Blogs vs. Web Copy: 7 Critical Differences Every Business Should Know

Blogging for your business is important for many reasons. These include improving your brand awareness, educating your audience, ranking in search engines, and building your online authority.

Your web copy is just as essential but it has a different purpose. Its aim is to convince people to take action based on the benefits of your product or service. 

It can be confusing for businesses to understand how blogs and web copy fit into a greater content strategy. Here are the critical differences you should know to avoid decreasing the effectiveness of your online marketing.

Difference #1: Stage of Buyer’s Journey

Blogs are at the top of the inbound marketing sales funnel. They’re perfect for engaging website visitors who are looking for the best answer to a problem. You can build your online authority and nurture customer relationships by providing trustworthy information that guides people towards a solution.

Of course, blogs (and other content marketing) can also help visitors who are already considering a solution. In the case of B2B buyers, The Demand Gen Report found that 47 percent rely on blog content in the research phase, viewing three to five pieces of content before contacting a sales representative. This is because the B2B buying process can be more complex, thus requiring more customer touchpoints. 

In contrast, web copy is near the bottom of the sales funnel. Its goal is to get visitors to complete an action that moves them towards a purchase. This may be subscribing to an email list, registering for a membership, filling out a contact form, or scheduling a demo.

Web copy is on the main pages of your website. This includes the homepage, About page, product and service pages, and other sales pages. 

Difference #2: Messaging 

When you have only seconds to capture your visitor’s attention, your website copy needs to be concise and persuasive. Because it’s ultimately what’s going to keep your business growing. 

Compelling web copy uses proven frameworks like AIDA and PAS to:

• Agitate the pain points of your prospect’s current problem that they’re looking for your product/service to solve
• Hook your prospect’s attention by leading with the strongest benefit
• Convince your prospect to imagine how much their life will improve with your product/service
• Support your offer with social proof like reviews and testimonials
• Address the reasons why your prospect might not want to purchase
• Show your prospect what they’ll lose if they don’t act
• Provide a frictionless call-to-action (CTA)

Web copy also uses psychological techniques and emotional triggers like curiosity to generate sales. Blogs focus on educating an audience with tips and techniques, interviews with subject matter experts, and other informational messaging. 

Difference #3: Length

Longer blog posts perform better with website visitors and search engines. This is because people are performing more long-tail keyword searches to find an exact answer to their question. Long-form posts also attract more backlinks and organic traffic and build your authority faster online.  

Unlike blog posts, longer web copy is not always better. Long copy converts well in general but you want a prospect to take action on your site. This requires understanding what and how much you need to say. You can cause your target audience to bounce if you don’t consider their pain points and stage of awareness. 

Difference #4: Update frequency 

Web copy usually requires updating about once a year or more. Additions and revisions can take place as your company evolves over time.

For example, your service or product offerings have expanded, you’ve hired new employees, and partnered with different types of clients. Therefore, you might renew your product and service pages, and your testimonials and About page.  

Meanwhile, blogs serve as a more regularly updated source of content on your website. You can make a huge difference in how your website ranks by publishing at least one to three high-quality posts per week. According to HubSpot, websites with a blog have 434 percent more indexed pages than sites without one.

Difference #5: Keyword targeting

As previously mentioned, blogs are excellent for targeting long-tail keywords because they explore topics in-depth. This makes it easier to integrate keywords that are semantically related to the main competitive ones on your website.  

And conversely, web copy is better for including competitive head keywords. This is because web pages like the homepage receive more links, page authority, and traffic from branded searches. Web copy is also usually shorter than blog posts, making it more difficult to rank for related long-tail keywords. 

Difference #6: Social sharing

Since blogs are a consistent source of new content, they’re also ideal for sharing on social media. Doing so can boost traffic to your website and help engage your followers by encouraging comments, reposts, and retweets. 

Everyone loves to share blog posts that are interesting, helpful, and well-designed (e.g. infographics). Web copy is relatively static and sales-driven on your website. This makes it not as enticing to share on social media.

Difference #7: Linking strategy

Prove that your posts are credible and well-researched by incorporating external and internal links into your blog content. This can enhance your brand’s reputation as a thought leader. It can also boost your SEO efforts by ranking your site higher in search results.

Linking externally to more established websites improves trust with both search engines and human visitors. And as more high-quality sites link back to you the more valuable Google sees your website. 

Internal links in blog posts provide complementary information on your topic for your readers. This helps to improve engagement and keep them on your site for longer. They can also provide easier website navigation for your visitors and allow Google quicker access to pages on your site.

However, web copy that converts limits the number of external and internal links on the main pages of your site. This avoids distracting visitors from completing the action you want them to do.

Only visually prominent calls to action should link to another page on your site. This way you can control how visitors read your copy and increase clicks on your call-to-action (CTA) button.

Final takeaways

Web copy drives your site visitors to take certain actions (e.g. opt-in, sign up, or make a purchase). In the meantime, blog content educates your readers and nurtures your existing customers. Blogs and web copy are both crucial for business growth, so it pays to understand the specific goals of each. 

For instance, you wouldn’t use blog content in place of web copy or vice versa because neither would work. I hope this article helps to clear up any confusion about the differences between blogs and web copy. Keep your business growing strong with a well-strategized online marketing foundation. 

Did I miss any other differences? Please share your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to know what you think.