Given that content writing and copywriting are often used interchangeably, it’s not surprising that many people believe that they are just two fancy terms for one job.
Both content writers and copywriters have amazing writing skills and use them to create online and offline content for clients, right?
Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Even though these two disciplines intertwine, there are numerous fairly big differences you need to keep in mind when hiring writers.
In this article, we will uncover some key similarities and differences between copywriting and content marketing.
They Have Different Goals
Both content writing and copywriting rely on words, but they have distinct purposes. These distinctions are immensely important, as they determine who you will hire and dictate the results of your campaigns. Above all, they depend on your business’ specific goals. For example, boosting sales and increasing industry authority require different content and marketing strategies.
So, what’s the difference?
Copywriting is all about Maximizing Conversions
Copywriting, or sales writing, serves to persuade leads and encourage them to convert, be it making a purchase, downloading a PDF guide, or signing up for your email newsletter list. It grabs people’s attention and evokes their FOMO (fear of missing out).
It’s often direct, friendly, and interactive, given that its goal is to build trust with your prospective customers and convert them into leads and customers. Unsurprisingly, copywriting is applied mainly to writing sales copies, emails, digital and print ads, online and print-ready brochures, and so forth.
Content Writing Focuses on Brand Building and Engagement
Content writing, on the other hand, gives you the opportunity to increase your brand awareness and industry credibility. Content producers create different content forms for multiple online channels, including your website, blog, social networks, email marketing campaigns, and so forth.
The idea is to create original, fresh, and insightful content. It should provide actionable tips and insights, delivering help to your customers. By creating well-researched, organic, and data-backed content, digital marketers will gain loads of quality social shares, backlinks, and referrals. Most importantly, they will maximize retention rates. These are all significant factors that will impact your rankings in the organic SERPs.
Who are Content Writers?
Just like I’ve mentioned above, content writers do research and produce high-quality content that will attract organic traffic, earn links, and increase your industry authority. They should have a solid understanding of search engine optimization.
Content writers don’t need to know how to produce persuasive and highly-converting pieces of content. So, if you want to increase conversions, hiring a copywriter is the right option for you. On the other hand, you should hire a content writer when wanting to boost traffic and online credibility by:
- Creating valuable, relevant, and SEO-friendly blog posts
- Writing and optimizing sales service pages for search engines
- Doing solid research of a client’s target market
- Creating local content
- Crafting user-friendly PPC landing pages
- Writing high-quality guest posts for link building purposes
- Producing different content formats – ebooks, quizzes, video content, infographics, etc.
What are the Roles of a Good Content Writer?
- Having a strong knowledge of English and grammar rules
- Having a solid understanding of SEO
- Knowing how to create long-form, insightful, and engaging content
- Performing detailed market, competitors, and audience research
- Using transcreation and localization to create relevant local content
- Knowing how to apply keywords organically, without sounding aggressive
- Editing content to boost its credibility and clarity
- Making content user-friendly by making it easy to scan and remember
- Using formats and writing styles that will keep readers focused and engaged
- Understanding the industry and being able to choose fresh and original topics
- Respecting the requirements and deadlines clients specify
- Collaborating with the client until they’re satisfied
Who are Copywriters?
We can often see that copywriting and SEO copywriting are used interchangeably. What frustrates me about the “SEO copywriting term” the most is the fact that copywriting doesn’t necessarily include SEO knowledge and skills. SEO copywriting is just one of the numerous types of copywriting.
Copywriting is quite broad and it includes a wide range of practices, including:
- website copies
- social media content
- emails campaigns
- Google ads
- brochures
- newspaper ads
- landing pages
- video scripts
- catalogs
- call-to-action buttons
- product demos
As your goal is to create copies that resonate with your audiences, you will want to hire a copywriter that specializes in the exact kind of copywriting you need. For example, a copywriter who focuses on organic social media campaigns may not be a pro in writing offline brochures or SEO-friendly meta tags.
What are the Roles of a Good Copywriter?
- Doing comprehensive market research and understanding the needs of target audiences
- Researching what writing style resonates with their readers and using it
- Understanding the client’s brand voice and using it consistently
- Using plain, jargon-free, and engaging language to explain complicated ideas
- Having at least the basic understanding of SEO
- Respecting the brief and deadlines specified by the client
- Collaborating with the client and making changes to the copy until they are satisfied.
Keywords and their Impact on your Online Content
No matter if you’re writing a sales page copy or an ultimate guide on your blog, you will want to make it visible on search engines. That’s where keyword optimization steps in. Its goal is to boost your rankings, improve traffic, and convert this traffic into sales.
However, you need to optimize for keywords organically. Start by altering your approach to keyword research. Focus on the search intent behind each phrase. Encourage your SEOs and writers to use tools like Answer the Public or Google’s Suggestions feature to understand what user behaviors they match. Are they informational, navigational, or commercial?
Then, talk to your writers about optimizing your copies for these keywords. The idea is to add them organically to preserve the natural flow of the information, educate audiences, and boost user experiences.
This applies to your ads, sales copies, and meta tags, too.
Should You Combine Copywriting and Content Writing?
Absolutely. Content writing and copywriting are two sides of the same coin. While content producers will create high-quality content that increases your traffic and brand authority, copywriters will turn this traffic to leads and sales. When combined, these two practices will help you create a solid brand identity and, at the same time, maximize conversions.
Sure, it all comes down to what you’re trying to achieve with your content. So, before you hire an in-house copywriter/content writer or outsource your strategy to freelancers or agencies, you should set clear and measurable goals.
I hope I’ve made the difference between copywriting and content writing clearer. Should you have any questions, feel free to ask!