Divine Write Copywriting Blog

All things copywriting – and quite a bit about SEO

How to best leverage your articles for SEO (even if you wrote them for someone else)

March 9th, 2010

A Twitter friend emailed me yesterday with a question about how best to leverage her wealth of articles, some of which she’d written for clients. My answer turned into something of an essay, so I thought I might publish it as a blog post, so others might benefit from it too.

A writing blog I love to read (and that’s a rare thing)

February 18th, 2010

I don’t read many writing blogs. When you write for a living, a writing blog has to be pretty good to keep you reading. But there’s one writing blog I’ve very quickly come to like. So much so, that I actually look forward to its daily posts (ruly-truly). In fact, I even went to the [...]

A simple email newsletter tempate – Dinosaurs & drink bottles!

February 10th, 2010

I received an email, yesterday, from a lady named Janelle, who failed to step back quickly enough when her boss asked who’d like to volunteer to write the company e-newsletter.
Janelle wanted to know…
She wanted to know if I had some sort of template for writing e-newsletters, what’s required if she re-publishes a free-reprint article [...]

How saying “No” — and meaning it — can get you the job in the end

January 21st, 2010

Monique Choy and Angus Gordon are great copywriters. I often refer prospects to them. Like yesterday…
I got a call from a gentleman — let’s call him John — who wanted 6 pages of copy. We spent quite a bit of time discussing the ins and outs of the job, and I also offered some advice [...]

Just released: BRAND NEW ebook, Practical SEO Copywriting

November 20th, 2009

I’ll keep this short ‘n sweet: I’ve FINALLY release my new ebook, ‘Practical SEO Copywriting’.
It captures most of what I know about SEO copy. Not just the theory, but the practice. How to do it right. How to handle the difficulties. And most importantly, how to balance the needs of Google against the needs of [...]

12 reasons why copywriting is harder than technical writing

November 4th, 2009

Before I started Divine Write, I was a technical writer in the software industry. I wrote online help and user guides for 9 years. I wrote about highly technical stuff, like SCADA systems, accounting software and access control systems. I worked closely with wildly intelligent coders and engineers. I handled all the localization of the [...]

Readers don’t notice poor copy – They FEEL it. Here’s why…

September 22nd, 2009

In her recent excellent post, Is Quality Copywriting Worth the Expense?, copywriter Angie Haggstrom suggests that copywriting clients who accept poor quality (i.e. cheap) copy are endorsing that poor quality. They’re associating it with their own offering and brand – “it’s a reflection of you”
I couldn’t agree more. But I think it’s important to note [...]

5 Reasons Why Homepage Copy is so Expensive

September 18th, 2009

By Karri Flatla, snap! virtual associates inc.
If you’ve ever shopped for a web copywriter (I cringe to use the word “shop” but that’s what it is), you’ve no doubt come across an apparent oddity in the fee structures. That is, homepage copy costs a great deal more than other types of website copy (services page, [...]

Attention copywriting clients: Here’s what your copywriter needs from you…

September 16th, 2009

When you have a pool built, you don’t simply point to your backyard and say, “Put a pool there!” (Believe me, I know!) You have to spend quite a bit of time telling your pool builder what shape you want, what style, what construction, what size. You have to discuss depth, lining, tiling, lighting, steps, [...]

How to avoid ‘hype’ in your sales copy: Pretend you’re face-to-face

September 15th, 2009

You know ‘hype’ copy when you see it. And not just because it’s usually underlined, fluro-highlighted and thrust in your face! But avoiding hype in your own sales copy isn’t such a simple matter.
There are a variety of copy ‘techniques’ used (or, at least, unintentionally present) in hype copy that make it hype. This [...]

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