For my daughter, this was her fourth NAPLAN experience. After a trial essay in class last week, she was panicking about the writing NAPLAN. Being told she’s good at writing essays didn’t give her any comfort until she finally told me  she ‘had never written an essay in her life and didn’t know what one was’.

Throughout primary school and early secondary school, the kids have been taught various types of writing (I know I was never formally taught such a range as specific styles!) such as an argumentative piece, an opinion, instructions and a report. Yet no one had ever thought to tell all of them that an essay is just another term for a persuasive or argumentative piece!

Once I realised this was the issue, my daughter regained her confidence in essay writing and believes she did a good answer in her writing NAPLAN.

My children think of persuasive pieces, I think of essays – what do you call a piece of writing that covers a topic to make a case for their opinion?

Understanding jargon

Poor jargon use raises reader questions

When I went to school, we were never taught to write an argumentative or persuasive piece – we wrote essays. Technically, there is no difference but a change of terminology requires care.

If you teach kids to write persuasive pieces you can’t test them on essays unless you define and explain what an essay actually is – they have no experience of essays and figuring it out during a test is not good for their test performance.

By now, the link to business should be obvious! No matter what you are writing for a business or website, you need to be sure the intended audience will understand it.

Just because you are very familiar with jargon (technical or industry specific terms for things) and abbreviations does not mean your readers will be. So it is important to avoid jargon as much as possible.

In some contexts, using jargon is fine (for example, a doctor won’t write about an intestinal disease by saying the symptom is a sore tummy). However, it is still important to minimise the jargon use to be sure it is understood. Going back to our medical example, if a gastroenterologist is writing for a general medical audience she could use medical terms but perhaps avoid very specific terms that other doctors won’t know.

Naming and defining

Whenever you do use jargon or industry specific terms in a bsueinss context it is a good idea to define the term.

You may be able to define terms at the first use of it or perhaps have a glossary page which each use of the term can be linked to.

Adding definitions is a good idea even if you are confident your audience knows the jargon because:

1. it ensures your understanding of a term is the same as your reader’s understanding
2. it helps someone new to your field understand your content – a new doctor will know most of the jargon in an article but may need to check on some words for instance
3. having words defined on a website can help with your SEO efforts
4. it is useful for someone researching your topic. These people may not be your target audience but helping them can lead to good will – and some of those people may well enter your field later and remember who helped them learn the jargon in the first place
5. if there are two or three common terms for something, don’t assume everyone knows them all. Such as my daughter not knowing ‘essay’ and ‘persuasive piece’ are essentially the same thing or someone in NSW not knowing kinder comes before Prep in Victorian schools.

Does your website include definitions of words that are potentially difficult for you audience to recognise or understand? Have you ever reviewed your website for words and terms that may be considered jargon?

A good heading will entice people to read the post which means they will click on a link to it as well. So write a good heading not just within your blog but in the title you use for links to your blog post.

Including relevant subject words in a heading has two advantages for bringing in more readers.

Anybody looking for information on a specific topic will be attracted by seeing those words in the heading. It will also stop uninterested people clicking through to your post (and this is a good thing if you are trying to reduce your bounce rate and not waste time and bandwidth on people who are not your potential customers anyway).

Including subject words also helps search engines summarise your blog post and determine its importance and relevance for any specific search term.

Here are a few examples to show how a subject word can help:

What I’m reading vs My top business books

Preparing dinner vs Planning nutritious meals

My hobby vs Bike riding for fun

Which of these headings do you think will show up in search engine searches for business books, healthy cooking and bike riding?

allude [verb]: indirectly refer to something
Being discreet, the Principal will only allude to the incident when explaining the new policy to students. 

Note that allude is an indirect reference so does not fit in a sentence such as ‘In summary, the details I alluded to are numerous but simple’ because giving details is not indirect – mentioned or referred would be better words in this instance.

elude [verb]: to escape or get away from
The truant student continues to elude teachers and social workers.
The manager’s name eludes me but I remember his jolly laugh.

Remember the e in elude and escape to help get these words in their correct context.

Maybe the host blogger likes updating the blog without writing much themselves, maybe they like the traffic guest bloggers can bring or maybe they are basing their blog on a team effort to give a broader picture. Whatever the motivation, the host blogger benefits.

Accept posts graciously

I think it is plain good manners and a strategic decision to be nice to people who offer posts upon request.

Recently, I saw a blog request blog posts through BloggerLinkUp. I looked at the site and the topics covered, decided it was a good fit for me and emailed the blog with a post idea.

