Copywriting is very expensive.

Too damn right copywriting’s expensive. It seems it now costs the hapless online copywriter £5 minimum per click on Adwords to get on to page one of Google for that precise word.

I’ll readily admit that turnover has dropped this year. I’ll also admit that I’m 100% dependent on repeat business plus Adwords to feed my kids.

But I blamed the depleted takings on the recession – and I hadn’t checked my Adwords account for months.

It seems the economy has sparked a pay-per-click arms race.

So, if you’re an SEO specialist who can help me scale Google’s more inaccessible peaks, step this way please.

Like a lot of businesses large and small, I use Google Adwords to attract new business. People tell me it’s expensive, but it works for me. If I spend £10 and make £11 then, as far as I’m concerned, it’s a deal.

Now, one of the options on Adwords is Adsense. This is a way of placing sponsored ads on all manner of web pages that contain content relevant to the ads. (The regular Adwords ads simply display the sponsored boxes in response to a specific Google search.)

Now, the trouble with Adsense is that your ad is usually displayed to people who have absolutely no interest in buying your product or service. It simply attracts window-shoppers. Expensive window-shoppers, at that (each click on my ‘copywriting’ sponsored ad costs me about £1.50).

But here’s a far more damaging effect of Adsense. In an article today by Roger Moore (yes, that Roger Moore) on the evil practices involved in foie-gras production, what should pop up at the foot of the page but an Adsense box advertising ‘delicious duck and goose foiegras’.

So, there we have it – the complete inability of Google Adsense to distinguish between negative and positive content. Can you imagine the damage that little ad will do to that foie-gras supplier?

For me, it’s final proof that Adsense makes no sense at all.

A copywriter has asked me to write his website copy.

Make of that what you will.

More and more of my work comprises SEO copywriting. That has its good side and bad side, and it also raises a few issues.

The bad side is that SEO copywriting doesn’t pay as well as the other stuff. Perhaps it should, but it doesn’t. On the plus side, there’s plenty of it. There are one or two websites out there (I believe there are at least seven) and good SEO (search engine optimised) copy is much sought-after. A nice smattering of well-placed keywords can see your site scaling the North Face of Google in no time at all.

So, what are those issues? Well, the main one for me is that most SEO copywriting sounds like it was composed by a demented leprechaun. If I wrote this, I don’t think many people would do business with me:

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And rightly so. Which is why I reckon web copy just has to become more human-friendly – the hard-sell turns on absolutely nobody and just makes you look a bit desperate.

So, SEO copywriting must evolve to survive. But I reckon I’m ahead of the crowd. My SEO stuff keeps Google happy, but I go to great lengths to make my web copy sound like it’s not actually written by spiders. It’s all about having the skills to insert the phrases naturally into the text; to break them up and play with them.

As a general rule, if you’re a good writer, you can become a good SEO writer, too. It’s really not so different.

Once every three months or so, I get a phone call or an e-mail asking for a supply of Therapain Plus, a spray that penetrates deep, works fast and is made from all-natural ingredients.

Truth is, I’m not a Therapain salesman. I did, however, as a copywriter, once write a sales letter for an Irishman from a company called Sales of the Unexpected. You can find that letter on my website.

So please, if you need Therapain Plus to work fast and penetrate deep, don’t come to me. I’m a copywriter.

However, the success rate of that letter must be phenomenal – something like 90% of those who read it must call me for a bottle of the stuff.

So, if you need a sales letter that works fast and penetrates deep, I’m your man.

With his trusty paintbrush, Stefan Gatward has been flying the flag for the English language.

Dressed in a collar, tie and well-polished shoes, the former soldier has been fixing missed apostrophes on grammatically incorrect street signs in Tunbridge Wells.

Thanks to his dedication, St Johns Close has become St John’s Close, and supermarkets that have a ‘five items or less’ queue have been blacklisted by him until they provide a queue for people with ‘five items or fewer’.

Britain needs heroic idiots like this.

Incidentally, I see that Readers’ Digest has gone bust. I think the writing was on the wall when they moved the apostrophe to before the s.

I get a lot of e-mail from wannabe copywriters. This is OK, leaving aside the fact that their window-shopping has cost me about £1.35 on Adwords.

I have to confess, though, that I did go through a period of sending this automatic reply: ‘Thank you for your request. I’m afraid I no longer offer copywriting advice as it is rarely acknowledged. Apologies if you were among the 5% who would have thanked me.’

Nowadays, I’m a bit less grumpy. Or perhaps I just get a better class of visitor to my site. Anyway, I had a lovely e-mail from Kate, a local-paper journalist, today, who wants to cross over from the dark side. We had a nice e-mail exchange and I’m going to help her with some copy samples.

See, I don’t bite. You just need to be polite.

I’m Ireland’s number one copywriter. Yes, I know I live in England, and I’ve been to the land of the long, dark stout just the once (it was lovely). But I AM Ireland’s number one copywriter.

Thanks to a page I wrote a couple of years back, around 10% of my clientele are now from across the Irish Sea.

As more copywriting work comes in from Dublin, I can’t help feeling that too many copywriters spend far too much time trying to be all things to all people. Why bother? Niche is nice.

From Scotland comes this brilliant example of copywriting that grabs you around the throat and squeezes your pips till they pop out of your ears.

This notice was spotted in a shop window in Campbeltown, Argyll:

‘We would rather do business with 1000 Al Qaeda terrorists than with one single British soldier!’.

So far, so inflammatory. But here’s the kicker, as they say.

The shop was an undertaker’s.

Now, I’m not in the business of having a go at my copywriting competitors. Or, at least, I would never name them if I do. But some things have to be said.

OK, I know I’ve done this subject before. But these ‘copywriters’ keep popping up. You can bash them on the head with a mallet like that crazy arcade game, but they still rise to the surface from the mucky depths of the web.

I’m compelled to speak out because I found one copywriter today (from my home town – hey, with a little research, you might find him) whose site bears the very, very ugly ‘I’ve also wrote for’ plus numerous examples of its (possessive form) carrying an apostrophe.

You can blame the education system. You can blame unemployment. You can blame the lack of regulation. They could all be factors, but the truth remains that people like this shouldn’t be writing for anyone until they’ve grasped the basics.