Web Copy and Web Content
Is there a difference between web copy and web content? You bet there is. Web copy is wording that’s used to engage/entice the readers while web content is meant to support the copy that’s on your website.
Web copy is created by using creative words and sentences that are designed to have your visitor conduct some form of predetermined action. It typically has a single purpose – which is to drive your web visitors to click through your link, or to sign up for a trial, join a group, or fill out a form that can be used to capture their contact information. It is meant to do so while providing something of value, or a solution to their problem.
Web copy must be enticing enough to grab the attention of visitors to your website quickly and make sure that they stick around.
Web content constitutes all the information on your website and its core purpose is to provide information that will inform the visitors about your website and business. The key difference between web copy and web content is that the latter is not used for any promotional or selling purpose. It’s informational.
Web content includes content isn’t just the text. It in the form of images, audio files, videos, social media updates, product descriptions, advanced Content can include white papers, eBooks, guides, and more to support the text and make the entire website more attractive,impactful and valuable. It follows that your information-sharing is a prelude to educating your audience and gaining their trust, so a good mix of copy and content can help you create a bond with your targeted audience that can then help sell your products and/or services.
Web content that provides answers to the most pressing questions or problems that potential buyers have and with good SEO can do wonders for your website traffic. To make the most out of it though you must be consistent in delivering valuable and highly informative content to your audience if you wish to build solid relationships.
The statement ‘Content is King’ may appear clichéd but the truth is that content is at the core of any marketing strategy. Web content is the key reason why your visitors view the pages you’ve developed and share it with others by using social media, website links and other modes.
As such, marketers should espouse copy over content. Effective copyrighting requires thorough research and thoughtful editing, conducted by a subject-matter expert and a professional writer.
When you draw a distinction between copy and content in this manner, you can see that they correlate directly to the structure of the inbound marketing funnel.
Impact on Your Sales Funnel
Web copy is inherently used for the top-of-the-funnel. It’s for generating leads, while web content builds trust after a prospect familiarizes themselves with your brand, so content should be employed near the end of the sales cycle (bottom-of-the-funnel).
Remember not to flip your funnel! It’s easy to do. Lead with good copy and back up with good content. Visitors should be greeted with thoughtful, original and creative copy that speaks to them at a personal level.
Content Management Systems (CMS)
Seeing your content is so important, then it makes sense to have a good idea of the different types of platforms that are out there to help you manage your content. These platforms are known as Content Management Systems (CMS) and there are few out there you may have heard of. For our type of businesses, we are fans of WordPress (non eCommerce sites) because of the functionality and ease in using it but you should really decide for yourself.
WordPress
WordPress is the most popular CMS and is based on PHP. It’s very easy to work with and almost anybody, including a beginner, can use WordPress.
WordPress has a wide selection of themes and plugins to choose from as well. Themes are the back end of a WordPress site and are easy to understand and seeing WordPress is a popular CMS, there is a big community ready to help.
Other advantages of WordPress include its versatility and with numerous themes, you can build almost any type of website. You can further extend functionality with plugins and WordPress is also mobile responsive and simplifies SEO through its various features and plugins.
Some disadvantages of WordPress include its being an open-source platform so the issue of security always arises. This combined with its popularity makes it a target for hackers. While WordPress is free, for customization and extended functionality, you’ll have to purchase third-party plugins, which can be costly. The themes and plugins will need to be updated constantly but you’ll receive notifications when these updates occur.
Wordfence
In addition to all the advantages already explained, WordPress also has a security component called Wordfence and its website states “Wordfence includes an endpoint firewall and malware scanner that were built from the ground up to protect WordPress. Our Threat Defense Feed arms Wordfence with the newest firewall rules, malware signatures and malicious IP addresses it needs to keep your website safe.”
Additionally, Wordfence provides daily activity reports which show the security threats from the previous 24 hours. Just reviewing its live Data Stream and these reports is enough to scare any business owner into getting web security as the online threat is heavy and intense.
Drupal
Drupal is another popular Content Management System and like WordPress, it has a big community of users who are active online. Drupal, as a CMS, has some advantages over WordPress and some of the optional modules can help create a website that meets specific needs. A popular feature with Drupal is the Taxonomy module, which allows for multiple levels and categories of content.
Some disadvantages of Drupal are that its not as user-friendly as WordPress for those who aren’t developers, however, many developers love it.
Joomla
Joomla is another popular CMS and is mostly used for more advanced websites. Joomla supports advanced functionalities and is very configurable. Any functionality that you might need is available through an extension and plugins are also available for further customization.
Some advantages of Joomla include the admin interface which is user-friendly and it also supports multilingual content management with translation packs.
Some disadvantages of Joomla include a lack of added functionality, additionally modules and plugins can be hard to come across. Joomla can also place higher demand on server resources so it may not be suitable for large websites
Magento
Magento is primarily an eCommerce platform and it’s very popular for online stores. It too is written in PHP and provides entrepreneurs with a flexible platform where you have control over the look and functionality of your online store. It has a flexible shopping cart system and also provides tools for SEO and catalog management.
Magento is highly scalable so if you own a shop with just a few products, you can easily scale it up to tens of thousands as your business expands. It too is highly customizable.
Some disadvantages of Magento are that it can be problematic with a heavy load and can also be considered expensive for small online stores. It’s not as user-friendly as WordPress so you may need a developer at some point.
ClickFunnels
A great tool for business owners to check out is ClickFunnels. It’s a popular web based tool that simplifies online selling and specializes in being an online funnel builder focusing heavily on simple websites and landing pages.
It’s a simple approach that will help push prospects through your sales funnel and was built for entrepreneurs to allow them to automate the sales and marketing process with minimal manual input.
Without ClickFunnels, a business owner would have to separately build landing pages, email autoresponders, and all the other components of an online marketing machine. Using ClickFunnels’ pre-built templates and having all the elements together is what makes the tool so special. While you don’t have to be a programmer to use ClickFunnels, it does help to have a good comfort level working on websites. So, it makes a lot of sense to hire a professional who has the experience and skill set to build your site quickly thereby saving time and minimizing mistakes.
Summary
Websites have become very useful marketing and selling tools for just about any type of business. Therefore, its “no-brainer” that through automation, you’ll have the ability to sell 24/7. With your website serving as a sales agent for you, the better your copy and content is, the more successful you’ll be.
How To Benefit from Better Copy and Content?
If you’re looking for help in getting your business to boost its marketing efforts, contact us to learn how we can assist you.
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