Gel Copywriting can assist you with just about any service related to writing or editing. This includes corporate content for your company website, a lively personal blog or anything in between!
SEO CONTENT
SEO… Those three all-so-important letters that make up the acronym for being the first hit on Google or Bing when someone wants to find you.
Maybe you want to be the first port of call when someone in the area is looking for dental solutions. Perhaps you want to be the very first hit when business owners are curious about loyalty programs. Maybe you have an unrivalled level of expertise on a subject, and you want to make sure it ranks high enough on search engines that people are getting the right information.
Whatever the reason, Search Engine Optimisation is increasingly important. My job is to take the information that you need conveyed, and deliver it in the most engaging, SEO-friendly way possible.
Whether it’s simple, everyday subject matter or a complex technical topic, I don’t submit content that I’m not 100% certain is accurate and correct in every sense. Wait, was that a double negative? Perhaps I should’ve said “I only submit content that I’m 100% certain is accurate and correct in every sense”. Yep, that sounds better! Anyway...
If it’s a tricky or delicate subject, I'll work closely with my client to ensure that the content holds all the relevant information and no irrelevant information. I’ll go through it with a fine-tooth comb to ensure everything is accurate (from a literal, legal, timely and, of course, grammatical point of view) and then I’ll make sure it’s interesting to read.
AND THEN… I’ll make sure it’s optimised for search engines.
EDITING & PROOFREADING
My time as a subeditor for The West Australian (WA's best-selling newspaper) helped me to develop a hawk's eye for detail that still haunts me to this day – I say "haunts" because I can no longer read a restaurant menu, fiction novel or any kind of brochure without immediately picking up any spelling mistakes, punctuation flaws or grammatical errors!
This is, however, a handy skill to offer anyone with written work that needs editing and proofreading (which aren't the same thing, by the way).
Some examples of clients I've carried out editing and proofreading work for in the past include:
- digital agencies that need an expert to ensure the overwhelming pile of content from their various clients is up to scratch
- CV writing agencies that need someone to dot the i's and cross the t's on their clients' cover letters
- college students who need a fresh pair of eyes to read over their dissertation before submission
- marketing firms, real estate agencies and other small companies that need copy reviewed before it's shared with the world via social media, poster ads, billboards and other advertising methods
If you have a body of text that needs sprucing up for pizzazz and/or scrutinising for accuracy, I can help.
TRANSCREATION
Have you ever watched a foreign film with English subtitles on, only to find that the subtitles make absolutely no sense in relation to what’s happening on screen?
Don’t worry, you’re not the first – and while you might be tempted to blame whoever translated the dialogue, there’s a little more to the process of translating content from one language to another than you might think.
As an Aussie, I’m a big fan of sayings like, “no dramas” and “hit the nail on the head”. But if you work in marketing for a global company that has a stake in other nations' markets, whose job is it to take the brand's existing content and make sure it translates for international audiences? It’s not as simple as translating the content word-for-word.
What about a marketing campaign initially geared towards Baby Boomers, that now needs to be tweaked to appeal to Millennials? Literally, the language is the same… but the language is different.
From North Americans to Australasians, men to women, senior citizens to fresh-faced teenagers, white collar to blue collar, every demographic responds to a different tone of voice – especially in regards to marketing.
As someone who specialises in transcreation, I take content that was designed for other markets and reword it to cater for local audiences. It might be a matter of adopting some idioms, slang and colloquialism that will directly target local audiences, or it might be a case of tweaking the core message to align with your desired audience's attitudes and values.
However I do it, the result is a clear message that ensures your product or service receives the same response from a new audience that it saw in its original market.
