Blog Entries - March 2008

Give as good as you get...

Munaiba — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 11:00:00 +0100

...or to put it another way, you'll get as good as you give. When it comes to hiring a copywriter - or any other professional for that matter - a good brief is vital. Here are some things you should take into account when building a brief for a copywriter.

Building a better copywriting brief

Copywriters aren't clairvoyants. They may get a sense of what you want when they speak to you but their interpretation of your needs may not be accurate. That's why you need a good brief [...]

There is such a thing as a free lunch...

Munaiba — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 11:00:00 +0100

Well, not lunch exactly, but free copywriting? Definitely! For those of you who haven't got the funds for a professional copywriter there is a new site where you can get generic, free copywriting for your business.

So why am I spruiking it?

The copywriting market is huge! There is room in it for all levels of professionalism and price. One of my aims in this blog is to help people who are starting off in business and who can't afford a copywriter. [When their businesses are doing [...]

I'm no economist but...

Munaiba — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 11:00:00 +0100

As I said, I'm no economist so there may be a very good reason why this wouldn't work but I have a suggestion to make to Prime Minister Rudd and Treasurer Swan...

Why not cut petrol excise/tax instead of giving income tax cuts?

Everyone keeps saying how income tax cuts are inflationary; they also tell us that inflation is being fuelled (forgive the pun) by petrol prices which result in increased food prices, increased travel costs etc., etc. So why not cut the taxes on petrol ins [...]

Word walking - thinking out loud one word at a time

Munaiba — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 11:00:00 +0100

I was just thinking about creativity and how people foster it, encourage it etc., etc. And how in this instantaneous communication age ideas travel at the speed of light. And then I remembered the joke.

How fast can joke travel?

Years ago when I was at uni I made up a joke. It's so long ago I can't even remember it now but it had some very specific elements to it. I told the joke to some friends at a dinner party and then forgot all about it. I moved to Australia and about 2 ye [...]

seo is not an add-on

Munaiba — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 11:00:00 +0100

Many businesses contract for a website, get their copy written by the sales force and then wonder why they don't get many visitors and, why they don't rank in the search engines. Then some bright spark says...

We need seo!

So they either delegate someone to research it or they contract an seo company to do it for them. But this is putting the cart before the horse (to use a pre-tech age metaphor) because the next step will be - "what keywords do we need?". T [...]

So now you've got a Flash website...

Munaiba — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:00:00 +0100

When Flash isn't so flash

Flash is a great tool. It allows you to do so much with your site. It provides interactive content and keeps users interested but it's not all upside. I guess it's like everything else in life - great in moderation.

Flash intros - skip or enter?

There are heaps of websites out there that have Flash intros. Their owners obviously spend a lot of money and their designers are obviously really talented. The problem is that not everyone has a super fast i [...]

Is a picture really worth a thousand words? - (Part II)

Whizzly — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 11:00:00 +0100

Last time we looked at the basics of images use on websites. In this post I want to look at search engine optimisation and images.

An image isn’t worth a thousand words to a search engine!

Search engines deal with words. So if your site is all images and few words you are putting yourself behind the eight ball. Search engines NEED words. They feed on words in an effort to digest your website and rank it according to its relevance for certain keywords. If your site relies too heavi [...]

Is a picture really worth a thousand words? (Part I)

Whizzly — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 11:00:00 +0100

We've all heard this saying and it's certainly true that a picture has an immediacy that words struggle to match. So much information is instantly available in a picture.

What does this mean for websites?

Does this mean you should tell your story with lots of images, slick graphics and few words? Not necessarily. Certainly an attractive site encourages people to stick around and there's no doubt that high quality images and cool graphics can enhance a user's [...]

Welcome to Copy this! - the blog of The Copywriter Online

Whizzly — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 11:00:00 +0100

My aim in writing this blog is to start a conversation about copywriting, web marketing, seo copywriting, web culture as it affects business and to help people who, for whatever reason, are doing their own copywriting.

So stick around. Let me know what you think or what topics you'd like covered. (Politely please!)