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Correcting spelling, yes or no?

Published 11 April, 2008 | By TashWord

I have just been asked if it is rude to correct the spelling of comments added to your blog. An interesting question!

Like so many things, there is no clear answer about what is the ‘right thing’ to do.

I don’t think it is a valuable use of time to check every incoming comment for correct spelling and grammar, but really obvious errors are a bit different. One on hand, it is the person making the comments who will be seen to have bad spelling, not you, so it won’t affect your professional standing.

On the other hand, if the error annoys you or will detract from the message, it is very tempting to fix the error yourself.

If the comment is mostly well written and spelt correctly, I would be inclined to correct any typos or spelling errors. The person who wrote it probably would prefer to appear competent and may be kicking themselves for the error anyway!

If the comment is full of spelling mistakes that aren’t just typos, it is trickier. My instinct is to not have bad English in my blog, even bits not written by me! Someone who can’t spell well may not even notice you correcting their work, and others wouldn’t care either way – but I suspect some people would be offended to find you had corrected their words, especially if the errors were consistent (I’m particularly thinking of people who use SMS shorthand instead of proper spelling.)

Unless you know the person making the spelling mistakes and want to help them and/or know they would appreciate it, I would avoid changing their spelling. It’s harsh, but if they don’t care enough to get things right, it is their reputation they are damaging, not yours.

Of course, your response to their comment needs to be spelt perfectly and sometimes may be able to serve as a lesson in correct spelling!

Posted in blogging | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Negative feedback in your newsletter?

Published 7 April, 2008 | By TashWord

If you write a newsletter, or even a blog or magazine, and you include a feedback or testimonials section, do you censor them? You have more control over newsletter content and testimonials than over comments posted in your blog, but how do you best use that control?

If you get a lot of feedback, then it is likely you will only add some of it to your newsletter each time or it would be overwhelming for your readers.

However, if you generally add all feedback into your newsletter or present it in your blog, what do you do with negative feedback?

Negative feedback responses

feedback may be negative

Choosing how to deal with negative feedback

If the feedback is inappropriate, nasty or irrelevant (e.g. feedback from someone who isn’t even a customer or newsletter subscriber), delete it and forget it.

On the other hand, if it is constructive criticism (or at least true information, even if it isn’t presented constructively!) include it in your newsletter with your response – making sure your response shows how you are improving your service/product.

Including and responding to negative feedback (assuming it isn’t the majority of the feedback you publish!) builds trust in your readers as you are being honest – they will trust the positive feedback more, too. It also gives a balanced view to your newsletter.

You may find that the negative comments you include will be small issues that people can happily accept, so you can gain the above advantages without damaging your name at all.

Regardless of the content of the feedback, remember to thank people in your newsletter to encourage further comments and feedback – the more feedback you get, the more opportunity you have for improvement in your business. Feedback can also build a feeling of community and belonging amongst your readers.

Posted in blogging, Business Communications, newsletter content | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What makes a good link?

Published 2 April, 2008 | By TashWord

Every website  and blog owner knows, or soon learns, that links are a great way to build traffic and search engine rankings. And most realise that incoming and outgoing links are both important parts of the equation.

But what makes a good link? How do you want to be presented on other sites and blogs when they are linking to you?

Obviously, you can’t always control how people link to you – you often don’t know about links until after they are established – but if you are prepared, you can increase your chances of getting good links, and offer good ones in return.

Many people assume a banner link (that is, an image of your business is linked to you rather than text) is the best option. This is not really true. People looking at the site may notice a banner sooner than text, of course, but don’t always respond more to a picture than to a few well written sentences. And not everyone realises that a banner can be clicked on as a link – they look for underlined text as a link. What is more important though, is that search engines can’t read images so any text in the banner itself is not picked up by a search engine.

So a text link is often more effective. But even then, some text links are better than others. For instance, a descriptive link to my article on formatting letters is more effective than just a link to Word Constructions as it gives the search engines and readers more information.

As you read my blog and website, you will notice that I try to include a description in every link to add more value to you and those I link to. Is this something you will try now?

Happy writing!

Posted in blogging, newsletter content, web content | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

Having an about us page

Published 26 March, 2008 | By TashWord

When surfing around sites and blogs, you occasionally come across a site without an About Us page. To be honest, I don’t always look at an about us page anyway, but it really annoys me when I want to and there isn’t one there to look at.

Why do I want to look at an about us page sometimes?

