Optimizing For Originality: Avoid This Number One Copywriting Mistake

Take a quick peek at Fiverr, Upwork, or any other freelance platform and you’ll quickly see that the market is saturated with $5 gigs with 24-hour turnarounds. That sounds great, right?! Who wouldn’t want content with originality (maybe) that requires minimal effort at a minimal price? Sure, you could order that, build upon it, and edit it yourself; however, why would you bother to pay someone to save you time in the first place?

If you’re a millennial like me, you may remember a time on search engines where a query would return keyword dump pages that were used to get a site to the top of the rankings. For example, you might search for a topic you’d like to learn more about – how to start freelancing. On that page, the keyword freelancing would be used nine ways ’till Sunday in sentences of zero intrinsic value. Oh, and don’t forget about the millions of ads that were vomited all over the page!

Thank heavens search engine ranking doesn’t work like that anymore! Nowadays, content creators and website developers have to offer original, unique content in order to rank in a reasonable position on search engines.

What Does This Mean For You?

This means that you are going to need to work your butt off to create content for your viewers – even if they never read it. Sure, you could create a website with two or three pages, add your products, and call it good; but you’ll be missing out on a lot of keyword searches and content originality that your clients will be searching for. These keywords are going to be what gets you new customers. So, either spend the time or the money to do this step properly. The impacts of skipping the blog can make a big difference in your ability to sell your product or service.

You Don’t Have to Do This Yourself

That’s right – you don’t have to sit in front of your word processor for hours a day generating “originality” if you don’t want to. Freelancers like myself love doing that work for you; all we need is a content brief and some time to get it done right. Furthermore, you could hire a writer to manage your website’s blog in its entirety – for a monthly fee, I can write posts for your website that will help you get more views to your site.

What $5 Really Gets You – Not Originality

Copy Monsters.

I shouldn’t have to explain why $5 is far too little to pay someone for a 500-word post. If you order a gig off of Fiverr or Upwork for this amount of money, you should set your expectations low. On a good night, I can write 500 words in 30 minutes; ultimately, it depends on the topic. Generally speaking, I allow one hour per 500 words on any given topic, and I charge my clients a fee that reflects this. For $5, you’re running the risk of sloppy, plagiarized, worthless content being sent your way. If you go ahead and post this content on your website, things get even worse.

Plagiarism is Going to Bomb Your Site’s SEO

“Using unoriginal content can result in poor ranking as Google brings websites in top results only if they contain unique information that is valuable for readers.”

SuperbThemes.com

Since modern search engine crawlers value content originality and utility, so should you. Simply rehashing what someone else has already said is, put simply, the easy way out. You’re working hard to develop your brand as a unique, singular entity, so why wouldn’t you extend that same goal to your website’s content? COVID-19 has caused a massive influx of internet storefront activity, so your website deserves the necessary attention to make it worthy of your customers’ views.

Crap Content Destroys Client Loyalty

You have a specific type of client – I’m sure you could describe them in perfect detail to me if we were to work together on a project. Now, ask yourself what kind of content they want to see; you’ll see the biggest impacts when you target your customers directly. Take that information, send it to me, and let’s hook you some new clients.