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[00:00:00]  Saul: Hi everybody, and welcome to the Web Design Brisbane Podcast. This is episode number nine. And today's episode is entitled Website Content Writer Brisbane. My name is Saul Edmonds, and as usual, I'm joined by the lovely Gillian Smith.

[00:00:13]  Gillian: Good morning soul and Hello, everybody. 

[00:00:15]  Saul: Yes, hello, exactly. We are the co-founders and creative directors or brand has the creative agency, local business with a passion for helping our clients got a video job.

[00:00:24]  Gillian: Okay, well, today we'll talk about website content, how to find a professional website content writer, when to use a content writer. And more broadly, why great content is so important for every website. Our goal is to help small business owners, start-ups and entrepreneurs in the city of Brisbane, Australia, take their opportunities to the next level with brilliant website design. If you're from another location, or city, welcome. Thanks for joining us today and we hope we can help you grow your business in the online space.

[00:00:59]  Saul:  Okay, so what are today's topics?  

[00:01:01] Gillian: Okay, so your website content, that's the text, paragraphs, the articles to read your website and should you write them yourself? When should you work with a professional content writer? Why is content so important? Anyway, let's stick around while we chat about these topics and more. 

[00:01:18]  Saul: Yeah, let's get started.

[00:01:19]  Gillian: Okay, but let's start with this simple overview question, Saul. Why is quality website content so important today?

[00:01:29] Saul: Okay, well, it's always been important hasn't had that content is king phrase comes up yet again. And again. So content is king means not only that, well, yeah. Content is great. But ultimately, your website is really a facility that looks great to house content because that's what it's all about, like when you go in the marriage. 

[00:01:53]  Gillian: your (chemical) marriage, hit, content, and design.  

[00:01:57]  Saul: That's right. (Yeah, what are those two words mean), then you've got awesome. So website content. Initially, we all know that when you come into a website, your initial impact is just purely visual, you're just looking that's all you're doing. People don't start necessarily reading straight away as soon as they join in so website content, so important for a couple of key reasons. First of all, just back to that same or very important point, which is branding, is that everything, your content, everything that we will ever talk about, and probably will always talk about, always, always  from design, development, content, everything comes back to your brand. 

[00:02:49]  Gillian:  As a single underlying message. It's not just a logo, it's a message. 

[00:02:53]  Saul: It's a yeah, and that's really the foundation, your value proposition, what you really present, how you want to come across to people, how much your content is, then like you to it doesn't have to be exactly like you, but your message to city.

[00:03:12]  Gillian:  How does your branding inform your decisions about what content to include on your website?

[00:03:17]  Saul: Okay, so from an ideal perspective, what you would do is, before you even start this, you would have a set of brand guidelines that may have been established over time, or depending on what level your business is actually, where you actually establish things like your value proposition, your brand story, things that you are one going to save you time when you get to this point on your website. So you've got a set of guidelines, if you will, to follow that you can always refer back to and go, yeah,  these are the key things we need to always remind ourselves of that we're going to be talking about. Yeah,  there's things that will always be your ....  

[00:04:08]  Gillian: So your brand is not just visual, your brain controls your messaging, and content gets back to your messaging. 

[00:04:14]  Saul: Yeah, that's right. So your content is obviously the way that you represent that in a range of different ways.

[00:04:20]  Gillian: Now regarding web content,  is it a good idea of people write their own website content? Like what is the pros and cons of writing your own website content?

[00:04:30]  Saul: Okay, so pros and cons, I don't know whether they're really even comes into it because in one respect, some people will have to, because it's not in their budget, to hire somebody to write content for them and despite what anyone like ourselves, or anyone else would think that's going to be the reality for some people. But it doesn't mean, even if you're going to write your own content, some people probably have more of a predisposition to do that but it doesn't mean that we still can't talk about had the same conversations about trying to have the right messaging.  If you are really going to get down to what really matters, having been written by a professional, who knows the correct way to do that and the other little trick is how to make that working with content that's also optimized for search engines so that's the other little trickier. Is that, to do those two things, at the same time, is quite a skill. 

