Web Content Writing: Do You Create Content or Do I Have to
We create content for all trade industries. That content is designed to boost SEO rankings, increase Google Ad conversions, deliver quality traffic and generate sales. You might still be wondering if it’s worth creating your own content. Or, whether your time is better spent running your home improvement business.
Read on to discover the simple answer.
Time is money.
Whatever you’re doing in your contracting business each day needs to be leading to revenue at some point. Whether it’s short-term revenue, like heading to a client’s home to provide a service. Or long-term revenue, like replying to quotes to help interested leads become sales down the line.
But every choice you make also takes away your time. If you want to take the afternoon off and head to the beach, you’re sacrificing time that could have been spent on your business.
The same goes for web content writing. Savvy Aussie tradies know they need content to rank on Google, and it’s natural to wonder if it’s possible to write your own content and save a little money.
To help you find out if your time is best spent writing content, or working on your business, we’ve created this simple and to-the-point guide. We’ll cover:
- Whether it’s worth your time to create your own content
- Your options when it’s time for web content writing
- Free tips on writing like a pro (even if you’ve never picked up a pen)
- How our in-house writers create content without knowing anything about your industry
You already know you need quality content to rank on Google, so it’s crucial you get this step right. Let’s start by weighing up how valuable your time REALLY is.
“Is it worth my time to create my own content?”
Unless you’re born with the gift of the gab, or in this case, the gift of the pen, the short answer is – it’s probably not worth your time.
Web content writing is more difficult than it seems. With over 4.4 million blogs published every day, the majority of content goes unnoticed and unseen. If you’re a tradie investing hours each night or sacrificing your weekends, odds are no one will ever see what you write.
You know your products and services, inside and out. But communicating how they benefit your customer, or answering questions going through your customer’s mind, is harder than getting off the phone with a chatty customer on a Friday afternoon.
It’s a bit like trying to do your odd jobs around the house before a family BBQ. Every little job takes longer than expected, and you wish you just outsourced the grunt work in the first place.
“What if I want to write the content myself?”
Great communication and content is at the heart of all successful trade businesses.
You’re an expert at what you do, but without content no one can find you on Google, no one will know you have the tools to solve their problem, and no one will see you’re an expert worth spending money on.
Except content doesn’t grow on trees.
It takes time to publish content that’s long enough, and helpful enough, to rank on Google. It’s likely the bulk of your time as a tradie is taken up replying to quotes, organising call-outs, and handling the day-to-day running of your business – all tasks you know like the back of your hand.
With so much on your plate, you might be wondering what your options are to create content, and whether you should handle the writing responsibilities, since you know the most about your business.
Read on to learn the #1 rule for creating content if you want to tackle the job yourself, how we use that rule to save you time and money, plus how to write your own content if you’re new to writing for the internet.
The #1 rule for creating content
You don’t have to be a pro writer to know the difference between good copy and bad copy. If you’ve ever been on Google and found a page that’s confusing, filled with spelling errors, and rambles on – then you’ve seen a bad copy.
On the flipside, good copy is to the point, free of mistakes, and helps people overcome the problems they’re facing. The reason this is so important is because your trades business won’t grow just because you have the cheapest prices or the flashest website.
Your trades business grows when your customers trust you.
Extra quote requests, calls and sales all come from trust. When people trust you, they spend their money with you. And trust is developed by consistently providing great content that helps people. That means each article, blog or web page you write has to be:
✔ Free of spelling mistakes
✔ Long enough to cover a topic in depth
✔ Written using easy-to-understand words
✔ Showcasing your unique expertise
✔ Addressing the readers problem and offers solutions
✔ Answering questions the reader didn’t even know they had yet
There’s no point half-assing content if you can’t tick these boxes. You can’t slap together a 10-minute blog and expect Google to reward you with rankings. It’s only by figuring out what your audience needs help with, finding the keywords they use to search for help online, and creating valuable content around both of those factors that your content will have an impact.
