---
title: Copy Editing and Copy Writing
date: 2019-09-24T05:30:00-04:00
author: Sean Smith
canonical_url: "https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-02/episode-8/copy-editing-and-copy-writing/"
section: Podcast
---
<!\[CDATA\[YII-BLOCK-BODY-BEGIN\]\]>[Skip to main content](#main-content)Guest Guarav S. Iyer
Gaurav S. Iyer is a Senior Consultant at The Capital Communications Company, a boutique agency which develops and implements strategic and creative solutions for some of North America's leading corporations.
Season 02 Episode 8 – Sep 24, 2019
35:57 [Show Notes](#show-notes)
## Copy Editing and Copy Writing
LISTEN0:00
0:00
[](//dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/website101podcast.com/uploads/mp3/season-02/S02-E08-Copy-Editing-Writing-Master.mp3)
In this episode we talk with Guarav Iyer all about copy editing and writing. Guarav has extensive experience with professional writing including a background in journalism, including writing for the Motley Fool.
### Show Notes
Guarav discusses the difference between a copy editor and a copy writer. We also get into the Oxford Comma.
Next we address why you woul.d want to hire a copy writer instead of writing your content yourself and the curse of knowledge.
Guarav also provides advice to DIY website owners on how to improve their copy.
### Show Links
- [The Motley Fool](https://www.fool.ca/)
- [Capital Communications](https://capitalcommunications.ca/)
- [The Elements of Style](https://www.amazon.ca/Elements-Style-William-Strunk-Jr/dp/020530902X/)
- [George Orwell’s Six Rules For Great Writing](https://medium.com/personal-growth/george-orwells-six-rules-for-great-writing-4db6d31ff136)
- [Fight Club](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0137523/)
- [The Necessity of the Oxford Comma (MEME)](https://imgur.com/gallery/ZxU8R6Z)
Powered Transcript Accuracy of transcript is dependant on AI technology.
**\[00:00\] Sean:** Hi and welcome to the website 101 podcast. I'm Sean Smith your co-host and with me as usual is Mike Miller. Hey Sean, how's it going? It's going good and today we have a special guest who's going to be talking about copy editing and with me is is Gurav Iyer. Could you introduce yourself a little bit? Hey guys, so I
**\[00:24\] Guarav:** Gurav Iyer. I am a copywriter and copy editor. It comes with different titles. I'm also a content consultant but my background is actually in journalism. My starter is a financial journalist and yeah after working in that for a few years I don't know if anyone reads the motley fool if you're in a personal finance and investing. I used to write for full. Oh, you wrote for that? My wife is a huge
**\[00:48\] Sean:** figure. You wrote for that? I used to religiously follow the motley for all. And then I bought
**\[00:54\] Guarav:** a house against his advice. Yes, that was one of the big internal debates. Renting versus owning was a huge, huge debate. And I started off, I worked in different bureaus within as well. I wrote for word the banking section for a little while I wrote for, I tried writing about international monetary stuff, but it turns out that American readers don't actually want to read about international finance news, so switched into banking. And then eventually I made the big shift into what I'm doing now, which is copywriting. And copywriting is, it's got a lot of the same traits as journalism. You end up doing sort of half of the daily work is about the same.
**\[01:36\] Sean:** Oh. Very interesting. And so how I know Gorav is that I have a relationship with an agency here in Toronto that Gorav works at. That's how we met one day when I dropped by their offices and I invited him to join the podcast and here he is. Yeah, I was absolutely happy to do it. Sean
**\[01:55\] Guarav:** does great work with us and we're a pretty small boutique firm so the relationships we have with programmers are essential to what we do, that we offer a full suite of services to our clients and part of that is just having Sean, Sean. Feel free to plug your agency. So we're capital communications, we're a boutique firm based out of Toronto and we work with mostly financial services but all sorts of firms, we do investor relations and that kind of stuff. Beemos probably our biggest
**\[02:25\] Sean:** client. Probably the one people would recognize. We worked on it. My part of the work with you guys, BMO, is definitely the biggest company. Right, exactly. So we work with a bunch of their lines of
**\[02:37\] Guarav:** business. So Global Asset Management, Nesbit Burns and Private Banking, which are now actually combined into Private Well and BMO Harris Bank Capital Markets. I mean, you name it. We've probably
**\[02:48\] Sean:** worked on. Awesome. Awesome. So, Gorev, at the beginning, you talked about how you're both a copywriter and a copy editor. Yes. What is the difference? I mean, editing writing, it's a little bit self-explanatory, but could you go into some detail for us and our listeners? Yeah.
