And before, writers were held in high esteem. Aristocrats accepted pen and word masters in their homes, invited them to various events and looked forward to the next work. Times have changed: now copywriters have come to replace writers, and they use a regular computer with an Internet connection to work. No romance, but the name is beautiful. But still, who is this copywriter, and what does he do?
Who is a copywriter?
Perhaps a few years ago, the word "copywriting" could scare humanities students, but today it is a very profitable business that you can do without leaving your home and without investments. A beautiful fairy tale, isn't it? But what is the real situation?
Today, there are many definitions as to who a copywriter is and what is his responsibility. Someone assures that this is a marketer and advertiser, and someone says that this is a person who simply writes articles on websites. In a word, it comes down to the following: a copywriter is a person who creates unique text material. The work of a copywriter is to create texts of different formats. This can be advertising or selling articles, information content, slogans, landings, scripts, etc.
What should a copywriter do?
If the work of a copywriter is to write text, then we can assume that everyone who knows the alphabet and can add several sentences from words can become a copywriter. It’s good that it’s not so. The work of a copywriter involves the execution of more complex, exclusively professional duties:
- Rewriting . Creating a unique text based on the finished article while maintaining the structure and main idea.
- Revision and correction . A copywriter is required to write correctly and use terminology correctly.
- Slogan and headline. If we are talking about a selling text, we cannot do without catchy statements that will increase the level of conversion.
- Picture. Both the uniqueness of the text and the uniqueness of the images affect the promotion of the resource, and often the copywriter is faced with the problem of choosing a thematic image for the text.
- SEO optimization. Each copywriter should be able to harmoniously insert keywords into the text.
Writing well does not define a good copywriter. Literacy and uniqueness. Only an author with these qualities can become a competitive person in the information business.
Troubles
And yet, how to become a copywriter? Since there are few miracles happening in the world, the likelihood that one day a good uncle will appear and say: “Write, my friend, you have talent”, is extremely low. Therefore, everyone who wants to work in copywriting has to look for work on their own. And often newcomers get to sites like Copywriter.com (reviews about it are not the most flattering).
Becoming a copywriter
To avoid troubles, those who want to work in copywriting should know how the “homeland begins”:
- Registration on content and freelance exchanges . On such sites you can find many suggestions for writing text. In addition, most of these sites insure performers. That is, they can have no doubt that they will receive payment for their work.
- Search for an order .
- Writing a project .
- Delivery of the order .
Actually, this is the whole algorithm of work. As you can see from the example, a copywriter is not such a difficult profession, especially if there is any knowledge about who this copywriter is and what he does.
Varieties of copywriting
Not every aspiring copywriter knows that there are several varieties of his profession. In general, there are 4 main types of work:
1. Rewriting. Recently, one of the most common phenomena. Since there are not enough qualified specialists for all the resources, and everyone wants to make money using the Internet, a phenomenon such as rewriting has arisen. This is when they create new text based on an already written article. In the end, it turns out to be 100% original text, although without even a hint of an author’s thought.
2. Image copywriting. The text creates and maintains the image of a resource or product. Today, the expression "site image" is very popular. Since there are several million resources on the Web, correctly written PR texts help the consumer find among this one million the only, best, resource.
3. LSi-copywriting. This phenomenon appeared in 2013. At that time, search engines changed the search algorithm, and robots began to rank articles not by key queries in the text, but by how much the text answers the user's question, that is, they began to measure its information content.
4. Selling texts. Articles with a volume of 1800 to 3000 zbp. That briefly available and clearly describe the proposed product or service. Such texts have a special structure: catchy headline, “problem paragraph”, sale of an object, sale of price, call to purchase.
5. SEO copywriting . Initially, when ranking resources, search engines focused on the presence of key queries in the text. In this regard, each copywriter should have been able to harmoniously enter the keyword into the text. Now much less attention is paid to this, but no one has canceled the presence of a couple of keywords in the text.
Do I need to study?
Since anyone can become a copywriter, it is worth thinking about training. Actually, does a copywriter need to learn this profession? Today, there are many courses at which practicing writers teach beginners in this field.
Each of the so-called teachers at the courses of copywriters talks about what he is good at. Someone teaches how to write landing pages, someone talks about the basics of creating selling texts, and someone gives practical advice on how to make the text interesting. If you think and analyze, it is difficult to find a resource that would offer comprehensive training for a copywriter. In addition, the vast majority of speakers are self-taught. Everything they talk about in the courses, they learned in the process. Such classes are useful in their own way, but even if you visit them all, it is impossible to learn all about copywriting.
The work of a copywriter is primarily based on practice. Only daily practicing in writing texts, you can find out your strengths and weaknesses, find your own style and understand how to make articles interesting. In addition, it is necessary to stock up on specialized knowledge daily. That is, to study marketing, advertising, psychology, books written by prominent copywriters. It is also worth remembering that one who reads a lot writes well. Every day you need to read at least 20 pages of high-quality fiction.