[00:05:43]  Gillian: And you experienced to most people right around the corner, small business people, or do they generally outsource that? 

[00:05:50]  Saul: Most people do? Yeah. That's to be expected to, I guess one of the other reasons why people do that is because they know their business, and people and people figure that they should and many cases, that's there's a lot of truth in that even when you're going to get a professionally written content on your site, the writer needs to have a series of conversations or have an understanding from the client anyway, because they need to, and we as a part of what we do, need and want to understand what that messaging is, and that needs to originally come from the client, because they know their business best and we're helping them.

[00:06:44]  Gillian: So professional content writer really brings additional things to the table, such as making your content really on target, making it really targeted towards conversion, and comically saying what you want to say in the shortest possible, possible way, what are the things that they bring to the table? 

[00:07:06]  Saul: Yeah, so the other things then, too, especially if you've got people who might have highly technical information. Yeah, one thing that happens with in that scenario, but with a lot of people is a lot of people get caught up in feeling that they need to explain things much more than they actually need to. So that's where I copywriter who in effect, sometimes has the role of an editor information that it provided to them needs to distil that down into a clear message that isn't going to waffle too much is going to be to the point. And like we were saying before, has value for SEO for keywords, and a range of other things.

[00:07:58]  Gillian:  A number of watchpoints.  

[00:08:00]  Saul: Yeah. And then also, to keep on target for who the target audiences too, because that's another factor we didn't actually speak about before, but that's really crucial to course. 

[00:08:14] Gillian: So for people who are considering using a professional content writer, what sort of pricing can they expect and give some overview, have you experienced this, Saul? 

[00:08:23]  Saul: Okay, so people will charge I guess, like content writers or with a lot of services, in the creative industries, they will often charge on a,  hourly rate, just purely on an hourly rate based on a brief or they'll have a flat fee for certain sorts of services, most of that will be structured around  the amount of  two key things initially, which will be the amount of content that they have to write, and the perceived level of extra research and complexity that they need to get a handle on in order to write a...

[00:09:11]  Gillian: If can assist with research and background information that will keep costs down. 

[00:09:14]  Saul: Yeah, potentially. But then, ultimately, somebody still has to distil things down into something that's going to be manageable and easy to read so that's going to range, once again, it's how long is a piece of string, sometimes very long, sometimes  very short so if you need to have an About Us page written on a website, that's,  500 words that might be for some people and hours work. Depending on if that needs to be more complex. For whatever reason, it could be two, three times that, but that comes down to two, once again, a good quality brief that's provided and from someone like us interpreting that in the correct way so everybody's on the same page.

[00:10:11]  Gillian: Okay, just a word on pricing guide, what can you expect to (inaudible)

[00:10:12]  Saul: Back to pricing.

[00:10:20]  Gillian: I'm trying to establish that.

[00:10:21]  Saul: Oh, yeah, that's right. I mean some people, some I know… 

[00:10:26]  Gillian: I know you can't stay, but just that really ballpark figure. So one page 500 words, what would be just a general pricing would be? Everything does come back to price. 

[00:10:39]  Gillian: For all the right reasons.

[00:10:41]  Saul: Yeah, so if you've got $120 an hour, hypothetically, and that page ends up being an hour's work, which 

[00:10:52]  Gillian: shall we say? 

[00:10:53]  Saul: Yeah, why might end up being two hours so that would be 240.

[00:10:59]  Gillian:  Get it out there. That's gives you at least a way to work out, how pricing is worked out. But that varies from person to person too

[00:11:12]  Gillian: This would be a very experienced quality writer with, 10 to 15 years professional experience, and so we're talking about. 

[00:11:20]  Saul: Yeah, that's right. Okay, I think that's about it for today, guys. Thank you so much for listening and before we go, please don't forget to write, review and subscribe to this podcast. We'd love to hear your feedback. We're on a journey to help local Brisbane businesses grow the opportunities online and exceed their goals. Thanks for listening and we'll see you tomorrow. Bye.