**\[03:10\] Guarav:** So, I will say that if you are a copywriter, you're probably also doing copy editing, but if you're a copy editor you're not necessarily doing copywriting and what I mean by that is that a copywriter is someone who might be starting from scratch they might be just phoning up the client and the client wants absolutely nothing to do with the content that you are writing it from scratch and then you're making sure that you know the grammar is fine and everything in the actual delivery is perfectly fine and that part is copy editing right so to do both is to be a copywriter. To do one might simply be that the client actually has pre-existing materials, they might have a brochure that they've put together internally, and they're hiring someone to make sure that there's a high degree of polish on it. The polishing really is what copy editing is. It's making sure that the grammar is right and the spelling is right, but also much more than that, that there's a certain amount of consistency in the style. So very often you hear about know, style guides, whether that's, you know, with regards to, if you're putting in decimal points, right? And so if you're going to have a number, if the number nine is being used, are you writing out the number nine, or are you using the actual numerical symbol for nine? Having that standardized throughout the entire document and across all the more materials that the company would put out is something that a copy editor would do. And there are a million versions of, you know, that's just one example. but that's really the difference. Is that a copyrighter probably has a more expansive mandate than just a copy editor?
**\[04:43\] Sean:** Interesting. So the style guides, would that be something like when you're doing in university where you're writing your footnotes using MLA or something like that? So you have, there's pre-existing guides or do companies make their own?
**\[05:00\] Guarav:** So there are the big style guides. There are, you know, you mentioned MLA, There's the Greg Reference Manual, which might be one sort of Bible on how to do set standards within an organization. There is a AP style in Canada, there's CP style. Now all those are the core guidelines. Each company can take them and modify them to their own specifications. So just one very simple example is I've worked for firms that prefer to use something called the Oxford comma and other firms that prefer not to use the Oxford comma. This is a very pro-Oxford comma I'm just going to go on the word.
**\[05:40\] Sean:** As I am, I used to teach English as a second language and that was one of the things I insisted on all of my students use.
**\[05:49\] Guarav:** I will say that relationships have been made or split apart based on the Oxford comma. I certainly wouldn't have made my wife if she did not use the Oxford comma. It's a deal breaker. That big said, I will go by whatever the client prefers. For those who don't know, the Oxford comma is simply when you are listing a certain number of items. Let's say there are three, a pencil, paper, and book. Now the end book, do you put a comma before that or do you not? Traditionally, there has been no comma involved, right? And there is a certain aesthetic beauty to not having the comma involved, but it can lead to a little bit of confusion where you say I'm sorry are the pens in the book together or are they separate and so that's where the Oxford comma comes into play you are having a hard divider there at the end and that's one of those things that you know a company can certainly have leniency to add or remove from their internal manuals. Yeah I've seen a couple of jokes
**\[06:55\] Sean:** that use the Oxford comma to very good humorous effect. I just can't remember them awful.
**\[07:00\] Mike:** Yeah, I'm looking some up right now. We'll find some and put them in the show notes. There's like little cartoons you can get
**\[07:06\] Sean:** Yeah, I've got a definitely off-color one I need to go off the top of my head, but I'm not willing to say it on yeah in the recording But there's other ones I know of that Yeah, okay Mike when you find when you find it let us know what we'll throw it in the show So go ahead For small business owners maybe like, you know, you're, you've mentioned a lot of blue chip or larger companies and they definitely have budgets and staff to afford copy editors and writers. But what about a small business with, you know, five or six people or it's just, you know, a solo praner? Why should I use my own copywriter or editor? I know my audience. I can write my own copy. What do I get out of hiring you or someone similar to you?
