optmira marketing Writing Content For Your Design Agency: A Blogging Style Guide Audrey Ashburner
All designers and creatives can understand the importance of showcasing professional photos on our digital design sites to increase engagement and interest. However, if your company has beautiful photos but subpar copy... that’s simply not going to cut it. When it comes to marketing your design company, strong writing and visuals go hand in hand. Like peanut butter and jelly or macaroni and cheese, one simply does not reach its greatest potential when the other is lacking. Therefore, it is vital that you are devoting the necessary amount of time to produce copy that is worthy of its place on your website. To ensure this, before you begin writing, be sure you read our Design Agency Blogging Style Guide below to learn about the best practices for creating effective website copy.
Take a moment to first think about why you are writing your given piece. Now, before you start hammering away at your keyboard, remember: purposeful content is worthwhile content. Take a blog post, for example. Blogs are an ideal tool to feature on your website. They allow your audience to see the knowledge you possess in a more casual and easily-digestible way. However, if you are not writing each post to appropriately reflect your brand, then you aren’t fully harnessing the power that this feature contains. For example, say your dream client is a newlywed couple who are looking to renovate their fixer-upper. Would you write a blog on the 5 best bachelor pad makeovers of 2019? No, that would not appeal to the newlywed couple. They have a totally different goal in mind, and that is not making over a bachelor pad. So, know who you're writing for.
The structure of the content should be readily recognizable to your visitor. When writing copy for your blog, remember that the topic, its main idea, and its conclusion are immediately visible, locatable, and knowable. Using headers and body text, frame your content with the main topics being the headers and supporting context being the body text. Users are looking for answers to their questions. More often than not, they have landed on your blog article because they are searching for specific information. Make sure your article can easily be scanned. If your content is filled with bulky paragraphs and unorganized structure, you can pretty much guarantee a high drop-off rate.
Aim to avoid technical terminology. Unless you clearly and intentionally have its purpose in mind and definition available, aim to avoid technical terminology. Data, detail, and complexity are ideal opportunities to utilize subsequent pages, which should be logically placed. A good rule of thumb is to write at a 4th-grade level. Even if your audience is compromised of mostly college-educated adults, this statement still rings true. Your site is being graded on what we digital marketing industry nerds call a “readability score.” This score affects your SEO. Meaning, if your content is filled with technical verbiage, you won’t rank as high on search results.
Play around with the specific verbiage, tone, or overall relatability that is conveyed in your piece and decide what’s best for your brand. Additionally, whether it be a product description, blog post, or company mission statement, each one requires a specific approach when writing and cannot simply be treated all the same way. For example, when posting on social media outlets, it may be better to utilize a more casual writing style. However, writing about the services that your brand offers may call for a more formal syntax. Whatever you decide, your audience should be able to get a sense of your company’s feel and level of relatability.
Creating effective copy on your website greatly improves your SEO through increased visibility on search engines. It builds trust with your audience, assuring them that your services are of value. Nonetheless, these guidelines are not hard-set and should be customized for your unique company. Yet, it is important to review the impact you want your copy to have on your audience. Use these tips as a style guide to maintain a level of consistency throughout your posts. ___
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