What is Copywriting? A Comprehensive Guide to Creating Engaging Content
(13 min. read)
Table of Contents
- So, what exactly is Copywriting?
- Who is a Copywriter?
- What makes copywriting so important?
- Different types of Copywriting
- Copywriting vs. Content Marketing
- How can I become a copywriter?
- Good practices for becoming a better copywriter
- Common copywriting mistakes to avoid
- Can a program make better content than a skilled copywriter?
- SEO Copywriting - how to make your content both optimized and engaging
- Can you order copy online?
- High-quality content from professional copywriters: WhitePress®
These years, digital marketing is all about content - but not just any content. It can be engaging, informative, entertaining, or helpful, but it must serve some purpose and captivate the viewer’s attention. Copywriting combines this creative side of making content with effective marketing techniques, creating written texts that will not only sell your products or services, but also grow your audience AND build a lasting customer-brand relation.
How does it all work? Let’s take a closer look.
So, what exactly is Copywriting?
Source: Envato Elements
Copywriting is the art of creating copy - written texts that inspire and inform viewers, often intending to persuade them into becoming customers. Copywriters create many types of written media and promotional materials, like social media posts, ads in magazines, scripts, blog articles, and even books. Their work is read by billions every day, available in print, read on TV or radio, and - most commonly - digitally.
The digital world is filled to the brim with copywriting. It’s an extremely effective way of reaching a target audience and attracting potential customers, but also a great tool for telling your brand’s story. Creators can write copy for a landing page, blog articles, product pages, Facebook and Instagram posts, articles in online magazines, and many more, driving the sales process forward and telling a compelling story at the same time.
Whenever you’re reading any type of written content on the Internet, there’s a good chance it was written by a copywriter. But who exactly is a copywriter?
Who is a Copywriter?
A copywriter is the person behind all the written content you see online. All those sales letters you keep receiving in your email inbox? They were also written by a copywriter - and it takes a lot of skill and experience not to make them annoying. In fact, this very post was also written by a copywriter.
Copywriting is becoming more popular every year, and it’s one of the most essential professions for the entire digital marketing industry. Writing compelling copy is the art of telling an entire story in just a few words. The primary goal of all copy is for readers to find it engaging in some way, by being helpful, uplifting, funny, or otherwise enjoyable. The rest depends on the specific type of copywriting - creating sales copy might have a different goal than copywriting for SEO, for example.
What makes copywriting so important?
Good copywriting can create value-driven content. There’s only a limited number of sentences you can fit on your website that the viewers will read, which makes it extremely important to squeeze every bit of value out of every word. This can lead to increased conversion rates, and, in turn, more sales.
Copywriting is also a great tool for building brand image, or how your company portrays itself and how it is received by the audience. Customers are looking for brands that are relatable and provide solutions to their specific problems - copywriting, through clever use of text, achieves exactly that.
All kinds of businesses from every industry need a copywriter to communicate with their audience - from self-employed entrepreneurs, to small businesses, to gigantic corporations the size of Meta or Google itself. Copywriting can directly influence company growth by:
- increasing conversion rates
- increasing readability of digital content
- increasing audience engagement on social media platforms
- growing organic traffic
- effectively reaching the target audience
There are many other aspects of copywriting - did you know that 81% of online shoppers perform an online search before making a purchase? Using SEO in copywriting can help your website become one of the first results for a certain keyword or phrase, increasing your exposure and bringing in more traffic.
Different types of Copywriting
There’s a whole lot of variety to digital content. Copywriters create websites, design customer-brand communication, and even write down a video script for a TikTok. Let’s dig a little deeper into some of the types of copywriting popular in marketing today.
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Search Engine Optimization is a force pushing forward online marketing these days. SEO copywriting can be a very effective tool for increasing your organic traffic by improving your position on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). People searching on Google rarely look lower than the top 5 results, and SEO copywriters aim to boost their client’s pages to the top. It takes a lot of skill and industry know-how, as well as knowing how to use analytic tools, to make a content that’s both engaging for the viewers and optimized for search engines.
Copywriters also prepare product descriptions and handle B2B and B2C communication for ecommerce and other online businesses. These texts need to be persuasive, effective, and concise, highlighting product or service features and benefits to prospective customers. Depending on the type of business, copywriters will have to adjust their content and style of writing to match with the brand's audience, using real-world data and hours of in-depth research into each particular industry.
There are many other types of copywriting as well, like website copywriting or social media copywriting. You can also mention creative copywriting, but all content writing includes a creative element, so it's difficult to call it a separate type. The possibilities are endless, and with every year a new type of content becomes trendy, causing even more types to sprout.
Copywriting vs. Content Marketing
Source: Envato Elements
It can be confusing to get around all the buzzwords and terms these days, and copywriting and content marketing often seem to get confused together. Are they the same?
Content marketing is the practice of creating and publishing content that attracts and persuades viewers into doing something desired by the marketer, like creating an account or buying a product. There are countless different types of content available for marketers to use to convey their message - images, audio, movies, text, or any combination of them.
Copywriting is one area of content marketing - the one that creates written, readable (or listenable) text. It is one of the essential elements of the sales funnel in almost all content-driven campaigns, giving businesses a competitive advantage over other brands. Internet users have an extremely wide range of available products and services - it takes quality copy to convince them to use yours.
How can I become a copywriter?
Becoming a copywriter isn’t difficult - you can simply open your favorite text editing software like Word or Google Docs and start writing. But becoming a good copywriter takes years of dedicated work, diligent research, and millions of characters typed - as well as a few broken keyboards!
Practice is always the key to gaining a skill, but don’t neglect how useful knowledge can be - especially when it comes to writing copy. When writing marketing copy, you’ll need to immerse yourself in the product - how would you describe it? What is unique about it? How can it help your buyers? What makes it better than the competition?
