Personalised copywriting training courses – Cheshire, Manchester, Lancashire, Liverpool

Buzzwords is now offering one-to-one copywriting training at its Cheshire (south Manchester) base.  (More details are on Buzzwords’ website at:  buzzwords.ltd.uk/copywriting_training_courses.htm – add the  ’www’ prefix)

Half-day modules focus on specific aspects of copywriting (such as website copywriting, SEO copywriting or copywriting for PR) and use a personalised coaching model.  The training is particularly useful for:

• Ambitious would-be copywriters who want to start a new copywriting career (as well as those with some copywriting experience – in a marketing department, for instance – who want to improve their skills and move on to more challenging copywriting roles)
• Those who run small or medium-size businesses (SMEs) who want to save money by taking the copywriting function in-house
• Individuals in larger organisations looking to boost their effectiveness at work by increasing their knowledge and confidence in dealing with external suppliers of copywriting services

An initial two-hour Assessment is provided at Buzzwords’ Knutsford premises to find out exactly what is expected of the training.  This is a departure from the standard training approach where one-day courses deliver a ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution – which, in many cases, is no solution at all!

Mike Beeson will take into account an individual’s aims, timescales and natural aptitude before setting out recommendations in a written Report.  This approach will ensure that those who move on to the actual training modules have exactly the training they need, thus saving precious time and money.

An initial Assessment costs £POA + VAT. 

Half-day training modules cost £POA + VAT.

 

To find out more, call Mike Beeson on 01565 654023

- or visit Buzzwords’ main website:

buzzwords.ltd.uk/copywriting_training_courses.htm (adding the ‘www’ prefix)

 

Buzzwords Copywriting Manchester on Facebook

Buzzwords Limited is now on Facebook.

 

SEO copywriting meets PR – hello Article Marketing!

Submitting articles to publishers – online or offline – is a highly effective way to generate interest in a company or person, especially in a niche market which has its own specialist media. ‘Selling in’ feature articles has always been – and remains – a mainstay of PR and media relations.

The advent of the Internet as a marketing tool has seen the evolution of many traditional offline methods into full-blown techniques which boost search engine rankings through the clever use of search engine optimisation (SEO) and SEO copywriting.

Article Marketing relies for effectiveness on linking the websites of online directories, e-zines, blogs and other websites to the landing page URL of the article sender.  Also vital is ensuring that every article has keyword-optimised content for maximum search engine recognition of the landing page published.

The skills of the SEO copywriter (and other online marketers and SEO professionals) in identifying appropriate keywords and using them in opportune ways as the article and landing pages are written creates a wonderful synergy.  Google also rewards the quality and relevance of inbound links with potentially higher rankings for website pages to which published articles are linked.

 

 

Buzzwords’ Copywriting Rates – It’s top of the blogs!

‘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!

Annual Report Copywriting – It pays to watch your tone!

Copywriting for Annual Reports will always be challenging. That’s where I’m at right now – writing away on behalf of a major UK organisation!

Annual Reports must rank as one of the most important documents any business will ever produce. Writing Annual Reports is all about balance – talking in an authoritative way about strategy, Key Performance Indicators, performance itself, people and plans for the future… but all the while making sure that key stakeholders will be able to identify with what the organisation does, where it’s going in the future, and how its achievements are measured and presented.

With all this corporate ‘background noise’ going on, writing effective Annual Reports is as much about acquiring and organising the right information as it is about a consistent copywriting approach. It’s vital to establish a structure from the outset, rather like a website sitemap. This should of course be established in close partnership with the Report’s designer. Decisions on page layouts, photography and graphics are dictated by content and how the information flows.

Achieving balance in the copywritten content is about combining readability with authority.  It’s all too easy to slip into inappropriate informality when writing copy that must always be ‘accessible’ to readers of all persuasions.  This blog, for instance, is written in a fairly informal style.  Taking a similar approach to the copywriting for an Annual Report might cut it with certain journalists or shareholders – but it’s not going to work with bankers and financiers who are looking for a serious and professional analysis of the organisation. 

They may go home and morph into ‘normal’ creatures like you or I – but for the purposes of Annual Report copywriting, it pays to watch your tone!

Copywriting is king… inbound links are courtiers

On the web, inbound links affect a website’s position in the search engine rankings.  Generating quality links that win search engine brownie points is best achieved through article PR and online PR. 

A huge amount of copywriting work is involved, especially when it comes to writing worthwhile, informative articles  – suitably optimised with appropriate keywords of course.  Online news releases are more straightforward to write, and bring better returns on time invested – providing you have something to say on a regular basis.  Again, SEO and keywords play a part, but frequency of output is vital to achieving meaningful success.

If you can post articles and releases on your website a couple of weeks before launching them into the outside world this allows time for the content to be indexed by search engines and helps in the linking process (although it may be wise to write an edited version of your content to be doubly sure of avoiding ‘duplicate content’ penalties.) 

Apart from anything else, continually adding to your website is viewed favourably by the likes of Google – hence the power of blogs to surge through the search rankings, and stay there, providing content is updated on a regular basis (daily is the ultimate, but weekly keeps the pot simmering). 

The links associated with blogs are of course generated through tags.  Social media links to Technorati, StumbleUpon, Squidoo and so on also help.  Main websites which incorporate a blog therefore have a head start over their ‘unblogged’ counterparts.

Creating links is hard work – hard copywriting work that is also very time consuming.  The dividends are impressive, however,  especially if search engine rankings equate to new business enquiries for your company.

Finding the time to do all this – the writing, distributing to online directories and media etc – is usually a problem for most companies.  Employing a specialist freelance copywriter to handle it all makes lots of sense. 

Not only do you get quality writing and the regularity of output that comes with commercial commitment.  You’re also buying-in specialist knowledge of the market and, crucially, how the market works.

Freelance Copywriting Offline – Buzzwords’ Skills

Offline copywriting skills are alive and well at Buzzwords!  There are two ways of looking at your needs for this type of copywriting: by specific skill or by business sector.  In this blog posting, we’ll look at ’skills’:

SPECIFIC SKILLS

I’m sometimes surprised just how many offline skill-sets I have floating around in my head.  Maybe I should call them ’skull-sets’?  And when it’s said that ’yesterday is another country’, I’m beginning to think that ‘copywriting yesterdays’ are more like another planet.

Brochures – These are still going strong, and probably always will be.  Most popular right now: ‘corporate’ brochures with a wallet at the back for half-a-dozen leaflets or data sheets.

Advertising – Used to be a mainstay – but no longer so.  The marketing dollars have moved on.  Most of them online – or into PR.

PR – News release writing  is a specific strength of Buzzwords.  Crafting a good release is quite an art.  Try me and see! (Mike Beeson MCIPR – Member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.)

Newsletters – Harking back to my five years as a freelance writer with the Manchester Evening News, newsletters are an interesting exercise in news gathering, organisation and journalistic licence.

Sales Letters – I love writing sales letters.  Not the American ‘killer copy’ types.  Nor even the four-page Readers Digest model. I CAN actually write long sales letters, but my approach tends to be to make the letter as long (or short) as it needs to be – and cut the crap and convention that strangles a letter with underlinings, red ink, capitals and PSs (pee-esses!).

Catalogues – Having worked for all the UK’s largest catalogue companies (Grattan, Empire, GUS etc), I know about volume writing, at speed and with a certain economy of words.  If you need a hired hand (or three) for mega catalogue projects, call me, Mike Beeson, on 01565 654023.