I’d love to know how much Wilbur Smith earns for every word that he writes. Or John Grisham? Stephen King once earned US$30 million in one year (2010) – that’s more than half a million dollars a week! What I do know is that here in South Africa the humble hacks who write website content average around R4 per word and need to spend a good 3-4 days on a 5-page website, for which they might charge around R6,000.
But this cost often scares away the novice business owner. The prevailing perception is that getting some content written for your business shouldn’t cost that much.
Okay, I’m not equating the talent of a bestselling author with the skill of a website writer. But it is nevertheless a skill that will help your website to work for you and earn you money. So getting good content written for your website is an investment that will yield high returns.
“Oh, but I can write it myself,” I hear you say.
Sure you can. But be very careful not to end up with something like this:
Squeaky Clean is a leading corporate hygiene services company located in Gauteng. Our team of expert professional service providers has a combined experience of more than 75 years and we are passionate about customer service …
Ho hum, click back to Google.
Whereas this is on the right track:
Many companies are frustrated by the complexity of health and safety compliance, and are struggling to implement all the requirements. Are you one of them?
At Squeaky Clean we can lift that load off your shoulders and help you easily reach full compliance by providing you with the exact hygiene management services that you need.
The trick is to avoid making the content all about you. Instead, it should be all about what your customers need. Competent website writers understand the importance of customer-centric marketing and how online marketing works. They know how to plot your content to engage the attention of the visitors to your site and keep them there. They are trained to write for SEO so that your site is not overlooked by Google, and they understand how to present your content for effective Adwords campaigns. They are flexible and creative when it comes to writing in your brand style. And they also have the talent to write well, in a clear clean style that will appeal to your customers.
