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Great Copy IS User Experience.
- 04.28.08
On the weekend I was catching up on some of my blog reading and read colleague David Rosam’s thoughts on SEO copywriting and why it is a discipline unto its own.
It got me thinking. As someone interested in “holistic” optimization – both optimization for people as well as search engines – user experience is a subject that fascinates me.
But, the thing I’ve noticed is that whenever user experience is discussed, it is usually relegated to design-only circles.
Why is that?
Great copywriting is not so much about the client’s product or services as it is about the visitor. Web copy is an equal partner in user experience design.
Just as the design, typography and other visual elements add to a user-centered experience, so do the words that are shared and join us together. The content is the journey. As Mark Bernstein wrote years ago, “We see narrative everywhere. It’s a primitive urge, a way to tie cause to effect, to convert the complexity of our experience to a story that makes sense.”
And when it comes to optimized copywriting, we start, quite simply, with desire. Keyword phrases are a conduit of expressed desire. SEO copywriters conduct keyword research to see what people are looking for.
Writing for the Web is the ultimate act of “social media.” (Has any found a better term yet? Anyone?) Traditional media uses communication as a bullhorn, but when writing for the Web we have the ability (and obligation) to turn it around completely. To paraphrase Danny Sullivan, search engines are reverse broadcast marketing.
Using customer concerns, interests and needs as a starting point for copywriting allows for not only a more participatory approach to writing – but to user-centric design.
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