Copywriting vs. Content Writing: What’s The Difference?
Though people often use the terms interchangeably, copywriting and content writing actually have some key differences. Depending on what your company is trying to accomplish, it’s important to understand the distinctions between the two, and which one can help you achieve your current business goals. Let’s look at copywriting vs. content writing and see which one is right for your business.
What Is Copywriting?
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Copywriting is a style of writing that motivates and convinces readers to interact with a company or business, such as calling, purchasing products and services, or visiting a website. The primary purpose of copywriting is advertisement and marketing. Companies want to entice readers to their website, e-commerce store, or business with the end goal of increasing their sales and revenue.
What Is Content Writing?
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Content writing is a style of writing that’s aimed at informing its readers and providing them with quality or entertaining knowledge. Companies then pair this content with different goals, though they vary from business to business. Some companies might use it to improve their brand awareness, while others might use it to improve their conversion or bounce rate. Brands often use this style of writing in unique pieces of content, such as blogs, articles, eBooks, and white papers.
Copywriting vs. Content Writing
Here are the key differences between copywriting and content writing:
Purpose
The main purpose of copywriting is to increase sales. The main purpose of content writing is to share engaging and beneficial information with readers. But that doesn’t mean companies can’t use content writing to still increase their sales or accomplish other marketing goals. Often, when readers appreciate the content and its information, they feel motivated to interact with the brand in other ways, including making a purchase.
It’s all about how businesses structure their content and how they balance quality information with sales tactics. One of the most common ways that brands use content writing to attract new customers is through calls-to-action (CTAs). CTAs encourage readers to perform an action that allows them to further interact with the company. This can include signing up for an email newsletter, reading additional content, or making a purchase.
Types of Content
Though copywriting and content writing both involve written information, they each focus on different types. Copywriting works with any type of writing that benefits a company’s marketing. This includes website content, product descriptions, sales copy, and pay-per-click advertisements. Content writing, on the other hand, focuses on content that engages with the reader while delivering helpful information. That’s why content writing works best with blogs, research articles, and eBooks.
Careers
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Though copywriters and content writers both accomplish similar tasks, their careers can have a slightly different trajectory. Because copywriters focus on writing sales copy, they often have background and experience in marketing. They understand how to entice readers to learn more about a company or make a purchase. They don’t always have to write quality, informative content, just content that catches your attention.
Content writers can have different backgrounds to pursue their careers. It’s important to entice readers to make a purchase or interact with the company further, but content writers foremost need to understand how to write in a way that engages with the audience. Copywriters find expert knowledge by working with marketers and marketing departments but can develop their skills by creating other forms of content through journalism, fiction writing, and other types of creative, written work.
Marketing and SEO
Search engine optimization (SEO) is something you can perform on your website and content to make it easier to find on search engines. Don Dodds recently wrote an article for Forbes that mentions how useful content writing is for SEO. He explains that content writing will always outperform copywriting because “…it doesn’t express commercial intent. Rather, content writing is purely informational, so readers enjoy consuming and sharing it.” When more people think your content is informative and high quality, they’re more likely to share it with friends and come back to your brand for more content in the future.
Those are both excellent ways to boost your SEO efforts and increase your ranking on search engines.
Which Style of Writing Should You Use?
Why not both? Combining excellent copy, like product descriptions, with informative and engaging content, like blogs and white papers, is the perfect way to attract audiences to your brand and increase your sales. CopyPress has a team of writing, editing, and quality assurance specialists who know how to perform both styles of writing and expertly craft content and copy for your business. Schedule a free call with us today to learn how we can help boost your content marketing campaign while developing enticing product descriptions for your site.
CopyPress writer
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