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Words are powerful! They have the potential to shape nations, cause wars, offend, flatter, enlighten, amuse, delight, inform, etc… Investing in a website is an opportunity to tap into this dynamic potential of words through your written content.
Web content should be attracting, informing, and calling your audience to some action. Essentially, effective writing for your website is a juggernaut of a marketing tool.
It’s sad that so many people are missing out on all of this because of a prevailing do-it-yourself (DIY) mentality about writing. It isn’t just that DIY writing sterilizes the marketing power of your site, poorly developed web copy completely cripples your website! DIY writing that doesn’t grab your audience’s attention tells your audience that it is not worth their attention.
Despite all of this, people are still flocking to DIY writing thinking it is cheaper and will save them time. Before falling sway to these delusions, consider the following top 5 reasons why DIY writing is a terrible idea.
Effective web content should be both compelling and interesting. The window of opportunity with which to be compelling and interesting on the web is virtually microscopic. If you don’t have your audience’s attention within the first 30 seconds or so, then you’ve lost them. Overcoming this obstacle demands a lot of creative thought and many critical revisions. In short, it requires a lot of time and a lot of effort.
Writing about yourself is a very difficult process—even for the most skilled of writers! The problem is misestimating confidence; for some it is a serious lack of confidence while for others it is a problem of having far too much confidence in what they write.
When you are the subject of your writing, it is challenging to be objective (about what actually interests audiences about you and how to use those interests).
Copywriters specialize in crafting content that engages and informs readers about a person or business. Most copywriters are also skilled at search engine optimization (SEO) and can offer these services so that your content is not only engaging but also directs traffic to your site.
Writing itself takes time and a lot of it. Developing content for a website is a special case of this time sucking process. Doing it well can often cost you more than just an enormous amount of your time: it may well cost you the resources of your business!
Your interest in a website suggests that you have a valuable skill or service to offer people in the first place. Unless you are a professional writer, your job is not writing. DIY writing means that you or one of your employees will have to take a huge chunk of time to devote to this process. As a consequence, the services that are crucial to your business are neglected.
When you factor in the time, resources, and effort that it requires, DIY writing is extremely expensive. As expensive as it can be, it still does not offer any actual guarantee that the end result will attract and engage your audience. As a matter of fact, DIY web writing often ends up being more expensive than simply hiring a copywriter; and with DIY writing, you end up with a fraction of the quality you would have gotten from most copywriters. Why would anyone pay more for an amateur product when there is a much better professional product that is available, the professional product is easier to obtain, and it’s cheaper?
If you are investing in a website and are considering writing your own content, there is really just one simple question you should consider: At the end of the day, can you really afford DIY writing?
Article Contributed by Crucé Collaborator and Word Nerd, Kyle Albarado. Want to start a project, click here?
Kyle Albarado (copy writer/cognitive analyst)
Kyle brings a new thought to copy writing which focuses on people as subjects who experience the world by virtue of their minds.
Saint Ann Catholic Church in Mamou, LA came to us with a goal of making a user friendly website that better matched the actual vitality of their parish. As with most Catholic web design, mass and confession times needed to be strongly present on the home page, but the pastor wanted to make sure to highlight new events happening in the parish as well. We setup a large image/content slide show on the home page of the site to draw attention to the most important events. We also integrated an online parish events calendar to help give users an update of all the things happening in the parish.
As far as design was concerned we attempted to pull from the heart of Mamou to showcase an area with rich tradition and color. Saint Ann is an older and more traditional Catholic church with a strong Cajun congregation. Our use of color was to provide a sense of depth and a feeling of an ancient connection to the past. We also creatively directed a photo shoot with Jamie Orillion Photography and Design to bring a updated look to the front of the church as well as to develop a collection of stock images for the parish to use throughout the site. Cruce also coordinated the branding of their new logo and identity. Their logo draws from their very recognizable steeple. Our goal was to provide Saint Ann with a solid identity to use in future print media.
See more of their site here: www.saintannmamou.org
I just recently launched a project that I have been working on for Bayou Teche Brewing. This is 1 of only 3 breweries in Louisina and they are definitely set apart from the competition. The Knott Brother’s set out to create a beer that pairs with local cuisine, not an easy task I might say due to the fried, greasy, delicious nature of our dishes. Their goal was to create a beer that was unique to this area and was great for pairing with countless foods and lifestyles. I tried to translate what is in the bottle to the web with their site.
For the project I sat down with them and developed a concept that was heavy image driven and a strong emphasis on brand recognition. The goal was to develop a design that harkened to the characteristics of their beer as a golden pale ale with “hoppy” overtones. I presented a concept board (click here to view) to begin the project and knew that we would need some fantastic imagery to carry the site. We worked with Jamie Orillion Photography & Design to capture some amazing imagery of their beer, the brewery, and the brothers themselves. Check out more of his work here. I collaborated with Jamie on design and the site really shows a strong connection to their beer.
Below you will see my initial concept board as well as well as the final design and some of the imagery from Jamie. You can check out the site at www.bayoutechebrewing.com and can find their beer in a store near you here with our store locator feature.
Click here for for full concept board.
The Front Page, www.bayoutechebrewing.com
Store Locator, www.bayoutechebrewing.com
Photography by Jamie Orillion Photography & Design
Johnnie Gachassin came to us to design a web presence and ended up doing a complete branding package. She was a joy to work with and I wish I had 10 more clients like her. You can visit her site here: http://www.lafayettetraumatherapy.com.
We recently completed our first international client project for the Pontifical North American College located in Vatican City. The seminary college is charged with training and preparing the next generation of Roman Catholic priest’s and religious and stands in the shadow of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The site had been maintained for many years internally by individual seminarians while studying at the NAC. It had become very disjointed and the goal was to unify the various sections under one common design. We worked closely with the students to create a design that is traditional, strong, yet still fresh and modern.
Well it has been about a year since we had a site redesign so we decided to dust off the site and spruce it up. I guess I should say that we did more than “spruce” it up. We did a complete brand overhaul. New logos, colors, vision, etc!
The new vision of Crucé is centered more around the idea that “we” are a group of designers, developers, writers, and yes, geeks, that care deeply about the connection or cross between communication and design. Our goal is to provide our clients with a unified perspective about their web and graphic marketing to help speak their message to the masses.
Website: With a new focus on web development as well as print and graphic design, we wanted to launch a site that gave users bigger pictures of our work. We also added the feature of a blog to help clients get a better picture of the skills and philosophy that drives our business.
Logo: Our new logo, crafted in vision by the collaborators and illustrated by Black Sheep Studio is actually the face of owner and lead geek Daniel Kedinger. We wanted people to feel a connection with the business, to feel you know us before you ever meet us. The hair and glasses strives to impress upon our clients that we are trendy geeks.
The Catholic Underground crew was looking for a fresh face for their website which provided a place for listeners to dig deeper into detailed information. We tried to provide a “underground” feel while sticking to the “new media” shiny look.
Launch CatholicUnderground.com
AcadianaEats.com is the MOST comphrensive list of restaurants in Acadiana with over 150 different listings. The site is a custom job with full CMS & database backend. The project was a joint venture with JOPD and was great because we love finding new places to eat!
Jamie’s site was a custom redesign of his previous portfolio and blog. The goal was to present his new identity as well as add a brand new online store.
This site is for artist/songwriter Kelly Pease. She is fun, energetic, and vibrant so we tried to give her a site that reflected her look and feel. The site includes a shopping cart, links to social sites, and a calendar for all of her upcoming shows.
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