Features and blogging

Your website is ready, and now the pages need populating. Here’s a quick checklist to help you track down the perfect copywriter: one who can provide you with professional content that’s perfect for your business.

SPECIFIC SEARCHES An online search is the first step to finding a copywriter, and there are ways of narrowing down the trawl, like typing in keywords that best reflect your business. “Engineering copywriter” will pull up more specific results for engineers, for example, than “Website copywriter”. The more relevant the better.

SIMILAR STYLES You’ve found a great writer but they use enthusiastic, slightly quirky phrases, and the tone for your accounting website needs to be organised and steady. As much as you love their profile, the way they talk on the phone and the fact that you’ve plenty in common, if there’s a style mismatch it’s a no-go. Best resume the search until you find someone more suitable.

SCENARIO SHARING Prospective writers will be happy to listen to your needs and respond in kind. Discussing a project and asking how a writer would handle the work is as good a pre-test as any, and also gives you the chance to get to know them as talks progress.

RAVE REVIEWS Those testimonials sound great, but look closer. If they’re eerily similar (using the same words and phrases), or if they give a generic thumbs-up with no detail, or if they’re over-elaborate, you should dig a little deeper. Ask for recommendations and follow them up. It also pays to carry out a Google search on their name, which will bring up some solid background – if it exists.

HAVING IT ALL Remember what made you look for a writer in the first place. Most of us can string an adequate sentence together, but it’s the ability to follow a brief, be flexible, produce quality copy that’s relevant, pitch-perfect and error-free, and do all this to deadline that’s what you’re after. If you find someone who can do all that then your work is done (and so is mine).

It’s all about the search, and with a bit of pre-planning and careful choosing, you’ll get it right first time. Begin by knowing what you want and you’ll be off to a head start.

Good luck!