**\[08:01\] Guarav:** I will say that is a concern that we encounter sometimes because we do work with entrepreneurial clients as well and the main point I think we try to get across to them is you really have to be honest with yourself and copywriting is the first impression that your client has of the business. It's an incredibly powerful lever for growing your business but only if it's done correctly, right? You may think, and I know people who think that, hey, everyone can write. But the truth is, not everyone should write. It takes a professional to understand what motivates an audience, what makes an impactful story, what generates leads. But most of all, I would say the part, the reason that you would require a professional copywriter is to overcome what's known as the curse of knowledge. And for those who don't know that, I'm just an essential feature writing. It means that you have to let go of what you already know in order to truly put yourself in the reader's shoes. And owners very often aren't able to do this because they're too close to their company, understandably so, but they know too much and I understand that may sound counterintuitive, but it's actually essential to good communication. You have to, otherwise you risk saying things that the reader doesn't have context for. And so that's really, that's the main benefit that a professional copywriter can provide is that they have that ability. They can go of what they already know, put themselves in the reader's shoes, and trace them back, trace the reader back to the point that's trying to be made.
**\[09:39\] Mike:** So I guess a copywriter, they kind of have their feet in both worlds where they're intimate with the client that they're working with, the website owner or whatever, and they learn about their business and how they want to promote it and whatever, but they're also intimate with the audience because just by virtue of the fact that they don't work in that company on a day-to-day basis, right? So they have this, they bridge that kind of communication divide, right? That's exactly right.
**\[10:09\] Guarav:** And very often, if you have a foot in one world and another foot in another world, you're seen as not having a specialization. But really, the act of being between two worlds is the specialization. Right. Interesting.
**\[10:23\] Mike:** Yeah, interesting. I encounter that a lot with my clients. My clients tend to be nonprofits. I work with a lot of nonprofits. And very often, we've mentioned this before on the show that there might be internal jargon referring to some kind of program or whatever. And if someone in the organization is doing the writing, they just kind of sometimes forget that, oh, that's not immediately obvious what that is to people who are visiting the site.
**\[10:52\] Guarav:** Right, that's an excellent point. You have to understand the comprehension level of the reader in order to know just how much to explain because let's say for targeting towards consumers, then you're exactly right. You do have to take every piece of jargon and unfold it so that it's understandable to someone was coming to it with absolutely fresh eyes. If it's B2B to communication, perhaps you know that there's a sophisticated reader on the other end of your communications. And you can probably talk to it as if it's around a cocktail party and there's a bunch of people
**\[11:26\] Sean:** who work in the same industry.
**\[11:29\] Mike:** Cool. So just I know this is going to, this varies from project to project to whatever, but at a curiosity. Do copywriters or editors, however you want to answer it, tend to charge by the word or by the page or by the project or how if I were a new, you know, if I were, you know, a solo website owner and I wanted to hire someone, what should I expect with as far as charging as far as a budget?
**\[11:54\] Sean:** Yeah, like, Gora, if I want you to rewrite the copy on my website, how do you help me? How much, how are you going to charge me?
**\[12:01\] Guarav:** Well, I will say that it depends on the copywriter. Some charge by the word, some charge by the hour, but in my experience, charging by the project is the way to go, right? Because the goal is to be a partner and not a vendor. And the reason for that is just that the incentives are better aligned, right? So clients don't feel chained to a work back schedule that you give them and they think, oh my god, if I go a minute over, much in the same way that if you're working with a lawyer, you might feel that if I crossed a one hour and one minute I'm getting charged for two hours, therefore you may not ask that extra question. That could really actually benefit you. And the same is true for working as a copywriter. I really think that working on a project schedule and getting paid per project is what generates a ton of goodwill in the relationship and that allows you to do your best work. It allows you to generate more referrals and gain confidence from the client as to what you
**\[12:57\] Sean:** you can deliver. Yeah, I also prefer project-based fees just for my own work. But I do know that there are a lot of copy editors and writers that charge by the hour or by the word because it's something that's easily measurable. And I think a lot of clients actually like the fact that they can quantify it. I only need a paragraph that it is. So that's going to cost me like $27.50 or whatever it's going to be for that number of
**\[13:34\] Guarav:** words. I will tell you that having worked on that side of the business, I mean, there are a ton of websites that actually, like freelancer.com is probably the most famous example, but exactly. For those who are into a shot, just give a big thumbs down and I couldn't agree more because it becomes a content mill and the second it becomes a content mill and people are charging by the hour, there is a strong likelihood, this is not true in all cases, but there's a strong likelihood that the attention to detail will suffer because people are trying to maximize the amount of hours that they're able to work.
