Should I write my own web copy?

[Warren Cottis]

Up

0

::

I looked so some thoughts…

– make your logo smaller
– between the words “Providing” and “Handyman” … put Guaranteed
– ditch the techno Phone Call stuff… it will just scare people
– ditch all the social media buttons in that spot and replace with quick links to View My Work and also Testimonials
– stop trying to learn how to be a web design person

How much more money could you have made already just playing to your Strengths… that is, what you are already good at? … politelly said

[gingerbeardhs]

Up

0

::

Thanks Warren,

I’m working on a logo re-work at the moment so that I can make it smaller yet still readable.

The phone call stuff is important as my stats tell me I get about 25% of traffic via mobile devices. I want them to be able to call me easily. Is there a better way to accomplish this?

I also get contacted via social media and use it to manage my portfolio, so I’m also reluctant to drop it’s position. I may move them to the menu bar though.

WRT to webdesign, I am a Computer Science student and while I may have a learning curve for what makes a good design layout, I have no problem with coding the page. I also enjoy working on my website. I’m not taking time away from what I could be doing and I don’t think designing my page is beyond my skill. I’m happy to work on it when I can.

I’ll be working on the advice I’ve been given sofar and come back when I have implemented them to see how I can take things further

[Greg_M]

Up

0

::

gingerbeardhs, post: 238687, member: 84763 wrote:

Thanks Warren,

I’m working on a logo re-work at the moment so that I can make it smaller yet still readable.

The phone call stuff is important as my stats tell me I get about 25% of traffic via mobile devices. I want them to be able to call me easily. Is there a better way to accomplish this?

I also get contacted via social media and use it to manage my portfolio, so I’m also reluctant to drop it’s position. I may move them to the menu bar though.

WRT to webdesign, I am a Computer Science student and while I may have a learning curve for what makes a good design layout, I have no problem with coding the page. I also enjoy working on my website. I’m not taking time away from what I could be doing and I don’t think designing my page is beyond my skill. I’m happy to work on it when I can.

I’ll be working on the advice I’ve been given sofar and come back when I have implemented them to see how I can take things further

I won’t buy into anything else, but for some services “touch to call” on mobile works a treat in my opinion and having the number front and centre is important.

I usually put it in the navbar (sticky/fixed) so it stays in view always at mobile screen sizes or any other size for that matter… if you replace “navbar-brand” class with the number you’re good to go. Currently it’s just “GBHS” looping back to root but no indication it’s your home page.

Have a look at this one to see what I’m on about, different font end framework but same principal (and this site does get heaps of calls-see rant in another thread).

http://wazzaswater.com.au Give him a call to see if he reckons it works.

Cheers

[thekindconsultant]

Up

0

::

The user experience, with that big header, isn’t very pleasant. Like Bert, I clicked on your menu items and didn’t think they were loading because they were loading below the fold.

The copy is not too bad, it’s the design that needs a lot of work first I think. I appreciate that you like doing web design, but it sounds like your business is what’s going to put the money in the bank. You should be focusing on your business and not playing with HTML and CSS.

Bite the bullet and publish your site on reputable CMS platform like WordPress. Google is going to prefer it and it will take a lot less work. Find a suitable theme – pay a few dollars for this – and tweak it to suit. Then you can concentrate on things that really matter.

[gingerbeardhs]

Up

0

::

I plan on working on the design, I’m happy to use a template when I find one that I like. I have short listed a couple already.

Is there a reason I should use a cms over HTML & CSS when I’m comfortable using this method already? The last time I used wordpress (about a year ago), I felt constrained to exactly the template I was using. Using pure html and css, I feel I have better control of the design. I’d be happy to revisit a cms if I can have the control I’m after.

I know my way around the code, though I lack the creativity around design. I also don’t mind taking the time to learn about the design side. I don’t think a well designed website is beyond my capability for something pretty decent.

[thekindconsultant]

Up

0

::

There’s three main reasons why I recommend using a CMS like WordPress over designing/coding a site yourself:

1. The SEO aspects are great straight out of the box. With respect, based on the structure of your existing site and your approach to copy, your understanding of SEO is basic at best. All the important technical SEO stuff will work pretty well out of the box with a good WordPress theme.

2. Less time building and maintaining the site. WordPress, as you’re aware, is largely plug ‘n’ play. If you’re serious about growing your business you’re probably better off spending less time fiddling with your design and more time working on copy and SEO, writing content, and experimenting with AdWords and Facebook Ads.

3. For less than $100 you can get a nice theme that is designed with UX best-practice in mind. With a good, paid theme you’re getting the product of hundreds if not thousands of hours of deliberate design, but the best UX people in the world. To me, that sounds like a good investment. What is it you’re so unhappy about with the WordPress themes you have used/seen? Most free ones are crap, indeed. Spend a few bucks.

[gingerbeardhs]

Up

0

::

I really do appreciate you taking the time for helping me.

There are a few themes out there that I’d like to use, and I don’t mind paying for the one I’d want. The issue I would have is tweaking part of the design to what I would want to represent.

For example, I really like this theme http://quanticalabs.com/wp_themes/renovate/
and I’d be happy to set it up on my website too but I have issues with how difficult it would be to make some customisations that would better fit my logo or to move the call to action, for example. If I can change something like that easily then I’d be more open to exploring wordpress again.

I did find that wordpress did well in updating all the pages at once, which would be easier but I found the draw back to customisation too much.

[Mischelle]

Up

0

::

Hi Tait,

I use that theme but I use WordPress as I don’t have the skills for custom HTML, if I did I would go for straight HTML.

The WordPress theme has some custom functions but it comes with the heavy VC plugin.

