What Skills Do You Need to become a Digital Copywriter?

Copywriting become a career choice around the 1950s when traditional advertising started to skyrocket. Since then copywriting, overtime, has changed significantly. Today’s copywriting job looks quite different to what it did 50 years ago. The Internet came along and slowly started changing the game for everyone. Because of this, the demand for a good digital copywriter has increased tremendously.  Over time, the required skills to become a successful copywriter have also changed. This is what we will be having a closer look at in this article.

Are you thinking about becoming a digital copywriter? If so, here are a few skills you need in order to stand out from the crowd and be successful at digital copywriting.

ESSENTIAL SKILLS OF AN ONLINE AND DIGITAL COPYWRITER

Content Marketing Skills

Content marketing is a form of marketing that involves written, audio and visual content. It is a must-have for your digital marketing strategy. You might wonder why all these formats really need the expertise of a copywriter? Well, a visual piece of content still needs certain amount of copy, for example, a video needs a script. Magazine, social media and billboard ads need copy that resonate with its target audience. This is the main reason why it’s essential that copywriters understand how all these elements form part of a bigger digital marketing strategy.

A Good Understanding of Search Engine Optimisation

According to recent findings, almost 90% of all online purchases start with a search engine. This means that people tend to do some research first before they end up finding the product they need and the company they want to buy it from.  This is why search engine optimisation is such an important digital marketing tool. The better you understand how a search engine – like Google’s – algorithm works, the better you can compose the copy in order to boost your company’s webpage rankings.

Sound Knowledge of Social Media

Social media can be a prime driver when it comes to traffic to your website. However, social media shouldn’t be a one-size-fits-all approach.

For example, YouTube is where people go when they are looking for long-form video content. Facebook, on the other hand, is mostly accessed when people are looking to catch up with some of their closest friends and family. Instagram, however, serves more as an escape for entertainment, while Twitter is perfect for catching up on the latest news.

As you can see, all social media channels are different and that includes the user psychology behind them as well. Therefore, as a digital copywriter it’s essential that you adjust your message so that it fits in with the environment it will be shared on.

Conversion Rate Optimisation Skills

A conversion rate is a metric digital marketers use to determine how many people convert into a customer, subscriber, or any other specific goal the organisation might have. For example, if 100 visitors visit your company’s website, and one of the visitors convert into a subscriber, your conversion rate is 1%.

As a digital copywriter, your mission is to focus on writing copy that can help increase the overall conversion rate of the business.  For instance, using words like ‘you’ and ‘I’ can create a more emotional connection with the visitor which is a powerful tool to increase conversion rate.  Ideally, it’s up to you to see how you can improve the copy on your website so that the company’s overall social and website conversion rate increases.

Refined Writing Skills

Lastly, it’s important to note that if you want to be a great copywriter, you need to be able to write well. This, however, is not as easy as it sounds. You will need to be able to master grammar, spelling, punctuation, and adjectives while having an extensive vocabulary from which to draw inspirational words when you write.

Copywriting advice

Entering into a new career as a digital copywriter is challenging. You have all the book smarts that you’ve gained from your accredited course. However, you haven’t had the opportunity to practise it in a real-world situation. This is why we asked our very experienced digital copywriter to give you some advice about what she has learned throughout her career so that you can use this as a starting point in your own.

Always have a structure

Just like you won’t get to where you’re going without a map or GPS coordinates you won’t put together the copy that you want to without having an idea of what you want to write and the points that you want to cover.

Always keep an exam pad or a stack of paper handy that you can use to jot down your ideas. It always helps to have a visual representation of what you want to say in front of you as this will ensure that you don’t forget anything.

Have a good knowledge of copywriting principles

Digital copywriting is not that different from traditional copywriting. This is because the goal is the same with both – to convert a passive reader or website surfer into a paying client.

This means that you need to know the anatomy of a great piece of copy and how to replicate this for your other clients. One of the key lessons that copywriting great, Michael Masterson, teaches is that the secret of creating great copy hinges on the big idea. The function of a piece of copy is to tie concepts together that ultimately lead into the nucleus which is the big idea – almost like a spiderweb. The words in a text is the way in which these concepts are tied together.

Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing

If you are passionate about creating content for online platforms, love brainstorming ideas and selling your ideas to the public you need to become a digital copywriter with the Digital School of Marketing’s (DSM) Digital Copywriting and Content Marketing Course!  On this online digital marketing course, we’ll teach you how to sell your story through creative and enticing mediums as well as these fit into the greater context of marketing and brand communications strategy.

The digital marketing certificate is accredited by the Media Information and Communication Technology (MICT) SETA. This means that with your MICT-accredited copywriting course, you’ll open countless employment opportunities as a digital copywriter.