**\[14:09\] Sean:** Yeah, I like to look at hourly rates or in this case potentially hourly or by the word rates as a raise to the bottom because you're looking at the dollar value rather than the scale or the value that you can gain from hiring and working with a professional?
**\[14:29\] Mike:** I'm sure in our industry too, Sean, most people I think, I don't know if it's most, but I know a lot of designers and developers who also prefer to charge by the project or value based pricing or whatever it is, for the same reasons you mentioned that having a relationship with the client and that kind of thing, it just makes a lot of sense, I think.
**\[14:49\] Sean:** Yeah, I mean, I started my career doing hourly. And I still do hourly on some occasionally, but I much prefer the project rate. It's better for me. It's better for my client. And it's better for the long-term relationship and understanding of the project as a whole. So Gora, when I'm working with a copy editor or a writer, is it better for me to write a draft of my copy have them edit or just send tell them this is what I want you to say just make it sound good.
**\[15:25\] Guarav:** This is a great question and I apologize that this sounds evasive but once again it truly depends. So I'll give you an example. If you are a relatively new formed company and you don't really have an established brand or if your marketing materials are thoroughly disjointed it may be better to hold a discovery call or the copywriter interviews you for about an hour, right? And let them do the like work. I think that's the important point here, which is that if you're going to hire someone for a project on a project basis, and you really should let them earn their keep and let them do the like work. So once your answers are recorded, they should be able to take that information away. All yet, and the answers to the questions they ask, organize and refine them into key messages and to a polished document that'll inform all of your marketing materials going forward. So on the other hand, if the brand is fully formed and if it's more efficient to have you work copy-edited rather than copy-written, then just do that instead. But once again, it comes back to being honest with yourself as the business owner, you really have to ask yourself, do I have the time to do this well? And if not, I really should hire someone, let them interview me and let them just give me a full-turned-key project.
**\[16:41\] Mike:** Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that makes sense. Excellent. And now, since you brought that up about, you know, starting a relationship with a copywriter, let's talk about that. If I were to hire someone to help me work with my content and manage it or whatever, what kind of stuff should I be looking for? Would there be, if I'm running a nonprofit, is there specific writers who just focus on nonprofits and I should work with one of them? Is there a difference in writing for the web versus writing for print materials? What makes a good writer, what makes a bad writer, all that kind of stuff?
**\[17:18\] Guarav:** Now would it be entirely self-serving if I said that you should look for capital communications? Probably.
**\[17:23\] Mike:** So I'm not going to say that, it's entirely a problem.
**\[17:26\] Guarav:** Okay, so there's the obvious criteria that you should be looking at, which is what are the previous clients, what's the previous work that they've done, are there any previous awards that they've won? But there's also the not so obvious, and I think that comes down to comprehension. So you might want to ask yourself, how well do these writers understand the subject? Or if they haven't had particular expertise within that subject area, how quickly can they get up the curve on complex subjects? So if you notice, for instance, that they've worked in private equity and they've worked for a construction company, then it might be clear these writers are able to learn a complex subject very easily, and get their hands around the lingo, the do's and don'ts, the phrases that indicate a deeper meaning to readers within that industry.
