Usable Words

You enjoy writing? That's great! Seriously! The best websites are those that regularly produce useful, up-to-date content for their visitors, so it's a huge advantage if you have the skills and dedication to create that content yourself.

Here's what I suggest, though: talk to me about helping with your "flagship" content like your home page, about us page and main product pages. Even if you're a good writer, you'll really benefit from having a smart outsider involved, whether that means writing the content for you or polishing content you've written yourself.

Writing effectively for the web demands special skills and experience that even good writers usually lack. And as part of the process, I can talk about your content strategy, so you have a clear plan in mind about what to aim for with the content you write yourself.

Content strategy can involve a lot of different things, but at its most basic it means taking a step back and thinking about the what, how, who and when of your website content. What problem is your web content trying to solve (for you, but more importantly, for your customers)? How will your content solve that problem? Who will be responsible for producing your content? And when, or how often, will they produce it?

In practical terms, content strategy might mean us sitting down together and developing a plan for keeping your website up to date after it's launched. It might mean helping you set up a blog, write some initial posts, and brainstorm some topic ideas. Or it might mean producing a style guide so that your team produces content with a consistent message, tone and style.

My design career was cut short by a series of cruel high school art teachers who failed to spot any creative potential, but that's a long story. The short version is, no, I'm not a web designer, and trust me when I say that's just as well.

The good news is, I work closely with a wonderful group of web developers, designers and strategists at Acorn Web Studio. (And I mean that literally - we're in the same office!) Hire us as a team, and you'll get a user-focused site where everything works together: content, strategy, design and technology.

So if you're after a website your customers will love, just get in touch and we'll make it easy.

I specialise in writing for the web, but I haven't turned my back on the printing press altogether! If you need copy for a printed brochure, report, newsletter or almost anything else, give me a shout and I'll be happy to help.

Both.

Didn't see that coming, did you? What I mean is this: websites work best when they're versatile. Sure, an impatient user who just wants to get to the point should be able to navigate through your content to the final call to action extremely quickly.

But an avid researcher who's fascinated by your product and its niche should be able to find enough information, articles, blog posts and other useful content to keep them entertained for hours - and it should be added to regularly enough to keep them coming back.

This second group of people might take longer to become customers - but when they do, they become real fans. They're the 20% of customers who will bring in 80% of your revenue, so they're worth taking caring of.

One point though: don't ever let anyone convince you to stick a load of useless crap on your site "for SEO". There are ways of making Google like you without making your site unusable for actual human beings.

Everybody who writes for the web should know the principles of search engine optimisation (SEO), and how to use keywords strategically in web content to help sites rank higher in Google for relevant searches. I'm no expection.

I always take SEO into account when we write web content. The reason I don't refer to myself as an "SEO copywriter" or heavily promote SEO services is simply that I prefer to work with clients whose first priority isn't SEO - businesses who want content written for users first, and only in a secondary way for search engines.

There are lots of people who call themselves SEO copywriters. Some of them have a huge amount of knowledge and experience in the field. They're often expensive, but they can be worth the cost for clients who need very specialised SEO services. If your SEO needs are that specific, we'll put you in touch with one of these people - one we know you can trust.

Other so-called "SEO copywriters" - the cheap ones - are to be avoided. They over-optimise your site by shoehorning keywords into every possible place and several impossible ones. ("Talk to our mortgage consultants about getting a mortgage with low mortgage repayments and low mortgage interest rates" - that kind of thing.) Content like this not only reads terribly, it's actually counterproductive for SEO - if the good people at Google look at your site and think you're trying to manipulate search results, they can and will penalise you.

My process depends on what you need done. But assuming it's a fairly substantial project, the next step after you contact me is a brief follow-up email or phone call so I can find out a bit about you, your customers, what you need, and what your timelines are. If I can help you, I'll give you a ballpark estimate of what the job will cost.

If you're happy to go ahead, I'll arrange a longer briefing (by phone, Skype, or in person) so I can find out more about your customers, the benefits you offer them, and what makes you different from your competitors. I'll send you some questions to ponder in advance. Following this briefing I'll send you a written estimate and timeline. If you accept this estimate, I'll invoice you for a 50% downpayment, and start work as soon as I've received it.

In most cases, my quotations include up to two revisions based on your feedback. Like all copywriters, I don't always get it 100% right the first time, so there's ample opportunity for us to work together until you're happy with the result.

These revisions are to ensure that we provide what I originally quoted for. If you change your mind about what you want, or add additional items to the brief, that's fine, but it will involve additional costs.

Because every job we do is different, it's hard to be precise about costs. But an average small business website owner needing content created from scratch should look at spending at least AU$1,000.

For strategic editing of existing content, the cost will be lower (starting at around AU$600). If content strategy services are included it will be higher (starting at around AU$1,500).

I usually ask for a downpayment of 50% of my estimate before work begins.

The balance is due before any original content is published or otherwise used, or 14 days after we send our final invoice (whichever comes first).