It’s been a funny old year for many reasons – probably because no one seems to know what is happening during this interim Brexit era.
But there have been a few positive changes in the world of copywriting – for Tech Write.
A shift in “visual” content
The past few years have seen a steady stream of requests for copy to accompany infographics and Slideshare presentations. In 2016 I was completing four or five each month. This year I have done a grand total of two.
Clearly the nature of web content evolves, but there are three reasons I suspect for the sudden death of infographics and Slideshare presentations:
1. Pretty infographics may have been ideal social media bait, but the embedded text is not easily indexed by Google’s spiders. Which means that infographics have a relatively short lifespan. And the same is true of the slides in an online presentation.
2. Customer preferences are shifting towards video, so more of the marketing budget is being diverted towards YouTube content.
3. Infographics have simply fallen out of favour with marketers (although this general dislike seems to be because Rand Fiskin says he hates them, rather than a genuine, personal dislike).
As a paid copywriter, I’m here to produce the content demanded by my clients’ marketing strategies – so a drop in demand for infographics makes no difference. Especially as…
More is more
…demand for long form content is way up. I’m not going to get entangled in a debate over perfect article lengths (there’s no such thing) because that way madness lies.
I will say that where 500 word articles were once considered sufficient, clients now want blog posts of 1000-1500 words. I’ve also seen a surge in demand for eGuides and white papers.
Good news for clients, good news for their content marketing campaigns, and good news for HMRC (and therefore you, UK taxpayer) who get a slice of every project I complete.
Yes, Tech Write accepts payment in Euros
I should also take this opportunity to remind you, dear reader, that white papers are a speciality of mine – and your customers love them too.
Brexit might be good for business?
The news is dominated by Brexit horror stories – such is the nature of the unknown. Unsurprisingly, the Pound has taken a hammering on the foreign currency markets.
Non-UK companies have been quick to take advantage. This year I’ve won new clients in Denmark, Moldova and the US. I’ve also seen increased orders from Spain, Ireland and Hong Kong – and that was before I offered a rate reduction for copywriting clients in the Eurozone.
In fact, foreign demand for native English copywriting has reached the point that I now accept payment in US Dollars and Euros.
Could it be that tech copywriting is a Brexit-resistant niche?
