By Sang Hee Park

Tiffani Jones owns Second and Park, a web writing business, and will be hosting a SXSW panel, titled “Writing Web Content For A Living.” She focuses on copywriting and content strategy. Before starting Second and Park, Tiffani was a community/marketing specialist and project manager at Blue Flavor, and attended graduate school at the University of Chicago. She started the Website a couple years ago, when she was working at a design agency. The agency needed a copywriter, and since she had always wanted to be a writer, so jumped at the opportunity. She took some writing classes and grew from there.

Second and Park Jones’ her web writing and content strategy business. She started Second and Park as a practical way of exercising her entrepreneurial side because there is a great need for good web writing. For her business, she said “Web copy is writing that makes peoples’ Websites easier to use and navigate, more fun to read, and more compelling.” The writing also could involve taglines, product descriptions, and interaction on the page.

Even though many people focus on design and new technology, when people surf the Web, they are looking for content, most of which is written. Therefore, good Web copy helps businesses and organizations communicate who they are and what they do in a way that makes people want to stick around. In addition, good Web copy makes a website easier to use and navigate.

To become a Web writer, Jones said the most important things are knowledge of basic design, user experience principles and the basics of good copywriting. She also said that writing for the web is different and grammar fundamentals are a good place to start. Jones advice to new writes is to “write a lot of web copy! Start reading about it (A List Apart is helpful), and familiarize yourself with the best web copywriters out there. I took one at the school of visual concepts in Seattle. Once you have the basic principals down pat, start practicing. Rewrite copy for free, and see how it feels and if you like it. There are also classes out there which can be very helpful.”