But these are just general recommendations that will help improve the quality of work. In the issue of training in copywriting, personal characteristics of a person play a significant role, as well as a clear understanding of some truths:
- Copywriting has nothing to do with academic education.
- Copywriting is, first of all, the ability to communicate with people, hear their needs and speak their language.
- Texts need to live and breathe, make them your favorite work and hobby.
- Among the crowd of copywriters need to be able to stand out. It is necessary to write brightly, extraordinary and understandable, each time breaking their ideas about the text.
Cost
And yet, no matter how many people write before they buy it, he cannot be considered a copywriter. In this case, how much does the copywriter earn? It all depends on its environment. If a copywriter is looking for orders on content exchanges, then the payment for his work will be extremely low, especially if he is a beginner on the exchange. So, brand new pen masters on such resources receive from 10 to 50 rubles per 1000 zbp. At the initial stages, the authors earn a rating for themselves, and depending on how fast it grows, payment for orders also rises. But even in this case, it has an extreme boundary. The maximum cost of a highly rated copywriter order is from 100 to 200 rubles per 1000 zbp.
The situation on freelance exchanges is slightly better, where customers set a fixed project cost. In some cases, the cost of 1000 characters can range from 300 to 500 rubles.
But most of all, those copywriters who have their own websites with a portfolio, reviews and reasonable prices earn it the most. The names of these copywriters are known to the leaders of many companies and advertising agencies. Prices for their work are much higher than customers usually offer. For example, one information article costs from 2800 to 3500 rubles. The cost is indicated for all work, and not for the number of characters, as is customary on exchanges. In a good scenario, the author can earn about $ 2,000 per month.
Therefore, considering the side job of a copywriter as an additional and temporary phenomenon, many authors turn this employment into their main activity.
Habitat
Some resource owners wonder where to find a copywriter. The place of search directly depends on how much the customer is willing to spend on text. If he has bad finances, then he has a direct way to content exchanges. Only in this case the quality of work will correspond to the price. After all, do not look, but really smart and talented people rarely linger on exchanges.
If you want the price to match the quality, it is better to search for a copywriter on freelance exchanges. As practice shows, experienced and talented performers meet at such venues, which for a moderate fee will help solve the problem. The only thing that can upset the customer is the time that you will have to spend on finding an artist. Indeed, not only copywriters, but also representatives of other professions live on freelance exchanges.
If the customer needs gorgeous content for which it is not a pity for money, he can turn to trusted copywriters with a good reputation and a famous name (Dmitry Kot, Petr Panda, Ksenia Volkodav, etc.).
The risks
But not all cats have Shrovetide. Novice copywriters in the pursuit of high earnings or people who want to find work online, very often get into the networks of scams, such as the website Copywriter.com. Reviews about this resource will make everyone think, only if someone else had read them.
Therefore, the first rule of a novice freelancer should read as follows: "Before you register on a resource, you need to read the comments of other users about it."
Reviews about the work of Copywriter.com openly say that this site is nothing but a way to cash in on naive people.
Externally, the site is very similar to the real one, only the services here are somehow strange. Various services are painted here, but only without price. Next is the registration form. Numerous visitors "peck" at easy money (is it a joke, 40 thousand rubles a month, not even for copywriting, but for ordinary typing). Here are just reviews of Copywriter.com, show that this site is not intended to sell services at all.
And fairy tales
Visitors read about fabulous working conditions and imagine an easy and comfortable life. The information is very believable and really easy to believe. Only those who know how crooks act can feel safe.
After a beautiful fairy tale about easy money, the visitor is offered to register (it’s hard to refuse a freebie). By the way, this registration is not real. The user is assigned an ID number and informed that before starting work, he needs to pay an insurance fee - 650 rubles. A person must pay this amount as a guarantee that he will conscientiously carry out his work and not abandon the work that he has begun.
Such conditions are ridiculously ridiculous, in this way no one comes in and no one demands money from the workers. Whether the situation is on the Internet or in real life, a person who needs workers will not demand payment from them. Moreover, he understands that if someone is looking for work, then he obviously is not doing well with finances. Only scammers can ask for the opportunity to work.
That's just in the hope of better working conditions, a lot of people fell for the fraud of the site Copywriter.com. Feedback on the operation of this resource can be found and read. But only after a beautiful tale of decent and easy money, no one wants to be disappointed. People are ready to believe to the last and, if they demand money from them, they will give it back, just to believe a little more in the unrealizable.
Most often, pensioners come across such frauds. They believe, like children, in such beautiful stories and do not even think about looking for reviews about a particular resource. Everyone who registered on Copywriter.com gave their money away.
Now no one needs workers who will simply retype the text. Demand is used only by those who write unique articles, edit them and know how to “sell an elephant” using only two sentences. But even such shots are not valued as highly as described on Copywriter.com. It is worth going to any content exchange and then it becomes clear that only those who, without sparing themselves, create unique text materials day after day by copying themselves, investing in them a piece of themselves.