Today, a well-crafted website is absolutely essential to your business whether it is an online one or a traditional “brick and mortar” operation. The design must be appealing, it must be easy to navigate but most important, it needs to communicate what your company is about, the product or service it is selling, and why someone would want to buy from your company instead of one of your competitors. The content of your site–what it says–is perhaps the most important aspect of building an online presence.
Gravity Free Radio spoke to two professional writers, Emily Capps and Rachel Rose, about why the content needs to be close to perfect in every way. For instance, Rachel pointed out that often she will visit a site that has grammatical errors or simple typos. In her opinion, a website is a company’s only chance at a first impression so if their website is sloppy and full of errors, it reflects poorly on the company. Emily, who worked for Ogilvy Mather and has been a professional copywriter for over 10 years agreed and added that even if they get the grammar right and don’t have any other errors, that their message is often not relevant to their audience. That’s where someone like she or Rachel would come in. Hiring a professional writer is something that some business owners don’t think they need. After all, most people know how to write but the problem is knowing how to write for your intended audience. If you are “too close” to the business or product you are selling, you may lack the objectivity needed to examine what features and benefits you need to highlight in order to capture some of the market share.
Rachel has a Master’s in journalism from Columbia and spent the first part of her career as a journalist. She said that a large part of what she does now is really not much different than how she approached writing for television or newspapers. “It’s about telling a story,” she said. She goes on to say that if you can communicate something meaningful and authentic to your prospective customers through storytelling, you are more likely to gain their trust and they are more likely to buy from you. Both she and Emily agreed that canned pitches are really a thing of the past.
This was a very informative show! A big thank you to Rachel and Emily for joining us. For more information about them, visit their respective websites, www.rachelrosewriting.com or www.emilycapps.com or follow them on Twitter, @rachelwriter or @emilydcapps.
Have a great week! See you next Tuesday.
