Why hire a copywriter?

December 6, 2021

In the age of search engine marketing, to succeed online you need a website which clearly communicates what your business can offer to potential clients. Google will then reward you with a higher place in its rankings, while the increased number of visitors you attract to your site as a result will be more likely to convert to paying customers.

You may not be confident you have the ability to concisely explain the benefits of your business. You probably don’t have the time to spare either. This is why many business owners enlist the services of a professional copywriter instead.

But you may still not be convinced you need help in this area. Which is why, in this blog, we’re going to answer the question: why hire a copywriter?

1. They know how to optimise your content

It’s no longer enough for copywriters to be able to write grammatically perfect, enticing copy which encourages people to take action. They still need to do this of course, but they also need to know how to optimise this content in order to get people to visit your site in the first place.

The good news is that most professional online copywriters will now be proficient in SEO, or search engine optimisation – and this is one of the reasons why hiring a copywriter for your business makes perfect sense.

Whether it’s knowing which keywords to include and how to weave them into the copy, or how to optimise your title tags and meta descriptions, a copywriter has the necessary expertise to both sell your product and make it easy to find. With competition increasing online all the time, this is vital.

2. They can free up your time

Especially if you’re just getting your business off the ground, you may wonder whether hiring a copywriter is worth the hundreds, or thousands, of pounds that you’re being quoted.

But it’s wrong to think that this money is just for the copy you’ll receive. You’re also paying for the years of experience the copywriter has built up in terms of writing, marketing and SEO. How long is it going to take you to personally learn all this expertise and put it into practice?

According to Orbit Media, the average blog post takes three hours and 16 minutes to write. Strategy Beam estimate that 15 pages on your website will require between 30 and 45 hours in total to research, write and edit. This is a huge chunk – if not all – of your working week that could be better spent on another area of your growing business.

So the question you should be asking is not: can I afford to pay the services of a copywriter? It should be: can I afford to lose the time it would take me to write these pages or blogs myself? If the answer is no, then the investment in the copywriter should be a no-brainer.

3. They can distance themselves from the topic

As a business owner, it stands to reason that you’re the best person to communicate the features and benefits of your product to potential customers, right?

Wrong.

What you find most impressive about your business may be something that your customers have no interest in at all. You are also likely to descend into using industry-related buzzwords – or ‘jargon’ – if you write the copy for your website yourself. This could confuse clients, or even cause them to switch off altogether. 71% of web visitors said that they were turned off by content that came across as a sales pitch. As a salesman or woman, that’s probably what the copy would come across as if you opted for the DIY method.

To avoid each of the above, it’s important to hire a copywriter, who can act as a second pair of eyes and reflect what the customer feels like they need to know in your copy. That’s because they can be objective about the product or service that you’re trying to sell.

4. They ensure consistency

Whether you require copy for your website, your email communications, your case studies or brochures or a combination of all of the above, it’s vital that your company comes across as consistent in terms of its overall message and tone of voice. But consistency is hard to achieve if you and your members of staff are dividing up content writing jobs between you based on whoever has the time or expertise to complete them.

Hiring a professional copywriter to take care of all your content needs – whatever they might be – ensures that everything is written in the same tone of voice. While this might not seem like a big deal, conflicting messages across multiple pages of your site may lead to a breakdown in trust between you and your potential customers.

5. They’re professionals!

This is the final, and perhaps most important, answer we’ll give to those who ask: ‘why hire a copywriter?’

They’re professionals – and they’re trained to do what they do! If something goes wrong with your gas or electric at home, you don’t roll your sleeves up and try and tackle the problem yourself. You know that your time and money is better spent – and your safety is guaranteed – by calling in a qualified tradesman.

With content writing for your website, you may not be putting your life at risk if you attempt to personally craft the copy but you may be damaging your business. That’s why it makes sense to hire a trained content writer instead.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this blog post has gone some way to answering the question ‘why hire a copywriter?’ A professional and experienced copywriter can help you communicate your business’ values and benefits to customers in a clear and concise way, all while adhering to SEO best practice. More importantly, when you hire a copywriter you can pass on responsibilities for your website content and instead spend the time doing what you do best – running your company!

Main image credits: Andrew Neel

Internal image credits: Adeolu Eletu, John Schnobrich