**\[18:17\] Sean:** And wouldn't it be a little bit better to hire somebody who is specialized in your industry so that they have a deeper knowledge of all the terms and things that people do in that
**\[18:34\] Guarav:** particular injury industry? I will say it's a double-edged sword because traditionally, yes, I mean logic would dictate that you want someone who's already up to speed on everything. The trouble is if it's in a highly niche industry they're going to be very few niche players in the industry. So if you're going to have someone who's working, if you're comfortable with them also working with your competition then you know that's great. But in order to sort of like find the optimal point between quality and professionalism and niche understanding can be hard to find at times. And so really what you're looking for, I would say in most cases, is comprehension. It's an underrated quality and good writing, to be honest.
**\[19:17\] Mike:** Yeah, I mean, if you're, I can see that if you're really niche, like let's say you're promoting your new smart car and you want to write a piece about machine AI, machine learning, or something, The odds of you finding someone who specializes in writing about machine learning is probably not terribly high, so there's going to be a certain amount of them having to learn about your industry, no matter what, in some cases, right? Right.
**\[19:44\] Guarav:** And just a quick example on that, just because you mentioned smart cars. When I wrote to the Motley Fool, there was a guy who was covering the energy and automotive beat for us, and he was covering Tesla, and he actually got hired by Tesla because they liked his writing so much, but he had sort of the industry specialization and the specialized knowledge, but he wasn't able to get up the curve and put himself now on the other side of the business well enough, and he was gone within a few months. Personally hired and fired by Elon Musk, which was... I mean, whatever happened there, it doesn't really matter, that's such a great story that he can live off that for the rest of his life.
**\[20:25\] Mike:** Yeah, I put both of those things in your resume, hired and fired by Elon Musk.
**\[20:29\] Sean:** That's right. The lovers and haters will look at it as a pro. That's right, that's right. Exactly. Awesome.
**\[20:37\] Mike:** So what about, since we're, you know, the website 101 podcast, writing for web for print,
**\[20:43\] Guarav:** what kind of differences are there? Well, the big one, I would say, is word camp. That's really the biggest difference that I've encountered is because online content as fewer constraints, which means you can just let it fly. If you want to add a new page, you can print is bound by the limitations of the space that you have. And just to indicate what that means in practicality, one word can alter the entire aesthetic beauty of what you're reading, right? It can throw a paragraph out of alignment. It can throw your margins off. And there are also printing considerations. You have to think about the stock that you're using. You have to think about the ink digital versus light versus die-cutting. I mean, it's incredibly complex and much more limiting.
**\[21:28\] Sean:** Interesting. Okay. So, talking about web, what kind of advice would you give to somebody who wants to do it themselves? Like a DIY person who wants to improve their copy and they just don't have the budget to hire somebody. So, they're going to write it themselves and now they're going to go and edit it. What kinds of advice can you give? And I realize that it's going to be a little bit generic because we don't necessarily know industries. But, you know, like some sort of best practice to improve my copy for the web. So it's pretty rare when you can
**\[22:07\] Guarav:** actually recommend that someone go get one book that'll probably have the maximum impact on their writing. But there is that one book and it is The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and EB White. And this is a tiny, tiny little book about best practices for crafting paragraphs in the entire English language. I would say this is probably the one book that you need if you are going to attempt to do copywriting by yourself.
**\[22:34\] Sean:** We'll add a link to Amazon for that book into the show notes.
**\[22:39\] Guarav:** Okay, cool.
**\[22:41\] Sean:** Okay, so what about something that you could just pull off the top of your head? Maybe that you could give some advice. You know, maybe use the Oxford comma, I think we've established that.
