I have seen a lot of people advertising themselves as "copywriters" when they don't actually know what that means. Copywriting is the process of writing the words that promote a person, business, opinion, or idea. It may be used as plain text, as a radio or televisionadvertisement, or in a variety of other media. The main purpose of writing this marketing copy, or promotional text, is to persuade the listener or reader to act — to buy a product or subscribe to a certain viewpoint, for instance. Alternatively, copy might also be intended to dissuade a reader from a particular belief or action. The point of "copy" is to sell something, it's not simply an article. I think people are getting confused by this, I'm not sure why there isn't an "article writing" section since I am sure the people who run this forum know exactly what copywriting is and that most of the discussion in this category has nothing to do with it...
Unfortunately most of the employers/freelancers looking for work on here don't know the difference between copywriting and article writing. However a good argument could be had debating whether article writing for a website created to make money via Adsense is a type of copywriting or not.
This isn't correct. Copy is your written material. The term isn't limited to action-oriented writing and yes, it can be an article. In the publishing world, a copy editor at a newspaper is the one that edits the story before it's printed. So, perhaps now you can see why so many confuse so much.
The word"Copywriting" is in fact a wide-scoped one.Limiting it to only business writings would not be proper perhaps.But then tthe difference between "Copywriting" and "Content Writing" gets blurred.Is there only a hair-line difference between the two concepts?From this point of view what "Monty" says seeems more appropriate.Other side of the coin is slightly more confusing as what article writing should be clubed with?It is certainly a lot dofferent from the usual content writing. On a lighter note, I saw an interesting scenario at the International Film Festival at Goa(INDIA) recently. Almost all the producing houses sent their copy writers to attend the event. There job was see the movie, get the idea, copy it and then write a script for them. In a distasteful way, this was also named as "Copywriting" and these people proudly called themselves as "Copywriters" ! Monty has raised a relevant issue and we must think over it seriously.
I have to agree with marketjunction here. See, a lot of people seem to think that article writing is mistaken for "copy writing" which should only refer to sales pitches or something of the sort. But if you ask me, the truth is that it's sales pages that are often mistakenly billed as "copy writing" work. While sales material is indeed "copy", it alone cannot take up all of the "copy writing" space. As marketjunction says, "copy" refers to anything that you write. Writing copy for marketing or sales purposes is just one of the many different "fields" if you will within the copy writing market.
OK, take a look at the wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copywriting it's all about promotion...
There's something even more unfortunate than that. People don't seem to know the difference between copywriting and copyrighting.
So you're basing your knowledge from some page that's generated from user-provided content? Why? BTW, I have years of experience as a copywriter (yes, advertising copy) and I was fortunate enough to attend college for journalism. If you read what I wrote, I was not talking about the term "copywriter." I simply corrected your point about the word "copy." And if you were addressing someone else with the WIKI reference, I apologize. BTW, an education-oriented article/document can also be about promotion--see white papers. P.S. Your WIKI reference has the following in it: "Web content writers are one of the fastest growing segments of the copywriting profession worldwide."
yeah the wiki comment wasn't directed at you and from your first post I knew you were educated on the subject. What I'm trying to say is that I reckon about 1% of the stuff in here is about sales copy.....
I know the difference but practically nobody advertising jobs does, so I dont start off by telling a potential source of income that they dont know that they are asking for the wrong thing
I see your point but the passive nature of Adsense advertising means that the page article (or copy if you prefer - I prefer article), is not an urge to action; not a sales pitch. Adsense thrives on informational content, not sales blurb. I would argue that deplying Adsense on sales oriented page is unwise and detracts from the subject matter. Google's intention with Adsense is to attract click-throughs from visitors who are genuinely interested in the subject matter under discussion on the page. That's why the ads are content relevant and not random... Just a thought...
having adsense on a sales page or anything of that form is stupidity since it takes the reader away from your site...
Before anything else, yes, I agree with marketjunction that copy isn't only restricted to written articles that aim to sell/promote something. Anyway, I think that a lot of people indeed (including members of this site) are clueless about what real copywriting is. Even in the country where I live, a lot of businesses mistake web copywriters for web content writers when they are not exactly the same. And like marketjunction, this comes from somebody who has a degree in journalism.
Ironic that these writers who are supposed to be well versed in the language can't even label themselves with the right name .. cheers to you for calling them out on it.