A business website always needs written content. It is a mistake to think that once you have a website, that’s it, you can just sit back and let the enquiries or sales roll in. Unfortunately, it does not work like that. Once you have your website you need to keep it fresh and up to date and one of the best ways of doing that is by adding new content. Whether that is content in the form of landing pages for specific marketing campaigns, updated website copy, blog posts or news items – regularly adding to your site is very search engine positive and is something we should all be doing, regardless of business type.
So why is it a good idea to hire a copywriter or content professional to do this? Can’t I just do it myself?
Of course it is possible to add new content to your site yourself, however, there are a few caveats to this and even more reasons why you probably don’t!
Time is money
Lack of time is probably the single biggest reason why many businesses don’t regularly add content to their website. Let’s face it, you are probably spending all your time doing your actual job and finding the time to write a 700 word blog post and update the information on your key website pages isn’t really part of that. It is also probably not the best use of your time and expertise.
You lack the skills
It may be that you have someone within your company who is happy to take on content creation, however, for most small and even medium sized businesses, this is unlikely to be their core role within the business – that being the case, their ability to give 100% to the task is compromised. Writing persuasive, compelling content which is designed to both drive people to and keep them coming back to your website is a skill. The content on your site should be written to be engaging, entertaining, and answer questions, as well as being keyword optimised for SEO. Content which is written to satisfy search intent will be appreciated by your potential customers and Google.
Objectivity
There is such a thing as too much information! It’s understandable, you love your company and you love what you do so you may be able to spend hours waxing lyrical about your business. Over use of technical terms, stuffy, formal language and industry jargon have a habit of creeping in when you write your own copy. What a good copywriter will be able to do is extract the relevant information and present it in a concise and engaging way. Being able to distil the essence of your business and what makes it unique is often easier to do from a distance.
You are not a writer!
Poorly written copy with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors is really off putting for website users and presents a poor impression of your business. Professional copy writers write every day and will carefully check and double check their work both for mistakes and to ensure that it reads well and makes sense. It’s second nature and they are likely to be very much quicker at it than you would be yourself. You would not expect to be able to service your own car or do your own conveyancing – these are jobs for professionals, it’s the same with writing - OK, it’s not rocket science, but it is a skill which not everyone has!
Unless you are able to employ someone specifically in a marketing capacity, outsourcing your content creation is still likely to be the most cost effective way of getting it done, whether you are looking for an agency to take on regular work on a retained basis or you just need help from time to time keeping your website content fresh. For more information on why it is important to keep your website content fresh, have a look at our other blog posts on content marketing and content creation.