You can simply buy the HTML template of the same theme so you get to use your code skills and someone else takes care of the design. (http://quanticalabs.com/home/portfolio/renovate-html-template/)

[gingerbeardhs]

Up

0

::

Thanks Mischelle,

If you are using that theme, could you tell me how easy it was to set up and customise?

I’ve also found the Total Theme that looks good but it may also be a compromise

[Greg_M]

Up

0

::

Have you checked out https://wrapbootstrap.com or similar, there’s plenty of themes there you can hack to suit without getting into the internal machinery of WordPress.

If you intend on publishing a lot of content then maybe WordPress is the go, but personally if your not, I don’t think it’s worth the performance overhead and maintenance.

I’ll get yelled down, but I think it’s a nightmare unless your a specialist…

[gingerbeardhs]

Up

0

::

Thanks Greg,

My current website is using bootstrap, though it is a pretty basic version.

The Total WP Theme is supposed to be pretty good in allowing me to customise the layout, as well as not being heavily bloated.

I like the idea of design changes occur across the whole site, as opposed to having to change each additional change.

I’ll give it some thought before I make big changes

[Greg_M]

Up

0

::

gingerbeardhs, post: 238790, member: 84763 wrote:

Thanks Greg,

My current website is using bootstrap, though it is a pretty basic version.

The Total WP Theme is supposed to be pretty good in allowing me to customise the layout, as well as not being heavily bloated.

I like the idea of design changes occur across the whole site, as opposed to having to change each additional change.

I’ll give it some thought before I make big changes

It’s why I suggested that site, figured you where already familiar with .
Bootstrap.

Some of the WP themes are pretty handy I guess, but I could never figure out why you’d want to do round trips on a network just to bring back static pages from a database, then harden it to keep the bots out, add plugins to cache it and make the URLS easily indexable, put it on a CDN to make it load quickly, update it regularly…unless you’re publishing content often.

I’m sure you’ll come up with the right solution.

Cheers

[Mischelle]

Up

0

::

gingerbeardhs, post: 238769, member: 84763 wrote:

Thanks Mischelle,

If you are using that theme, could you tell me how easy it was to set up and customise?

I’ve also found the Total Theme that looks good but it may also be a compromise

Hi Tait,

The Renovate theme for WP is very easy to make minor changes if you use their settings and options panel. If you want to do custom changes, make sure to set up a child theme, otherwise you will loose your settings on updates.

Setup is super easy, one click install of demo data, if I can do it in 10 minutes so can you.

Their options panel is good, but limited, mostly just logos, fonts and colours, so don’t expect to do masses of changes in the options panel.

I have also used Total LOL, I can’t believe we are picking the same ones. Total I found was a big theme, it has many plugins and harder to make changes, but it has a larger option panel, but I changed themes to Renovate as I needed to get started sooner.

BUT, you have a higher level of html and CSS than I do, so it may be all good for you.

I have purchased so many themes, and played with many websites, some for my family as well. I have found that Renovate is really easy to use.

THEME OPTION IN RENOVATE:

[MEDIA=youtube]liJ7bqdIDM4[/MEDIA]

[JamesMawson]

Up

0

::

From a copywriter’s POV:

My favourite clients to work with can all do a half-decent job on their own.

Why do they hire me then? They have the rest of their business to worry about and/or it’s worth the money for them to have something incrementally better.

So if you’ve got the time and the interest level to learn a bit about web copy, I’d say get stuck in. It’s a great investment in your skills that will serve you well whether you hire a pro later on or you don’t.

The link in my sig might be of some help here

Regarding HTML/CSS websites – if you’re already doing that, stick with it. Now that you are over the hurdle of being able to work with HTML tags, it’s going to be a lot easier for you to stick with what you know.

In the long run, HTML sites are far less work. You’ll never have to update your CMS and plugins to keep your website secure. On CMS websites, inevitably some part of the website breaks with an update at some point.

The load time on an HTML site kicks butt too

The big advantages of WordPress for most businesses are:

1) Pretty much everyone in the office can learn how to work on the website
2) You can make sitewide changes very quickly
3) All the 3rd party support

I’m not certain that any of that is a really big deal for a one-man handyman operation.

You do need to go for a much professional design though. The lucky thing here is that you can have your cake and eat it too. There’s no shortage of gorgeous HTML5 website templates you can download for free on an open source licence. Go for something responsive, that looks great on your phone as well as your desktop.

You definitely don’t wanna spend hours tweaking stuff. In my experience, premium WordPress themes are actually a lot more work to tweak than an HTML template. You can just write the HTML elements in directly to the HTML file. Whereas the themes all have their own back end that you have to work out, and there’s often a buttload of shortcodes to learn too. They’re all set up a little differently.

[Trent Tran]

Up

0

::

[USER=84763]@gingerbeardhs[/USER] , fiverr.com is a budget way to go. It is hard to go wrong with 5-star seller. To be honest with you, they are not bad considered the price paid. With SEO I do not recommend as you need to provide your admin store access. However with copy writing, $25 USD is quite reasonable for 1000 words edit.
With logo design, you can do a shopping on fiverr too.You could also view their works. Your call !

Most of us in this forrum is “flying solo”, it is hard to afford someone at $90 per hour + GST. Like bb1 said, “that is a lot of lawn mowed”. For a small retailer, it is even harder.

The sales funnel here has changed, people search something online, then go to physical store to test them out, even do a price comparison on their mobile. 3 hours later, when sitting at their comfy sofas at home, they decided to buy online, the very same model but 20% different in price. that $90/ hour in copy writing, mmmmm… I would think again.

[Author]

Posts