Copywriter, content marketer and ghostwriter
Copywriter, content marketer and ghostwriter
This week I’ve been sat in my office, rain hammering down on the wooden roof, with B2B web copywriting on my mind. I’m helping one of my clients kick off a fairly large web copy refresh; they’re trying to make the front end more appealing and effective at converting viewers into leads, and trying to make the back end simpler and easier to manage.
We’ve all been there, right? Every marketer worth their salt has been part of (if not led) at least one website refresh during their careers. And in that time, you’ve no doubt been plagued by the same quandary that everyone else has faced: do you write the words first, or sort out the design?
As a B2B web copywriting veteran, you won’t be surprised to know that I have opinions on this topic. I’ve tried it both ways (as it were) and seen it go well, and badly, both ways.
In this blog, I’m sharing my experiences and what I think is the best way to go.
Interestingly, the split of copywriters who prefer doing the design first versus those who prefer doing the words first is pretty even, in my experience. From a copy perspective, some people think that it’s easier to write to a template – 100 words here, 50 words there, 300 words in an accordion over that way, and so on. And it must be said that, in my experience, leading with the visuals does tend to leave you with a more visually appealing website at the end.
This is because it’s really quite hard for a copywriter (or the marketer reviewing the copy) to accurately predict how many words a certain section will need – and most copywriters will err on the side of longer rather than shorter. So without a design template, or wireframe, you run the risk of word-heavy pages that readers don’t make it through.
One of my favourite web projects of recent years, for Original Software, was done based on wireframes made by the good people at Fhoke web design. And it’s no surprise that it won a Special Kudos CSS Design Award; it’s a beautiful site.
Design is important – but the truth is that beauty alone is not enough to convert customers. High-quality B2B web copy is absolutely vital if your website is going to be effective. So while design is important, the risk is that it constrains the copy, to the point where you can’t get your message across efficiently enough.
This is why lots of B2B web copywriting professionals prefer to have free reign when it comes to what words they put down, and how. It allows them to focus purely on the message they need to convey, and how to do that as effectively as possible. Once the words are approved, the designers can sort out the rest.
From a purely practical perspective, another benefit of doing the copy first is that it’s often simpler (and cheaper) to get a copywriter to tweak the words than it is to get a designer to tweak their design. If you give a copywriter a signed-off design and they ask for it to be changed to make the copy work better, it’s likely that will incur higher costs than asking a copywriter to edit their words to work with whatever the designer has put together.
I’ve been working on a series of web pages for OxTS, written for specific markets they are targeting, and for this project we let the copy come first. And I recently heard from them that one of the pages I wrote just had its best month ever in terms of views (and that page has been in existence for around five years).
“Oh, here it comes,” you’re thinking. “This is where he sits on the fence and prevaricates about how there’s no right or wrong way to do it.”
And, on one level, of course that’s what I’m going to say. Because I’m writing this blog to convince people to work with me, so there’s no sense in alienating half the bloody audience! So with that in mind, I want to make it clear that I am super happy to work on web copy projects however you think they work best – copy first or design first.
But I do have an opinion about how things should be done in an ideal world. If you’ve got no preference as to how your site gets done, here’s what I’d do:
This approach gives your designer the freedom to create something that looks visually appealing, without overly stifling your copywriter, and crucially it allows them both to flex their work to mesh with the other’s.
It’s also worth finding a copywriter that has at least a hint of design smarts about them; they’re more likely to write copy that works from a design perspective right off the bat.
I hope this blog has helped you clarify your thoughts about how to tackle your next web project, be it refresh, rebuild, or just adding some new pages. If you need help getting the copy done, why not get in touch with me?
I’ve been writing B2B content for more than ten years now, and in that time I’ve written plenty of web copy. I’ve created microsites, landing pages, and helped with entire website refreshes. I pride myself on understanding your technology and your proposition quickly, and on being extremely easy to work with (and quite fun, if my clients are to be believed).
Click below to learn more about my web copywriting services – or to contact me and discuss your project.