The copywriting blog

We just love all the one-sided communications that pop up around election time, and  there’s nothing more dodgy than newspaper editorial.

Here’s a link to a brilliant comparison of two articles in the Scottish and English version of the Sun – Obviously neither are famous for their integrity and amazing writing, but it’s still funny to see how brazen the (English) Sun is when it’s talking about politics. 

Our favourite line is:

‘Can there ever have been a more squalid spectacle than this discredited loser scrabbling on his knees to stay in No10?’

Sorry, we shouldn’t mock, but as copywriters we’re used to using emotive language to persuade and influence people, and this is far from subtle. To paraphrase Alastair Campbell’s in his recent run in with a Sky reporter, ”Calm down, have some dignity”   

http://www.dracos.co.uk/scribblings/sun-2010-05-11/

Starflower oil, netbooks and rally driving experiences and SAD lamps, it’s all in a day’s work for a website copywriter. You have to be an expert in everything, and be able to pull out the unique selling points that will get your readers excited.

We’re writing optimised copy for lots of small websites at the moment, crafting well written articles and using keywords to point Google in the right direction.

The links above are what the sites look like before we start. We’ll post you links when they’re finished to show you how good they look.

bad copywriting

Here’s an example of some dodgy writing we’ve looked into recently and it nearly made us cry. It’s copywriting for a job advert (quite a dull job actually) , but there’s not reason why a dull job needs a dull advert.

Have a look at this paragraph and see if it makes you want to apply.

The achievement of significant improvements in environmental protection through the systematic identification of operational implementation requirements will be a fundamental outcome of the Environmental Compliance Manager’s activities, as will the leading on identification of cross University process requirements and supporting their implementation. 

“Operational implementation requirements”? Seriously?
HR departments have a habit of using this weird jargon, talking in the third person and thinking everyone else is interested in their boring waffle. Well there’s no need for it, and thats where we come in. With some major tweaks, a bottle of a tipp-ex and a computer screen coverd in tipp-ex, we changed it into an interesting and attractive job advert. We’ll pop a link up to it when it’s published.

It’s one of the first questions we’re always asked – how much does your copywriting cost?

Well with copywriting, you get what you pay for. We’re not in the business of cheap, bargain basement copywriting. You can get cheap copywriting by outsourcing to India, and can get a 600 word article for a couple of dollars. We know this because we’ve had a few big jobs rewriting the rubbish into proper copy that achieves its aims. If you just want pages of nonsense to fill 1000s of web pages then we’re not for you. This copy will turn your customers off and lose you sales.

On the other hand, we’re not going to charge you £10,000 for a sales letter that pulls in extra money for you. That’s part of our job and we don’t need to take a percentage of your extra sales. Just buy us some nice biscuits if we make you an extra million

So anyway, back to the question. what does copywriting cost? The answer is, it depends.

It depends on what you’ve got, what you need and how much you want. On average we charge £40 per page of SEO website copywriting. It takes an hour or two to write a killer website page, so we’re not charging any more than any other professional service – and our expert writing can make you money too with extra sales, happy customers and more customer interest.

So don’t focus on charges and prices – maybe rather than ‘what does copywriting cost?’, maybe the question should be ‘how much can good copywriting make me?’

And the answer to that, is ….. loads.

Jingle jingle jingle – Christmas is coming and we’ve been writing lots of Christmas words. But enough about words – you really want to know about our cat don’t you?

So you know our newly recruited copywriting cat? Well she’s got a name now.

We’ve named her Bluebell in memory of Oliver Postgate who died recently. Trivia fans will know that bluebell was the name of the donkey in Ivor the Engine. Our cat isn’t a donkey, she’s a copywriting cat, but we think it’s nice to remember a hero from our childhood.

Not much about copywriting news or anything – just a warm, Christmassy cat – but never mind. We’ll be back after Christmas with more on website copywriting, editing and cats.

Merry Christmas from the writing agency team including Bluebell