Understanding your customers is the key to successful copywriting. Marketers and copywriters often create a buyer persona to personify the average member of your target audience - or a few specific types that might make it up. Whatever tool you want to use to get there, customer research is one of the basic copywriting fundamentals. Think about the buyer's journey as they navigate the sales page, and how to make that journey more enjoyable using written text.
If you want your texts to not only be helpful and enjoyable, but also position well on Google and other search engines, you’ll also need to learn a thing or two about SEO. And above all else - keep practicing. Honing your copywriting skills takes time and dedication. Don't rush it. Online, you'll find dozens of helpful materials published by famous copywriters - you might even find a free ebook.
Good practices for becoming a better copywriter
There are some copywriting techniques that can give you an edge over the competition when creating written copy. Try to incorporate this advice into your copy to grab the attention of your viewers and turn them into customers, or prevent your current customers from leaving.
First and foremost, always think about what problem your content is solving. Is it supposed to explain a certain procedure to someone, like a blog post about assembling DIY furniture? Or perhaps it will be informative, and share a new perspective on a topic of interest to your audience? Whatever the purpose of your copy might be, think about what the viewer might gain from reading your content.
Never underestimate good research. You can never be too knowledgeable in any given field, and it’s always good to refresh what you know and perhaps get to know a new perspective. The best copywriters dig deep into any field they write about, collecting valuable information that can be used to create engaging and informative content. The more research you do, the higher the quality of your content will be.
Finally, add some personality to the text. Don’t simply follow what others do - bring your own twist into what you do and make your work stand out. Put some work into crafting the perfect headline - only a small fraction of people who glance at the headline actually read the article, and you want to make sure those few words are valuable enough to make them click on your content. And remember about the visual aspects of the text - don't just make it into a single block, divide it into paragraphs, then divide the paragraphs into headings and subheadings.
Common copywriting mistakes to avoid
Incorporating good practices into your writing process can make your copy more valuable and enhance its performance - but there are also many things to avoid that might harm your visibility and credibility as a brand.
First, don’t overstuff your text with keywords. When writing according to SEO standards, using keywords and phrases is important - but don’t let online SEO tools tell you that your text will be worthless if you don’t put excessive amounts of them into it. Never let SEO recommendations degrade the quality of your texts - use them in places they fit into naturally and aren’t an immediate red flag to the reader.
Forgetting about SEO entirely is yet another mistake - don’t overuse it, but don’t underestimate its value. There are insane amounts of written content online, and it takes a lot to break through millions of websites to reach the front pages of Google search results. SEO can be of great help in achieving that.
Finally, make sure you’re using some sort of proofreading and error correction software. There’s nothing worse than copy filled with grammatical errors and mistakes - it’ll only harm your brand’s reputation and dissuade viewers from making a purchase. After all, if a company can’t get their texts right, how can they get their product right?
To summarize:
- Don’t get overzealous with SEO…
- …but also don’t leave your text fully unoptimized
- Always proofread your texts
Can a program make better content than a skilled copywriter?
Writing digital content is becoming more and more mechanical, implementing big data solutions and AI-driven algorithms to discover the most efficient methods of creating content and copywriting strategies. Some start to say that with artificial intelligence getting more and more advanced, copywriters will soon be rendered obsolete, as software will be able to create efficient copy.
While AI and data analysis can be extremely useful tools in the hands of a skilled copywriter, software alone is incapable of understanding the problems and needs of a specific audience. Emotions and empathy are foreign to machines, and only a text created by an actual human being can truly resonate with another human being.
SEO Copywriting - how to make your content both optimized and engaging
Source: Envato Elements
One of the tools that copywriters have adapted to use is SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. SEO is a collection of copywriting strategies and practices for creating web pages and digital content, designed to “please” Google’s search algorithm, so that it positions your website as close to the top as possible under certain search phrases.
There are on-page and off-page SEO factors, but both involve the use of optimized content. However, there’s always a catch - how much SEO stuff should I put into my writing for the perfect balance? Add too much and your text will become an unreadable mess. Don’t add enough, and your audience will never even find your product.
It takes a skilled, professional copywriter to deliver effective, high-quality content - which is exactly why companies often decide to hire them.
Can you order copy online?
Online businesses can hire a freelance copywriter to create content for them, or use an online copywriting agency for outsourcing certain projects. Companies can also use content marketing platforms like WhitePress® to order high-quality copy in a range of languages. All kinds of industries use the help of a copywriter - from healthcare to heavy industry.
A common way to help build your website’s SEO is to order sponsored content. Sponsored articles are texts written by a copywriter about a specific subject that applies to your audience, and published on an outside website - with links to your original website. These types of articles utilize backlinks and keyword targeting to build your own website’s online presence and direct your audience searching for a solution to their problem - a solution that can be your product or service.
Companies can choose a partnership model that works for them when deciding to work with a copywriter - they can either hire an in-house copywriter, who will work full-time only with your company, work with freelance copywriters, or outsource their copywriting needs to an outside agency. This way, you can get the right native copywriter who’s experienced in your industry to create high-quality web content that fulfills your specific business needs.
High-quality content from professional copywriters: WhitePress®
WhitePress® is a content marketing platform, on which any business owner can find a matching copywriter who will create tailored content for their brands. All content can be ordered in 27 languages, and later published on over 52,000 websites from all around the European Union and beyond!
Copywriters at WhitePress® use the latest SEO standards and combine them with deep research, industry knowledge, impeccable language skills, and creative storytelling. Whether you’re looking for a place to publish your sponsored content, or need your own online content written for you to place on a company website or blog, WhitePress® is your go-to place for all your content needs.
Check out WhitePress® today and beat your competition with engaging and optimized content - sign up for a free account today!
