ArticleAptean builds industry-specific enterprise software. The systems that run a food manufacturer’s cold chain, an equipment dealer’s back office, or an asset-heavy operation’s maintenance schedule.
I write for their SEO and content team through an agency, on an ongoing contract. The remit runs across their product verticals rather than sitting with one, so in any given month I might be working on food and beverage trends, cold chain logistics, dealer management systems or AI agents.
That brings three connected challenges.
Range, because each vertical has its own vocabulary, regulations and pressures, and getting up to speed on a new one is a regular part of the job
Audience, because a single blog might be read by a CFO, an operations lead, an IT director and an implementation partner, all at different points in a long and expensive buying decision
Search, because every piece has to earn its ranking while still reading like something a person wrote for another person
Most of the work happens before I write a word. I research the subject, look at what’s already ranking and where the gaps sit, then build the brief and outline with guidance on structure, keywords and internal links.
There’s a regional layer to all of it. Aptean sells across the US, UK and Europe, and the same subject changes shape depending on where the reader sits. Traceability in the US means FSMA and a 2028 deadline. In the UK and EU it means a different set of digital record-keeping rules. Product names differ by market too, so a piece written for one region can’t just be lifted into another. I write in US English as house style, flag idioms that won’t travel, and check that links point to the right regional variant of a page rather than defaulting home.
The writing itself starts from the reader’s day rather than the product sheet. The batch that has to be recalled. The shipment sitting in the wrong temperature range. The machine that fails on a Friday afternoon. Once that’s grounded, the technical detail has somewhere to sit.
Alongside the blog work, I’ve been part of the team rewriting website copy for Aptean’s site migration and personalisation.
Science and technology
Visa – Copywriter, Ecosystem Publishing, SEO, GEO & AI Discoverability