Attention Web Developers: Consider Adding Copywriters to Your Network

Setting up a business online requires a multi-disciplinary approach. From laying out the web pages and linking them together, to writing the text on each page and being able to take payments online and adding databases some businesses might need.

No longer can a Jack of all trades can produce an effective web presence for an online business. Web site development is usually a team effort, requiring collaboration between multiple specialists.

In the early days of the internet, web pages were mostly html documents, where a copywriter can produce a simple selling page using a web editor like MS Front Page or Dreamweaver.

Nowadays most website developers use content-management systems like Drupal, Joomla, WordPress, and Square Space. Each of these systems requires a specific level of expertise to where a web developer is usually proficient in about two of these content management systems.

It is now difficult for someone to be a copywriter and a web site developer. However, WordPress can be easy to learn in some cases and professional service providers can develop their own, professional-looking web site that automatically adapts to mobile devices. There are other do-it-yourself platforms for simple sites but developing certain complex database-driven web sites should be done by specialists.

Prospective online business operators will look at several web design firms to find one that best suits their needs. First there is the look and feel of the web site. The colors, layout, adding images, photos and logos.

Yet many will overlook the most essential component of a web site, the words on the pages. For some businesses, the owner can produce the right words that communicate effectively with the prospective customers. However, a professional writer, also known as a copywriter, should write the words.

The best writer would be someone who knows how online businesses operate. Who knows all the steps in the buyer’s journey from customer acquisition through advertising to the actual sales process.

Someone who knows what each page should communicate. What would be a well-written home page, the about page, products and services descriptions, FAQs, etc.

A copywriter editing a web site can be a lot less costly than having the entire site written from scratch. It would be well worth the investment. On any web site, the colors and graphics set the mood, but it is the written words that do the selling. A professionally written web page always outperforms a layman’s written page. This would be the essential part of any business’s online presence.

It would behoove any web developer to connect with several copywriters. It also would be best for a copywriter to know about several web designers using different site platforms, plus graphic artists and ecommerce and database service providers.

Being a problem solver includes being acquainted with the various web specialty providers who perform complementary services to the web development process.