Brevity is the Soul of Wit (and Good Copy)

When people pay for copy, especially the first time around, they become understandably concerned with things like word count. After all, you’re paying for words, aren’t you?

Well, not exactly.

You’re paying for the message that those words convey (and the power of the words used). If a few lines is all it takes to convince a customer that you’re the business to go to, why waste time on two or three paragraphs?

It’s also worth noting that large blocks of text can be dissuading to readers. Rather than being excited to read all the amazing things you have to say, they’re more likely to be disinterested in the whole thing. People make snap decisions as to whether or not they’re going to read the page in front of them.

This is one of the reasons that I (and most copywriters) don’t charge per word. The per-word value of copy is meaningless, particularly because in general, the more words you have to use, the less valuable the copy becomes.

Here, too, is yet another way that copy is like poetry. Being able to pack meaning and emotion into smaller amounts of words is the trick to both. I would also argue that this is what makes SEO content (generally 500-600 word articles with predesignated densities of keyword phrases) less of an advertising tool and more of a marketing trick. It might get people to show up at your site, but it won’t be as convincing as a solid, short, and sweet landing page.