How to Use a Copywriting Crib Sheet for SEO
A crib sheet is basically a guide that can help anyone in a certain industry meet the needs of said industry. It’s important however to understand that crib sheets aren’t one size fits all, and that you can create your own with ease. Most of the time, what a crib sheet actually is, is a cheat sheet, a short cut, or another way to avoid working with certain things – but for copywriters, they’re often a very positive thing. And here’s why.
The basic copywriting crib sheet
A basic crib sheet consists of all of the rules that you need to work with based on your client. It could be that you need to ensure that you’re meeting the stylistic or, writing needs of the agency. There might be a template that you need to match, or a list of other items, including spelling. Crib sheets that I’ve received from clients are everything from links to their most important sites, right through to information and other items that they want in their sites.
Creating your copywriting crib sheet
Condensing down the information that you’ve got into a crib sheet can be easy when you know how. I start with the client name and the deadline at the top, along with the amount of content they want, including word counts. As I reprint these as I get reissued work, it’s simply a case of editing the requirements on my documents, before printing (and, bonus, you can attach these crib sheets to your invoices, or use them to track whether you’ve invoiced everything). If they’ve got a specific font requirement I note that, though, lately, instead of crib sheets, I use Word Styles that I’ve created based on emails from clients. If you’ve got keywords to use, you should note these at the top of the crib sheet too – instead of needing to hunt out emails, you can keep the information in one place and ensure that you’re working with everything you need to at your fingertips.
If I’m dealing with technology or medical terms, or writing for an American or other country that needs extra care, I ensure that I’m aware of that at the top of the sheet – it means that I don’t need to work with trying to remember when switching jobs over the course of the day and means that as long as I’ve got the cheat sheet on the desk beside me, not only do I have a scrap of paper to write notes on, but I’m entirely aware of what the client wants and needs.
Three things on my copywriting ‘crib sheet’
1) I print a brief crib sheet for repeat clients, where I have a set of facts that I could use in the posts or information that I’m sharing (for example, I do blog posts for a company weekly – so I collect information about them, and have a Google alert set up to ensure that if they appear in the news, I can mention it. I don’t do this for the occasional blog posts that come in but for repeat customers that extra information can help you really stand out as a copywriter.
2) Keywords – clients ensure that you’ve got keywords if they want them, and that’s always pasted at the top of my crib sheet. If they switch out, I still keep the old ones on the sheets – some clients like me to include the old ones without bolding them, so they are happy. When a client doesn’t have keywords they’d like to focus on, if I think it is appropriate, I do still research and if there’s time, I can ask them if they are acceptable. If their website has keywords, I also note them.
3) Information – if the client needs specific information included, I try to summarise it on my crib sheet. Especially in areas where I have to research a lot – condensing information down onto my crib sheet allows me to inform in a better way, and that makes the client happier. It’s critical though to ensure that you still fact check at the end – talking about one aspect of a window’s server means I could be listing out of date information, and I need to note that.
Crib sheets offer a great amount of support to copywriting services and the management of all clients work of any business type.