• I Want What They’ve Got or Why You Shouldn’t Try to Copy Your Competitors’ Copy

      Apart from the obvious plagiarism side of things, there’s another excellent reason why you shouldn’t copy the same approach as your competitors. Every year I am asked, at least twice, by potential clients to “just write it as they’ve done it. We offer the same so you can use their content but just change […]

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  • The Age of Fake: Why Seeing and Reading Isn’t Believing

      It would seem that nothing is as it appears today. Magazines are regularly being hauled over the coals for airbrushing photos of celebrities to the point where their mothers would struggle to recognise them. Photo enhancing apps mean regular people (like you and me) can now retouch photos before uploading to Facebook or Instagram, […]

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  • Copywriting Ramblings and the Power of Random

      Will you indulge me for a moment? For over ten years I have been writing about every aspect of copywriting, marketing and social media I can think of. I’ve helped countless people improve their writing and find the writer (i.e. me) best able to help them achieve their aims. The one thing I’ve never […]

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  • Why Ignorance and Copywriting Go Hand in Hand

      Why should you go to the trouble of finding a copywriter who can create your content for you when you have a team of people already working with you? They all have the necessary basic qualifications for work and can write pretty well (some better than others). Granted, they’re often tied up with their […]

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  • Why Politicians Make Crap Copywriters

      You can’t escape politics these days. Elections are never-ending (rather like the DFS sale), and every news bulletin seems to include a couple of politicians flinging muck at each other. They (the politicians) complain that the public doesn’t engage with them – well that’s because they’re sick and tired of all the backbiting. It […]

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  • Let’s Face it. You’re Not Unique

    How to stand out when you don’t have a USP Every marketer (including me) says you have to highlight your USP (unique selling point) to make your reader understand why he or she should choose you. But I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently and conclude that very few business can honestly say they […]

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  • SEO Copywriting is NOT Bad Copy

      Here’s a news flash for you, SEO copywriting is not bad copy. Granted, there is a lot of gobbledygook out there pretending to be high-quality content, but it’s usually written by someone who has no idea what they are doing. It’s entirely their fault; they foolishly believe the BS that’s still floating around on […]

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  • Why Traffic Isn’t the Be All and End All of Your SEO Strategy

      Websites and SEO (search engine optimisation) go hand in hand. Your design, navigation, coding, and content all combine (or should combine) to deliver a robust SEO strategy that attracts visitors to your website through search marketing. The problem is if that’s all you’re looking at (i.e. the number of visitors coming to your site) […]

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  • Blogging Hell – Generating Ideas

      Every day, before I start client work, I try to write a blog. This has been my routine for the past ten years. Sometimes the ideas flow and, before I know it, another blog is scheduled for publication. On other days (like today) I have nothing, zilch, nada. I’ve been staring at my screen […]

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  • Why Aren’t People Reading Your Content?

      The simple answer to that question is because it bores the pants off them. Harsh words, but very true. Yes, you may well have spent hours labouring over your article. I’m sure it is incredibly well researched and has been proofread within an inch of its life, but that still doesn’t mean it’s interesting. […]

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