The response received left a sour taste in my mouth and I didn’t bother writing a blog post for him. The issues with the email:

1. he didn’t bother using my name or a greeting of any description
2. he told me to read his ‘write for us’ page to see the requirements – he didn’t link to it or tell me how to find that page. At a quick look in his site menu and footer, I can’t see any related links so I left the site. It would had been easy to give me a link. It would have been easier to include such a link and requirement in the original request for blog posts
3. he didn’t use his name to finish the email – it made it all very impersonal and showed no attempt on his part to build a relationship. I no longer felt comfortable with him or his site, and certainly didn’t feel it was somewhere I wanted to regularly contribute posts to
4. this one is perhaps more personal, but I didn’t like his comment “I would publish your post if it meets the standard of this blog”. I felt he assumed I wasn’t up to the standard rather than assuming I am (sort of ‘capable until proven incapable’ is my usual approach). He didn’t acknowledge the topic I had suggested – who knows if that even met his unstated standards?

So if you want people to provide guest posts for your blog, or articles for your website or newsletter, try to build a relationship with those who offer you their writing – or at least send them a nice email response.

What sort of responses have you received from sending out or offering to write guest blog posts?

Energy Action has an online calculator to help you estimate the impact on your business – just enter your current electricity and gas bills to get an estimate of your bills for the next 3 financial years.

The carbon tax is coming, power bills will increase and businesses have to deal with it.

In the fight to keep prices down but profits steady, I think adding green practices to your business can help. That is, if you can implement some changes that reduce your power bills, the carbon tax will have less impact on for expenses so you can maintain prices and profits.

As a test, I reduced my electricity consumption by 50 kWh to save $16.93 per month in 2013 and $18.71 per month in 2015. Prices jumped $3.55 per month in that period prior to my reduced consumption.

{I made up the consumption numbers just for interest and used Victoria as my state.}

Saving in business power

How can you reduce your power consumption by 50 or more kWh?

There are many ways to cut your energy consumption, but some I have done or am looking at include:

1. switch to energy saving globes
2. turn off lights, printers, copiers, monitors, etc at the end of every business day – and over lunchtime if everyone is out of the office
3. put on a jumper and turn down the heating
4. dress in cool clothes, use a fan and ensure circulation in the office so you can use the air conditioning less in summer
5. keep your equipment clean – dust in fans and filters can slow things down, risk overheating and therefore cost more to run
6. rearrange furniture to maximise natural light from windows to reduce the need for electric lighting
7. where possible, reduce the amount of sun hitting your windows in summer – plant deciduous trees outside or put up some shade cloth
8. only print what is necessary – many things can be read on your screen and stored on your hard drive. Saves in paper and ink costs, too
9. use kitchen appliances wisely – only add enough water in the kettle as needed but fill the dishwasher completely before use
10. where relevant and practical, encourage staff and clients to use manual doors rather than electronic doors and stairs rather than lifts – it’s healthier for them as well as saving electricity use

What other ways can you minimise the impact of the carbon tax on your business? Will you try to minimise the impact rather than pass on increases to clients?

So why do some sites avoid sharing anything about themselves?

Add an about us page to your website and blog

As Chris Lake wrote, an about us page “is surely one of the only true rules of doing business online. I can think of no good reason why you wouldn’t have one.”

An about us page can be very simple but it can make a huge difference to people thinking of doing business with you.

For a stand alone blog, it lets readers know who is writing the posts – for instance, is it a business or an individual, is it by an expert or someone learning the topic, or is the blog focussed on a specific topic or just a collection of ideas.

For a business website, it can build enough credibility for me to do business with you – or not.

How ‘about us’ can build credibility

1. you are being open and transparent compared to making me wonder why you are hiding things – no name on a website instantly makes me suspicious
2. providing history shows the business is more than a fly-by-night – if you’ve been in business for a few years, you must have done something right!
3. explaining how the business began or the passion behind the business will certainly give me a believe in the intent of the business and its owners
4. introducing team members can give me an idea of what skills are available for me as a potential client
5. listing values or just writing a personal story can show the company culture

I have an about us page on my website and as part of my blog, even though they are on the same domain, so it is easy for people to read about me and my business. I wonder if I’m brave enough to ask if you have read either of them!

How important is an about us page when you are assessing a potential supplier or service provider?

Bazaar [noun]: a marketplace with miscellaneous stalls and shops, especially in a Middle Eastern country; a shop or market selling a mixture of items; a stall or market where goods are sold as a fund-raising event
Mireille strolled through the bazaar while waiting for friends in Lebanon. 