**\[22:55\] Guarav:** Well, I will say that you probably want to spend more time thinking than you want to do writing and most people do the opposite. They sit there in front of the page, the blank page staring at them and it drives them nuts and they're just rewriting the same sentence over and over again. First, sit down, make a few bullet points. You want to come up with key messages first. So the key message is being, what is the appeal of your product to the client? What are your differentiators from your competition? What are the values of your company? Try and get all that down, even in a rough sense on paper. Once you have those key messages down, then you can really work with that and start crafting it for whatever you need to do if it's a brochure, if it's a website. If it's a blog that you're going to start on your website, all of it should really tie back to these original key messages They should be your north star at all times
**\[23:47\] Mike:** Gora do you ever do a usability testing kind of thing on writing where you you know Almost like a B testing where you do one and another and then you sort of quiz people on how much information They retained by each to find out which method is the better approach ever do that
**\[24:04\] Guarav:** We do it very often for when I was journalism when we did it with headlines. And now in copywriting, we do it very often with email subject headings. Because email is still one of the best ways to try and get your message out directly to your customer on an ongoing basis. Email click-throughs, for instance, are much higher than social click-throughs on Facebook or even LinkedIn, which is a professional social media. Email still remains king. And getting someone to click on an email is really all about the subject headings. And so there are various styles you can go with. You can try and personalize it. So you actually have the person's name, comma, and have it as a very casual informal sentence. You can try and have it in a way where it's getting the real meat of the message out into the subject. There are all sorts of little tricks you can do, but I would say sign up for a bunch of newsletters from companies that you like and that you think do it well. Notice what they do in their subject headings. Notice how they start off their emails. Notice how they structure their website. and then go from there.
**\[25:07\] Sean:** So kind of competition research. Exactly. So in this, in your same industry, sign up for the newsletters and pay attention to the voice and the vocabulary that they're using in their email.
**\[25:20\] Guarav:** Right. And in terms of comprehension, if you're a copywriter who's listening to this and trying to get up the curve on an industry that you don't know much about, Google alerts are probably one of the best tools in your toolkit. you really want to make sure that you have all the keywords for your industry set up on Google Alerts and you want them to send directly to your inbox
**\[25:39\] Sean:** every single day. Oh, interesting. OK. So if I'm working with a copywriter, are there any sort of common practices to go through and do the editing? Are we going to share Microsoft Word documents or maybe Google Docs? Or are you just going to write directly in my CMS, the new copy for me to approve.
**\[26:05\] Guarav:** So I suppose that would depend on the amount of work that's being done. If there is an ongoing updating process to content, then they probably will be doing edits directly on the CMS. But once again, it varies from project to project. I know that personally what I like to do is to set up a discovery call. And once I've scheduled the discovery call, I know that I'm going to have this subject matter expert sitting there with me for an hour. I'm going to be able to ask them all the questions that I need to inform the copy. I'll get a transcription usually, which is incredibly useful. And then I work in Microsoft Word. And once I've got the first draft down, then I send it to the client by email. They edit and mark up, send it back to me, and we can keep that editing process going until they're satisfied. I will say that Google Docs, although it's incredibly useful, when it comes to firms that are sensitive about their copy right, they tend not to use web-based right.
**\[27:03\] Sean:** Right. Well, well, sure, because you can't control where it's going to be, or if it's going to get hacked, or I mean, there's a little bit more of a vulnerability factor over there.
**\[27:13\] Guarav:** That's right.
**\[27:18\] Sean:** OK, so what comes first with, in your opinion, for a web stuff, design or copywriting is one more dependent on the user.
**\[27:28\] Mike:** I'm starting with a brand new site, a campaign, or whatever. I've got a designer lined up, developer, you're a copywriting. Should I say, don't do anything until we hear
**\[27:39\] Sean:** from the copywriter first, or how does that go? So we're setting up our company, Widget.ink. And see, that's a really good question.
**\[27:49\] Guarav:** I think actually Sean, the meeting, when you came by the office, we were actually in the middle of the meeting or we were discussing this exact conundrum, which is the, do we lead with design or do we lead with copy? And in the case where you're gonna have a lot of excellent photography to work with, I would say that you wanna lead with design, which is you still might get stock photography, but you want look and feel. You want clients to approve look and feel in order to have a sense of just how much copy you're gonna need, where the copy's gonna be placed in relation to the imagery. So, for those instances where you're building a website for, I don't know, if it's a fashion brand, just as a complete wild example, then you know it's going to be a design-focused project, right? But if you were doing work with a hedge fund, it's probably going to be a copy exercise. And so you really have to feel it out based on what the client needs are and what you can
**\[28:44\] Sean:** bring to the project. So as in most cases, in everything that we talk about on this podcast, the real answer is it depends.
