Quality Copywriting: Worth Every Penny

copywriting in metal type blocks

A penny for your thoughts? Well, that’s about what most copy is worth. Many companies are trying to build engagement, SEO ranking, website traffic, etc. by posting blogs and articles on their websites and social media. Products are being thrown up in online stores as fast as possible with little regard to giving pertinent information. But companies don’t want to spend money or time on finding qualified writers or even writers with expertise in their industry. Sure, you can find writers extremely cheap, pay them a penny a word or $20 a blog. But what are you getting?

We have all clicked on articles or blogs on searches and ended up on a site that seemed like gibberish. Chock full of key words jammed together, these articles rank really high on search engines, but give very little useful information and often sound very strange, because they are written by people in other countries, or people just trying to churn out anything with key words to get their $20.

What does this do? At the least it annoys people because you’re “tricking” them to your site but not providing value. You’re turning them off and cheapening your brand. At the worst, you’re providing erroneous information that can even be dangerous. A recent example, an RV website posted two blogs on what you could tow with small vehicles. The person writing the article obviously didn’t have any real life RV or towing experience and was recommending that people could tow a 3500 pound listed trailer with a 4 cylinder car that said it could tow up to 3500 pounds. This is incorrect, and anyone with actual towing experience would know that dry weight is always low, you have to add people, cargo, fuel, propane tanks, spare tire, camping equipment, dogs, chairs, etc, and ALL of that needs to be less than 80% of max to be safe. They also know that towing a camper (windblock box) is not the same as towing a boat of the same weight, and they also know that not all vehicles can handle tongue weight of trailers. Someone at the company should have vetted this article, especially if the writer was not an expert.

Worst case scenario for that brand, is that anyone that has actual knowledge that reads those articles is going to immediately distrust anything else that site has to say. They have hurt their brand credibility by ostensibly saving some money or time on a writer.

Spending money on effective and useful content is key to building your brand image, selling your products, communicating and engaging your target audience, and creating a body of assets for your company that can be useful in multiple ways. Copy is key when selling online, this is not an area to be cheap. There are experts out there, and more professional and knowledgeable writing will help your sales and your brand equity.