Bizarre [adjective]: odd, obviously out of the ordinary and different, far-fetched, unexpected
The teacher’s outfit was bizarre – a mix of cultures, colours and fabrics like I’d never seen before. 

Whether it is an introduction, history of the business, outlining products, naming directors or key staff, there are sections of an annual report that don’t change much over the years.

Repeat the wording?

The fastest option therefore is to use exactly the same wording in those sections every year, just changing small details as necessary. The freshest option would be to rewrite all those sections.

There are pros and cons to both options, such as:

1. if you assume most people don’t read annual reports from cover to cover, and probably don’t remember last year’s report in depth anyway, not changing the words would probably escape attention from the majority of people
2. repeating the wording not only saves you time rewriting the content but also in gathering feedback and approvals on it – it was approved last year so will meet the criteria this year too (if major style changes have occurred, copying old content isn’t an option!)
3. it looks a bit slack and old to anybody who does notice the wording hasn’t changed
4. it is easy to make errors when you assume ‘oh it was ok last year so I’ll just skim read this bit’ and miss the reference to ‘our new office’ a year later or forget to update 2012-11 to 2011-12.
5. content from the annual report can be copied and used elsewhere because it is approved, public information. Updating the content each year is a nice way to update basic information in numerous places so your profile is kept fresh and interesting
6. depending on how your annual report is presented online, you could end up with what appears to be duplicate content on your site (if four pdfs are all 33% the same, for example, there will be a lot of repetition). Search engines do not like duplicate content and can penalise your site for it
7. staff can get bored rereading the same words – new content gives them fresh wording to utilise in presentations and on phone calls, too

So what do you think – would you be unhappy getting an annual report that was largely the same as last year’s? Would you even notice?

It gives the host blog some control over the standard of posts accepted. The host blogger can accept great post ideas and make sure they read well.

Specific policies are more effective

Many blog policies include something like

All guest blog posts may be edited before publishing.

As a potential guest blogger, that makes me nervous. What will they edit? Will they tell me they have edited it before it is published? What if their edits include poor grammar/expression so it looks like I made those mistakes?

As a host blogger, I would feel uncomfortable taking advantage of such a policy and making huge changes to someone else’s post. I would also start to think it would have been easier to write my own post on the topic!

I prefer a more specific policy, such as

Guest blog posts may be edited for spelling and basic grammar.

For full transparency and relationships building, I would add an extra sentence, too:

We will get your approval on any edits other than typo corrections

If you’re submitting guest posts, which blog would you choose if the only difference was in their editing policies?

With such a diverse age range, not to mention the range of personalities and other abilities, it could be challenging to keep them all involved and engaged.

Change how you present a message

Making the weekend work was a good example of adjusting your communications to suit the audience.

As leaders, we could have said lets learn how to cook in a fire and use a compass. Instead, fitting with our Harry Potter theme, we created choc-orange cauldrons and searched for the Philosophers Stone.

When a little more time was needed to prepare something, I could have asked the kids to wait patiently or run across the oval to burn energy. Instead I said “Sarah and Wil, see if you can run across to the tower and back before anyone can catch you”. They all ran off, had fun and didn’t notice the delay for preparation.

Communicating via sorting hat

The best example, however, was putting the Scouts into groups for the weekend. Any other time, we might just read out a list of names and leave it at that. This time, each scout was called up to greet the sorting hat and have it decide on their group. Yes it took longer but there were no complaints nor restless kids as they loved the process.

HOW we presented the activities and our messages was important in making the weekend a success – the WHAT was important too but would have been less effective on its own.

Applied to business

A Harry Potter theme and changing ordinary activities into those with exciting names won’t help in most business situations. But the concept of adjusting a message to suit the situation is perfect for anyone, including businesses and websites.

You have a key message you want people to hear, so you may as well present your message in a way that maximises how many people will listen to it.

There are many ways to adjust your presentation, but here are a few to get you started:

• put it as a question rather than a statement
• add some humour
• choose the words and tone to suit – perhaps more formal or casual, simple words or more sophisticated vocabulary
• use a short and to-the-point version on Twitter but a friendly and more questioning version in Facebook
• can the background be livened up to catch interest? For example, I’ve printed flyers on blue paper rather than white to put into conference goodie bags

Of course, to tailor your message effectively, you need to understand your audience. On camp, we knew we were talking to active 6 to 17 year-olds who wanted to have fun and be involved. Our techniques wouldn’t have worked so well if we’d had 50 4-year-olds or a group of business men on a team building exercise.

So how well do you know the target audience for your business? Well enough to adjust your message to suit? Well enough to tailor your message for different segments of your audience (e.g. those on Twitter compared to those attending a workshop)?