**\[28:54\] Guarav:** It depends. I will say that copyrighting is more an art than a science. And as much as you can get down these rules of thumbs, like I said, that book by William Strunk and EBY, EBY by the way is the guy I think who wrote Charlotte's well. This book is, because it's more than just a grammar book and it'll tell you more than just, use the Oxford comma, don't use the Oxford comma. It will tell you, for instance, how to structure a paragraph, how to where to place words and sentences to maximize their impact. And that's one reason I recommend it, but the rest being that you should obey all those rules except for when you shouldn't. And knowing when to follow them and when not to is the part that's an art.
**\[29:42\] Sean:** Well, that's the true sign of an expert. They know when it's okay to win the rules. That's right. You might not need that Oxford comma, but you need to be an expert writer to know when
**\[29:55\] Guarav:** not to use it. So I mean, just in terms of another style guide, one of the famous style guides was an essay by George Orwell. He wrote, I can't quite remember when I think it was 47, politics in the English language. He lays out six rules for good writing. And you will find this in most out guides. They'll quote George Orwell, they will say, these are the six rules for excellent writing. And rule number six is, follow the above rules except when there's a risk of you writing something to him. Nice, that's a positive vibe.
**\[30:29\] Sean:** It's almost like the fight club rules. Rule number two, C rule number one. That's right. So, I think maybe like my last question, maybe Micah's more, but how do I measure the success of the copy? Whether I wrote it myself and edited it, or you wrote it for me, or we did it collaboratively. Collaboratively, how would I measure the success?
**\[31:02\] Guarav:** Well, I would say that one of the things to do as you're establishing the project is to try and establish a measure of success beforehand. So if that's, for instance, an email newsletter, we're talking about the engagement levels, and that's click-through levels, that's how, or if it's an article, for instance, that you're doing on a web page, what's the amount of time that the user's spending on the web page? How much are the engaging with the content? But those are metrics that are once again specific to the project that have to be set up beforehand. I will say that that's the important part about measure of success. You don't want after the project to then play it by your gut. You don't, that's one of the worst things you can have a client do is come up and say, well, I don't feel this worked. Well, is that because someone you were expecting to come up to you in a cocktail party and say, hey, I saw that new website looks fantastic. If that didn't happen, is that what's impacting your gut? No, you want to have clearly defined metrics beforehand. So that afterwards, there's some accountability on both sides.
**\[32:05\] Mike:** That's one of the things I always had in my own design and development briefs is, how would you measure the success of this project? And inevitably with websites, I guess they pretty much say, lots of visitors. But they can usually dig out a few other things
**\[32:19\] Guarav:** that are important to the app. And speaking of that, for the website, is it high impact? So do you are you OK with less traffic? But more engaged traffic. More engaged traffic where you perhaps are generating two leads out of 50 as opposed to 1 out of 1,000.
**\[32:42\] Sean:** Yeah, so more contact messages, rather than just passive. People responding to your optimization,
**\[32:50\] Guarav:** there is an inverse relationship, or at least there tends to be between traffic and engagement.
**\[32:57\] Mike:** Awesome, interesting. Well, I think that about wraps up our questions, Sean, did you have anything else you wanted to talk about?
**\[33:05\] Sean:** No, no, Gora, do you have any final thoughts for us? Advice or anything like that?
**\[33:12\] Guarav:** Wakanda forever. Well, Wakanda forever, but also just keep writing. And when in doubt, I will say higher professional. Nice.
**\[33:23\] Mike:** We probably follow that rule too. That sounds good to me.
**\[33:26\] Sean:** Yeah. Mike, how about you read one of those jokes?
**\[33:30\] Mike:** What's the thing with the Oxford comma? Is that what you mean? Oh boy. Well, let me take it quick. I think I found the one you're referring to is it the one about the, I don't know, if I should say, you would say it.
**\[33:42\] Sean:** About Jack and the source?
**\[33:46\] Mike:** No, no, no, this was about strippers.
**\[33:49\] Sean:** Okay. Well, I didn't know that one.
**\[33:52\] Mike:** It gets a little bit visual. It says with the Oxford comma, it's, we invited the strippers, comma, JFK, comma, and Stalin. And then without it, it says, we invited the strippers, comma, JFK, and Stalin. And then that, the JFK and Stalin are the strippers, right? It sounds like you're describing. Again, it's, whatever, Porte, sorry about that. But we'll put it in the show notes. When you look at the comic, it's pretty funny.
