For more than 3,500 years, Aesop’s Fables have used storytelling to teach lessons to children.
The Tortoise and the Hare fable teaches that it is better to be slow and steady than it is to be fast and over-confident. The Lion and the Mouse fable illustrates that you can still help someone or something much larger than yourself, no matter how small you are.
Storytelling is so effective at conveying a message that people still use it to this day, but it has a new name:
Content Writing.
When done well, this type of writing draws its readers into a world of their own and helps them to understand how a brand or product can affect their lives for the better through a story.
When done exceptionally well, content writing interweaves copywriting throughout the story to convince the reader they need something and calls that reader to action.
For this reason, it is important to understand what both types of writing are, how they are similar, and how they are different. To help you with that, this article gives you a rundown of copywriting vs. content writing. Read on to learn more.
What is Content Writing?
The modern era has made it easy to learn anything you want. All you need is a computer and an internet connection, and you have a compilation of the world’s knowledge at your fingertips.
Add to that the fact that everyone wants something for nothing and you have the backbone of content writing.
Content writing provides useful, often actionable, information to people through story. The lessons learned and the information provided is often free. The hope is that this free information plants a seed of trust that causes them to come back when they need more information.
YOU Make Content King
At first glance, you might think the headline has a typo in it, but you would be wrong. Content is not made king by you the writer, it is king because of the word you.
Content writing is so powerful because it brings the reader into the story. It makes them a part of what they are reading and it does so with the use of the word you.
When you use the word you in your content, you are giving your readers the power to imagine themselves with your product or service.
Content writing is suggestive. It plants an idea more than it convinces.
What is Copywriting?
Copywriting is less storytelling and more direct selling. It tells the reader what you want from them and asks them to do it.
You see copywriting every day, but if it is done well, you won’t even realize that’s what it is.
It is the button that asks you to subscribe to a newsletter. It is the last paragraph of an article that tells you to click a link and read another post. It is the headlines that convince your readers to continue digging through your content.
Copywriting is your call to action, in whatever form that takes.
The best way to be successful at copywriting is to hide it naturally within your content.
Where Does SEO Come Into Play?
SEO or Search Engine Optimization is what helps your readers find their way onto your website. Setup your website with quality content that follows certain standards and you increase the chances of your audience finding you.
There was a point in time that a website’s primary goal was to stuff as many keywords and links on their webpages as possible. Most of the links led to irrelevant or spam-filled websites. But doing this would cause their website to rise to the top of a search engine result page.
There were few websites with any valuable information on them, and it was hard to find legitimate websites with reliable information.
Google founders Sergey Brin and Lawrance Page saw this and realized people were not finding the quality content they deserved. In 1998, they published The Anatomy of Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search.
Soon after, search engines began to use algorithms to help them identify useful content and promote it. Website developers found they had to up their game if they wanted people to find their sites.
Since then, SEO remains a part of copywriting, but for your website to get pushed to the top of search engine results, it must meet certain quality standards.
Enter Content Writing.
Copywriting vs. Content Writing
Since 1997, Google has redefined the way people use the internet. As algorithms improve, so must the content found on websites.
In a way, it is a lot like the experience you might have at a library.
By using certain standards, the Dewey Decimal System allows library-goers to locate specific books by subject, author, or title. SEO does the same but on a much broader, more complex scale.
Once you know where to look for your book, you inspect the cover. The front of the book jumps out and grabs your attention over all the others. The back of the book gives you a hook that makes you want more.
This is the book’s version of Copywriting.
Then you get home and read the story, or content.
It draws you in and you find that you can’t put it down. You want more. You read the excerpt about the author and the next day you find yourself at the library looking for more books by that writer.
Now you find yourself in that author’s “sales funnel.” This method is similar to SEO. Google acts as the Dewey decimal system of old and the book is the website that it leads you to.
How Can an Affiliate Program Help?
As SEO algorithms improve, the line that divides copywriting and content writing gets thinner. It is no longer copywriting vs. content writing so much as it is copywriting AND content writing.
One of the elements SEO algorithms look for are links to other websites with good, quality content. Backlinks.com gives you access to those links and pays you for it.
We have two ways to earn: As a Publisher or an Advertiser.
When you sign up as a publisher, you sell links to your website through the Backlinks brokerage.
When you register as an advertiser, you use your website to sell access to the links provided by Publishers.
If you have additional questions, please check out our FAQ’s for Link Buyers and FAQ’s for Link Sellers or use the comments below.
