The other day I was asked by a friend to explain in simple terms what a UK copywriter does. What follows is a summary of our conversation organised into the top 3 things that a UK copywriter can do for your business, regardless of size, industry, or style.

#1 – Clarity

This is the most important reason to use a professional UK copywriter.

Clarity means “clearness or lucidity as to perception or understanding; freedom from indistinctness or ambiguity.” (from Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/clarity, accessed: June 22, 2011.)

You know more about your business than anyone else in the world, which is proper. But that is a dangerous thing for communication, because your understanding and perception are full of the details. When you know a lot about something, it’s very difficult to explain it clearly (understanding), and to do so without using the lingo (ambiguity).

Professional UK copywriters, like the ones here at Big Star Copywriting, take what you know and write it in a way that allows your customers to understand what you offer, how they benefit, and what it costs. And we do it in a way stands out from your competitors.

We give clarity and distinctness to your business communications.

#2 – Time

Good writing takes planning, revising, editing, and reviewing. Good writing takes time.

If writing ‘isn’t your thing,’ it probably takes you a lot more time than you’d like it to.

Professionally trained UK copywriters can give you back your time in 2 ways:

I. We are able to write quickly because it’s our profession.
II. While we are doing the writing, you can get on with doing business.

This is incredibly cost-effective. In a typical website project of designing and developing a website from scratch, the cost of copywriting will be around 10%-15% of the budget – that’s not much considering that the words are what motivates your reader to buy from you!

We have the skills and confidence to quickly give clarity and distinctness to your business communications, saving you time.

#3 – Results

Have you ever thought about how a title gets results, or how your closing sentence gets results?

Because that’s what UK copywriters think about – results.

We are obsessed with getting your business the results it needs to succeed. We are constantly reviewing our writing to make it more successful. If it’s not performing, we rewrite it. If your offer isn’t converting, we ask questions about the words like “What if we tried using ‘no cost’ instead of ‘free’?”

We provide clear and distinct marketing and communications writing that gets results for business.

If you really want to know what a UK copywriter can do for your business, here is a quote from one of our clients who have used us for a further 5 websites:

“We are really pleased with the outcome of our first two projects with Big Star Copywriting, the Europlas site is ranking exceptionally well with organic SEO and they have already made a profit against the site development costs which is amazing considering it has only been live for a month!” Epwin Group

If you would like to talk to a UK copywriter about what we can do for your business, call us on 01803 865 025 or contact us.

All hail Wiki. That much maligned source of reference material for student theses and web copywriters the world over is 10 years old. In an effort to maintain the site as purely a reference source and to avoid the relentless march of advertising, Wiki founder Jimmy Wales has recently appealed for donations from users to protect the site and keep it free of charge and free from advertising. But why should a UK copywriter donate to Wikipedia?

A global influence

Wiki has often been accused of being inaccurate. Because it is an ‘open source’ site, anyone can write a Wiki page and post it onto the website. But Wiki has taken accusations of inaccuracy very seriously and in recent years has made a concerted effort to clean up the site. Wiki has more than 380million users across it and its sister sites every month. That’s almost a third of the Internet-connected world. It is the 5^th most popular website in the world and differs from the top four in that it isn’t maintained with billions of dollars of investment, incessant marketing and a huge multi-national payroll of staff. While the advice is always to cross check any information against a second or even third source, nine times out of ten the information you find on Wiki is accurate, concise and relevant.

Accurate? That’ll be a yes, then…

But, in an attempt to practice what I preach about cross-referencing, don’t just take my word for the accuracy of Wiki. The journal Nature carried out a survey to discover if the accusations of inaccuracy were true by comparing the information on Wiki to that given by the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The results were surprising. Both publications had roughly the same number of errors. According to Nature, Wikipedia had an average of 2.86 errors per article while the Encyclopaedia Britannica had an average of 2.92 mistakes per article.

The survey was carried out in 2005 and since then Wiki has installed a system of employing editors to check the accuracy of pages. Editors now moderate entries and they ensure that the facts on the pages are backed up by linked resources that can be verified. Entries that don’t have accurate resources are clearly indicated as having uncited facts.

Access all areas for UK copywriters

A UK copywriter is under a great deal of pressure to create content, often about a topic that they are unfamiliar with. In this instance, the first port of call is often Wiki to get a general overview of a subject. In that role, Wiki is invaluable to a copywriter – it is an instant access encyclopaedia of knowledge. At Big Star Content we use Wiki frequently, although we always stress to our copywriters the importance of cross-referencing material for accuracy. It is not our only source of information, but it can be a useful starting point from which we create interesting, informative and accurate content for a wide range of clients.

Changing the world

So we’re in favour of the principles of Wiki. We support what Wiki is trying to do – in Jimmy Wales’ words; “[Wikipedia] is a community creation. People like us write Wikipedia, one word at a time. People like us fund it, one donation at a time. It’s proof of our collective potential to change the world.” If you’re a UK copywriter and you use Wiki, perhaps it’s time you showed your gratitude by donating to the appeal. Freedom of information is crucial, but it often comes at a price. And it’s a price we should all be prepared to pay, if only in a small way through a donation to our favourite ‘go to’ site.