Don’t forget that moment.

I’ve found that when I’m venturing into a new area of writing, new clients, new styles, I have a feeling that envelopes me, wondering if I’m capable or not, to make this matter worse I constantly wonder if people are judging the content and wondering if I am who I say I am.

When this feeling arrives I remember 2 things, 2 things that I’m I’ll refer to whenever I’m in doubt.

Firstly, I believe I can write.
I believe that I have the ability to write well, I understand english, I understand my audience, I understand the style and I understand the client. With these elements in firm belief I have no problem in believing I am capable.
I follow successful concepts and keep up to date with areas of the industry, in particularly digital content and seo reaffirming the belief that I have the tools available to tackle the job in hand.

Secondly, the people I work for, (freelance, contract, full time employment or anything else) picked me, the thought I was capable and able to do the job, why would they hire/choose/pick someone who was unable to do what they required.

I’m sure I’m not the only person in the creative profession that doubts their ability, photoshop designers and branding experts must also go through the same self doubt, I’m sure it’s human.

After I’ve calmed down, usually with a coffee, I get on my way and continue to do what I get paid to do, to be a writer, to be a damn good writer.

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Equally! Why, as copywriters, are we using 20 words to describe something that could take 10. We need to make sure that we are frugal with our word use, keeping it short and sweet, not boring to our readers!

So how do we do it?

Simple!

Keep sentences short, don’t let them drag on, don’t dilute the content and inevitably bore your readership (they’re easier to lose than to gain)

Keep paragraphs short too! Don’t make reading a daunting experience, don’t give your readers a paragraph that scares them, puts them off or gives the impression it is “too big to read”.
If you have a large paragraph, attempt to break it down, split it where a new idea stream starts or where you move off the point.

Keep you words short! Copywriting has never claimed book prizes for emotive prose and beautifully written novels, it has however forged businesses, got people to act and influenced what people buy since its origin. So keep you words short, keeping your writing style short and sweet creates an energy, a feeling of pace and staccato giving people the initiative to click, to buy, to call and to act!

This goes for all elements of copy, be it the title, the body or even resource and author boxes!

Try and give them exactly what they need, exactly what you want to give them in the exact amount of words you want to tell them in.

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I’ve recently made the transition from agency to client and I’m looking forward to the different challenges that client side is going to offer.

As an agency writer you are constantly writing for numerous clients, producing content for a range of demographics and multiple campaigns. As an agency copywriter you have the fortune of developing an array of writing styles, discovering you ability to develop a different voice for a different audience. Another benefit of chameleonic writing demands means your portfolio acquires a lot more names on it (which is nothing but a good thing). Agency writing also forces you to produce a large quantity of content on a regular basis as you need to be able to keep the clients happy without prioritising one over the other.

Unfortunately the downsides are equally as plentiful.

With the development of real time results and Google caffeine seemingly caching anything as soon as it is published, the nature of copywriting has now turned into a journalistic role as well as a writer, by that I mean, people will look to search engines for the latest information and news giving them the information they require when they need it. Michael Jackson’s death was a perfect example on how people used Google to find information. Copywriters can therefore produce content in 10 minutes in order to respond to industry news. As an agency writer it is simply impossible to have your finger on the pulse of every industry in which you write. It therefore favours client side writers to produce content when it matters. Client side writers have one industry to write for, one client and one voice, giving them the opportunity to immerse themselves in the industry and react when needed.

I genuinely believe that agency writers are spread too thin across a range of industries and clients, which can dilute the potential impact of their writing. From personal experience I have seen how multiple clients can be a curse rather than a gift. By stretching your copywriting skills across many industries you weaken the potent potential of the writing and reduce the effectiveness of the entire campaign.

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Pleasing robots varies in difficulty considerably depending on the competitiveness of the particular keyword. it is worth comparing the traffic figures for keywords against the competitiveness.

Long tail optimisation often gives you the opportunity to target many low traffic easily achievable keywords to and generate the traffic that a competitive would achieve. When choosing whether to target the long tail it is worth deciding what the ROI would achieve. The ROI is not monetary but more the usage of time and how much work it takes to rank for a keyword.

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Forgive the 1930′s Chicago newspaper distributor! READ ALL ABOUT IT!!!

I’m sorry for bringing up the iPad again. As an Android user i’m pretty much anti Apple which makes this more difficult to bear. The problem is that the iPad, if successful, good revolutionise the way in which copywriters are used and could give writers the opportunity to write for the ibookstore. If my predictions are right ( I hate speculation posts too!) the iTunes phenomenon, in particularly the podcast element could be replaced by an online magazine rack with content/online mags being accessed through the iBookstore, similarly newspapers are already bartering with prices with Apple to be included in this ibookstore. It fills me with excitment that Apple has the power to thrust traffic your way by simply having you in their good books. Now I’m sure it won’t be easy to get on this list (to remove any spamming or potentially harmful material) but once there you can easily monetise the online mag and there you are – targetted consumers of your material brought to you by apple. The simple bookmarking of a magazine will be as simple as RSS or listening to a podcast.

Watch this space because I am confident that this is how it will roll out.

I wanna be the first one on there!! without a doubt.

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