We’ve discussed in more than one article that not all copywriters are equal – but usually, we’re referring to the industries that they have experience writing for. This article will focus on the fact that there are so many different kinds of assets, and that having someone who is great at writing articles might not mean they are the right copywriter for your website or landing page copy.
Some copywriters can do it all, and are really good at it! But if you’re looking for someone to write the text for your new website, or a new landing page you’re creating, you want to make sure that they have examples of this kind of work in their portfolio.
Articles and blogs are not always indicative
Writing long-form texts like a blog or white paper requires a whole different set of skills than the ones needed to write good website copy. Of course, many of the skills are useful in both scenarios – the ability to understand your target market, knowing your brand tone of voice, ability to highlight your USPs. But where websites and landing pages are concerned, there are some other important skills that you need.
Writing articles for a blog is a challenge in itself. The research, skeleton, making sure you’re achieving what your client wants the article to achieve. But with these articles, you can generally follow some kind of template. Introduction, Body paragraphs, Conclusion.
Website copy is a horse of a different colour
Finding a copywriter who has experience with writing text for websites means they should have some understanding of design principles, UX writing, and readability.
Often the best text is clear and concise. Hitting on all the key points to make sure visitors understand exactly why they’re on that webpage. But it needs to look good too!
Making copy easy to read in an article is a different task altogether. We, copywriters, use tactics like;
- Headlines,
- subheadings,
- bullet points or
- numbered lists
to break things up and help guide the readers’ eyes. But on a web page, we have different sections in the design that do that for us.
What makes website writing unique
The key here is ensuring the webpage has all the right info while making the copy look good. Finding a balance in the text and making decisions on character limits for different sections are just some of the ways we ensure high readability.
This includes things like, in a section of 3 blocks side by side, making all the copy the same or similar length.
Or ensuring that the most important headlines have the punchiest text, and fit within a character limit so that they don’t awkwardly scrawl onto more than one or 2 lines.
It isn’t an easy task making different pieces of copy the same length. It takes exceptional skill, a great thesaurus, and genuine creativity to be able to do this. While, of course, also making everything SEO-friendly!
How do I find someone to write copy for my website?
We always recommend looking at someone’s portfolio. Ideally, they’ve written copy for websites in your industry – for instance, if you are a Fintech company, you want a copywriter who understands Fintech.
However, this shouldn’t be a deal breaker, especially if you see that there is something in the portfolio of the copywriter that catches your eye.
The recommendation we make is the following:
- Look at the portfolio of the copywriter to see if they’ve written copy for full websites or landing pages
- Determine what you like about their writing, and what you’d want done differently for your project
- If they have website copy in their portfolio, but it’s not your same industry, look at some of their other work – perhaps they do have experience in your industry, just not in writing website copy for it
Power of the portfolio
Handing copywriters tasks to do often doesn’t actually show the skill of the writer and will rule out some of the best copywriters. Experienced copywriters will pass on projects or employment that asks for tasks, especially unpaid tasks.
Too many companies have used this as a tool to get free work out of unsuspecting copywriters. Also, more experienced copywriters won’t waste their time – that’s why they’ve taken the time and put in the effort to create a portfolio!
The best way to determine if someone is the right writer for you is to see examples of other projects they’ve worked on.
In some cases, copywriters can’t put all of their work in their portfolio, so you can always reach out and ask if they have examples of something closer to what you’re looking for.
“Do you have any examples of full website copy?”
“Can you share any examples of something you’ve written in HealthTech?”
Copywriters are proud of the work they do, but because of, sometimes, strict NDAs they are unable to publicly post certain pieces of content. Also, their portfolio might be targeting a specific industry, so they’re only sharing work relevant to that target.
It never hurts to ask for additional samples if you really like someone’s work. Chances are they will have folders upon folders of work they’re more than happy to share with you, privately in an email.