You’re probably wondering how an SEO agency could possibly write about installing benchtops or clearing gutters, and that’s a fair thought. At Tradie Digital we use a content writing system to make sure content is error-free, full of value, and directly addresses a reader’s problems.
If you want content that’s optimised to rank on Google but you don’t want to write it yourself, you can skip the rest of the article and use the link below to save time.
Switch Your Marketing Spend to Us, and We’ll Increase Your Return On Investment or We’ll Give You $300
Take advantage of our 3 simple rules for writing your own content
We know some tradies want to give writing a go so we’ve rounded up 3 super simple writing tips that anyone can use to write like a pro.
Because there’s nothing stopping you from being the full-time content writer for your own trades website. If you’ve got a spare few hours each night after work and you’re keen to learn how to write for the web, there’s no barrier to entry.
Anyone can sit down at a laptop and start writing. But writing with the web isn’t the same as knocking up an email or replying to questions your leads send to your inbox.
55% of people will spend 15 seconds or less on your website, so you have to grab their attention instantly. But if you don’t make every paragraph of your content jump off the page, you’ll still lose a site visitor’s interest eventually.
There are so many articles and guides on writing content that you could spend all week going through them. But since you’ve got better things to do, we’ve rounded up the most important content writing tips you’ll need if you want to stand out as an expert.
#1 – Don’t half-ass it
Rushed jobs are more likely to end up with mistakes and poor results, and that goes for builders and bloggers alike. If you’re going to write your own content you’ll need to know what keywords to target, and match what your competition has written.
Need more info on finding the right keywords for your content? Discover the keyword research approach that leads to higher rankings and more leads
That doesn’t mean you need to smash out 10,000 words, but a couple of paragraphs isn’t going to cut it either. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes and ask yourself how much info you’d want if you were learning about a new topic.
Wondering how much content you’ll need to rank on Google? Get the facts!
#2 – Get to the point
Your potential customers are busy, they don’t want to sit through boring content if it’s not going to help them. They’ll decide within seconds if your content is what they’re looking for, so be upfront with what you’ll learn.
Check out the top of this article as an example, within seconds you learned that we create content for our clients designed to boost rankings traffic and sales. You also learned that we’d teach you how to write content if you were interested. We don’t make you wait for the info you came here for, so don’t make your audience wait either.
#3 – Keep it simple
You’re not trying to win any awards, so keep your language simple. Short words and short sentences are easy to read. And your customers will be drawn from line to line when you get it right. Notice how short our sentences are? That’s no accident.
If in doubt, write the way you speak. It’s the easiest way to make sure your content sounds the same as you do when you speak to a lead on the phone.
“How do you write my content if you don’t know anything about my industry?”
This is a common concern among tradesperson business.
Writing content takes hours and hours of focus and practice each week. Once the option to create your own content becomes unrealistic, you’ll need to find someone to write all the content for you. But here’s the problem – how could a writer possibly understand your business inside and out the way you do?
Well here’s the trade secret… they don’t have to.
“Can I rank on Google with content I wrote myself?”
Anyone can screw in a lightbulb, but it takes skill to install an antique crystal chandelier.
You can sit down after work each afternoon and bang out a blog, but you need to understand how Google works if you want to rank that blog online.
If you want to write just so you can send links to your word of mouth clients, you won’t need an agency. With the 3 tips we gave you above you’ll be able to write content that’s clear, to the point, and easy to read.
But if you want your content to appear on Google, drive traffic to your site, and attract leads while you sleep, you’ll need to work with an SEO agency. It probably sounds like we’re biased (since we are an SEO agency) but it’s the truth that SEO copywriting is a skill.
You’ll need keyword research tools to find the most relevant keywords, competitor analysis tools to track the performance of your competition’s content, and more than a few years of skin in the game to write content that makes people go ““wow, THAT is a business who understands my problem”.
Interested in ranking your blog posts but don’t have the time to create content?