**\[34:18\] Sean:** Okay, there we go. So, Gora, we're wrapping up. Where can listeners find you on the internet? LinkedIn, the company website, Twitter, whatever you want to share?
**\[34:32\] Guarav:** Well, I am on LinkedIn under a goal of SIR. You can find me also at capitalcommunications.ca and on Twitter at IIR underscore GS. That's I-Y-E-R underscore GS. Great. Excellent.
**\[34:45\] Sean:** Thank you so much for being on the show.
**\[34:48\] Guarav:** Thanks for having me on, guys. This was a real fun.
**\[34:51\] Sean:** Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed this show. I'm Sean Smith your co-host. You can find me at my company website, cappingcreations.ca. On Twitter at CAFFEINE, C-R-E-E-8, I-O-N, on LinkedIn, and my username is cappingcreations, or you can search for Sean Smith based in Toronto.
**\[35:14\] Mike:** You should be able to find me there. And I'm Mike Mella, you can find me at my website be like water.ca, or on LinkedIn. My username is Mike Mella. That's M-I-K-E-M-E-L-L-A. And I'm on Twitter, Twitter.com slash Mike Mella.
**\[35:30\] Sean:** And don't forget to subscribe to the show and share it with your friends on social media, such as Facebook or LinkedIn. You can find us on Google Play, iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you subscribe to your favorite podcast.
**\[35:44\] Mike:** And we're always looking for a topic and guest suggestions. So if you have any, hit us up at website 101podcast.com slash contact. Excellent, thank you so much for listening. Thanks for listening.
Close Transcript
Have a question for Sean, Mike, and Amanda? [Send us an email](/contact).
[](https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly93ZWJzaXRlMTAxcG9kY2FzdC5jb20vZmVlZC5yc3M%3D)[](https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/website-101-podcast/id1449510012)[](https://open.spotify.com/show/3rmSM1R9t6q1U8DmYWJRSO?si=NrYPMgDaRV6Dd56PjEaPow)### Season 02
- 1 [ Season 2 Introduction](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-02/episode-1/season-2-introduction/)
- 2 [ Web Hosting 101](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-02/episode-2/web-hosting-101/)
- 3 [ How to Choose a Web Developer or Agency](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-02/episode-3/how-to-choose-a-web-developer-or-agency/)
- 4 [ How Much Does a Website Cost](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-02/episode-4/how-much-does-a-website-cost/)
- 5 [ Web Jargon Part One](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-02/episode-5/web-jargon-part-one/)
- 6 [ Web Jargon Part Two](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-02/episode-6/web-jargon-part-two/)
- 7 [ Website 101: MVP Strategy for Effective Web Development](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-02/episode-7/minimal-viable-product/)
- 8 [ Copy Editing and Copy Writing](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-02/episode-8/copy-editing-and-copy-writing/)
- 9 [ Photography and Stock Photos](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-02/episode-9/photography-and-stock-photos/)
- 10 [ Ecommerce with Shopify](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-02/episode-10/ecommerce-with-shopify/)
- 11 [ Season 2 Recap and Season 3 Teaser](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-02/episode-11/season-2-recap-and-season-3-teaser/)
### All Seasons
- [Season 01](https://website101podcast.com/season/01/)
- [Season 02](https://website101podcast.com/season/02/)
- [Season 03](https://website101podcast.com/season/03/)
- [Season 04](https://website101podcast.com/season/04/)
- [Season 05](https://website101podcast.com/season/05/)
- [Season 06](https://website101podcast.com/season/06/)
- [Season 07](https://website101podcast.com/season/07/)
- [Season 08](https://website101podcast.com/season/08/)
- [Season 09](https://website101podcast.com/season/09/)
<!\[CDATA\[YII-BLOCK-BODY-END\]\]>