works best on a monthly retainer fee. 

Nothing is set in stone, however, and copywriting rates are always negotiable, especially for volume work or ongoing consultancy-type projects.  The best thing to do is give me a call the next time you feel a project coming on.  The copywriting rates may not surprise you, but the quality and commitment surely will!

Ah, the mysteries of search engine optimization (SEO)!  I thought I knew a bit about it, but the recent rankings of the website copywriting page of my main website (www.buzzwords.ltd.uk/website_copywriting.htm) have puzzled and pleased me in equal measure.

After languishing in the bottom half of the first page on Google since the page was re-written last year - a ranking many people would die for, but not really good enough to attract the premium enquiries in what is, let’s face it, a pretty niche neck of the woods! - the website copywriting page of Buzzwords’ website now ranks at #2 for the keywords ‘website copywriter/copywriters’ and #5 for ‘website copywriting’.

Nothing’s been added or taken away (as they say).  So what’s happened to make this important change?  The page had been optimized in the usual way for meta tags and so on, and the copy had the ‘right’ keyword density.

There are only two factors I can think of which may have made the difference.  First, the content has ‘matured’.  To explain: if older links are looked upon more favourably by search engines, will body copy be seen in the same way?  Second, Google’s latest algorithms may very likely include a weighting based on Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI).

In other words, linguistic analysis gives a site brownie points for using clear,  approachable syntax.  If that’s what’s happening with my website - or if anyone out there can give me some other good reasons for the sudden improvement in the ranking for the mainstream keywords I’ve mentioned - please let me know.

The dynamics of client relationships have always fascinated me.  Apart from the usual inter-personal and ‘personal chemistry’ aspects (which are part of life in general outside the business world!), for freelance copywriters - and anyone else who provides business services - this is overlaid with another all-important perspective.

The simplest way of putting it is to say that the work of clients involves many aspects of a single business.  For a copywriter (etc), their work is about a single aspect (providing copywriting/PR/etc) of many businesses. 

We then have a situation  where client and copywriter are calling up questions which basically focus on ‘respect’.  How many times have you heard the question (inferred or actual): ‘Does this guy really understand my business?’

And from the copywriting/supplier side, we hear: ‘These people don’t understand what’s involved in (preparing a brief/valuing my services/working out a sensible fee/etc)’. 

The best grounding for the best relationships is for both client and copywriter to have experience of working on the other side of the fence - although the likelihood of this happening isn’t great.  Some clients have worked in ad agencies or the marketing departments of other companies.  Likewise, some copywriters have worked in ‘proper’ jobs too!

Given that this blend of experience on either side is a rarity, it’s all down to understanding (and respecting) the scope of the other person’s skills and job demands.

It just so happens that before becoming a copywriter, I worked in several other fields outside of advertising and journalism.  Add to this a background in academic marketing and you have the ingredients for potentially harmonious client relationships. 

Clients who’ve always worked ‘client side’ will inevitably be sceptical about the business know-how of ad agency types who’ve never been exposed to market pricing, workforce issues or working within a departmental budget - to name just three elephant traps!

I raise these points because I feel there’s no magic wand that can solve client-copywriter-agency relationships.  It’s more a case of thinking out loud and counting to ten before criticising the other side.

Trying to understand the differing demands that exist on both sides of the fence is a good starting point.  The intellectual demands are probably similar in extent in that both clients and agency people have to juggle with numerous challenges - and, dare I say it, clients often need to bring as much problem-solving ‘creativity’ to the table as the self-designated creatives in the agency world.

If anything, any lack of understanding probably rests with creatives.  Clients have the the multiple demands of focusing not simply on marketing issues, but also on how they fit in with every other department in a company.  This calls for skills which go way beyond the inter-personal.

It always amazes me that more companies don’t use case studies as part of their marketing mix. Business, by definition, is based on customer transactions and a lot of those must have interesting angles which could be turned into a case study.

So why aren’t case studies more widely used as the cost-effective marketing tool they surely are? 

In some cases, there are obviously problems with confidentiality.  Others don’t want to alert their competitors to the fact that they’ve found a pot of gold and they fully intend to hang onto it!

Some may be ‘too busy’ (ho-ho-ho!); yet others may feel that this is a commitment too far that won’t deliver on the cost-effectiveness front. 

Like all PR tools, the main purpose of case studies isn’t to generate a ‘direct response’.  What they will do is build an awareness, a heightened market presence, for your company over a period of time.

This can be further enhanced by the sheer versatility of case studies.  A case study copywriter can take the raw material of a case study and modify it for use in a press release, sales letter and many other forms of marketing collateral - not forgetting the online applications such as websites, online PR and articles.

A case study is an extended testimonial.  It proves your company has delivered.  Third party endorsement says you can - and you did!  So why do so many companies let these opportunities go begging and leave the way open for their competitors?

Maybe if they spoke to an experienced case study copywriter, they’d open up a new and profitable revenue stream. 

Most people’s idea of SEO copywriting would probably be writing a website with major keywords included at a suitable density.  Throw in some expertise in the on-page SEO department and the job’s as good as done.  Or is it?

If you personally commission SEO copywriting, either for your own company or on behalf of a client, you should know that SEO copywriting skills can use those same keywords to great effect in other ways.  We’re back to link-building again - using keywords in areas like Online PR and Article Marketing (aka Article PR) to link back to a landing page on your website (whose URL should also include the magic keyword[s]!).

Any SEO copywriter worth his salt will be able to create links with online article directories, PR newswires or distribution sites.  With skillful keyword research and some savvy online marketing, extending the reach of your keywords (and, by extension, the number of links pointing to your website) is only an SEO copywriter away!

Listen to some SEO commentators and you’d be forgiven for assuming that meta tags are no longer a factor in the way search engines rank websites.  Following a recent Google declaration, greater  emphasis is now placed on the number of quality, inbound links which point to a site.

It’s obvious that this will be a good indicator of the ‘importance’ of a site but, it should be said, meta tags will always remain as the signposts which indicate relevance of content.  That in turn must surely mean that  meta tags will always be an important part of on-page SEO.

Fortunately, the search engine robots can now identify ‘natural’ language patterns in online copy.  The death of ‘keyword stuffing’ is not only good news for the readers of websites who now no longer have to endure unreadable and repetitive text.  It also frees up copywriters to write in the way they prefer - in real sentences that concentrate on the flow of ideas and information, rather than including as many keywords as possible.  

Keywords are still important, of course.  The difference now is that they should be used carefully - in <h1> tags certainly, and also in introductory sentences. They also have a place in <title> tags - the nearer the beginning of the line the better.  (And if you can also include main keywords in a page URL, this too will help with ranking.)

The conclusion to all this is that mega tags are alive and well but - in an increasingly c0mpetitive web environment - the search engines have been forced to look at inbound links to sort the wheat from the chaff. 

And yet, this is far from being a perfect science - even with all the powerful semantic analysis tools at the search engines’ disposal.  Generating links from online articles and PR, for example, is a process that is still open to abuse by automated submission software but, here again, search engines are ‘on the case’ with their increased awareness (and intolerance) of duplicate content.

It’s important for online copywriters (and those who brief them) to remember that search engines exist solely to provide the most relevant search results for their punters.  Quality content will bring its own rewards in increased uptake among the online community.  Meta tags, similarly, will always be needed to invite the search engines to ‘come see about me’.