  • I may want to know where they are based, and the contact us page doesn’t give enough information
  • I don’t understand something on the site and want to check a fact. For instance, if I am unsure if they do consultations as well as sell a product/service, I may check the about us page for details
  • if I want to contact the site/business owner (for example to suggest a joint venture or acknowledge something), I like to use their name and an About Us page is the obvious place to find their name
  • An about us page usually gives me an idea of the size of the business which can sometimes be important
  • I can get a better sense of who is behind the site/blog which can develop my trust/their credibility, or at least give me an idea if the person is speaking as an expert in their blog or just sharing their opinions

I also know many people who really like to know who is behind a business before they deal with it – they want personal stories on the about us page and would even prefer a photo of the owner and key partners/staff.

So, do you have an about us page on your site or blog?

As writing About Us pages is one of the most common web content requests I get, I really should post some tips for writing (or improving) your about us page!

Posted in blogging, web content | Tagged , , , , , | 8 Comments

Good blogging

Published 25 March, 2008 | By TashWord

I recently read a post by Jeff Attwood in his Coding Horror blog. He wrote thirteen blog clichés that he doesn’t like seeing in blogs – it is like a list of what not to do for a good blog, and was quite an interesting read.

While his post stands as is, some of his points particularly stood out to me so I will discuss them in my blog 🙂

One that I very much agree with is his point 5 – the big blogroll. He writes about the waste of listing many blogs in your blog roll, and wrote “It feels artificial and insincere.” Personally, a selective blogroll is a value-add; a long blogroll is ignored.

So what is wrong with listing so many blogs? For starters, a long list doesn’t give any sense of referral or recommendation to the listed blogs, compared to a select listing is likely to be meaningful. It is also hard to find anything from a long list – so at least break the list in to sub-lists to make it more user-friendly.

A particularly long list can also distort the look of a page, especially for short posts.

Having said that, what are the advantages of including some blogs in your blogroll? For starters, it builds the blogging community to link and refer to each other. A crafted blogroll can also help your readers find more information on relevant topics, which they will appreciate.

Links to and from your blog can help with your traffic and search engine rankings, so that in itself makes a blogroll and reciprocal links worth considering. But remember that links within your posts are also effective for rankings and readers, so a minimalist blogroll doesn’t mean you can’t link to additional blogs.

What do you think? Are you impressed by a long blogroll when you visit a blog?

Happy writing!

Posted in blogging, Business Communications | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments

What is a review?

Published 15 March, 2008 | By TashWord

Looking through some blogs recently, I have discovered some unusual interpretations of what a review is…

The online Oxford Dictionarydefines it as a formal assessment of something; a critical appraisal of a work; or a report after the event.

It seems simple – a review is a report about a book, course, website, blog or whatever to help others decide if the work is of potential use/interest/value to them. A review is not an ad (“this product has these features and is available only from us”) or a list of facts (“this website has 10 pages about getting fit”).

If you are writing a review, the following points may help:

  • include all relevant details so someone can find the item easily if they want to. This includes the author and publisher for a book, product name and supplier/manufacturer for a product,  name and URL for a website or blog, and so on
  • give a summary of the item so the reader understands what you are reviewing, but don’t try to include everything – remember, no one wants to hear the punchline before the joke.
  • be honest – that doesn’t mean only list bad things or be nasty, but don’t say it is wonderful if it has some faults or problems. If I write a negative review, I always try to include something positive as well
  • give an assessment, such as ‘thoroughly recommend this book’, ‘great value for money’ or ‘not as good as their previous model’. This helps the reader decide whether they want to know more or not.
  • qualify the work if required. For instance, a book or movie review may state ‘entertaining for the under 10s but tedious for adults’ or ‘thought-provoking but not suitable for teenagers’ so parents can choose not to allow children to read/see it
  • be impartial or upfront about any connections as this builds trust and your credibility – a rave review about something you profit from may damage your reputation

Reviews are a great way to give value to others, but only if people can trust you to give honest, genuine reviews.

Happy writing!

Posted in blogging, newsletter content, web content, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Check presentation

Published 3 March, 2008 | By TashWord

I often mention checking the details, expression and grammar of your business communications. It is also very important to check the presentation as well as that is one of the first things people notice before they even read a word.

Checking means in the final form as well as in drafts, too.

I know I have prepared something carefully on my computer, checked everything carefully and then uploaded it the internet to find it does not present properly live. Sometimes it was something simple like a bad image reference, but other times I couldn’t find a fault, only a solution!

This is why good printers and designers will provide you with proofs before printing starts, just to be sure nothing has moved or changed colour during the preparation process. When checking proofs, you have to be very focused and detail orientated.

I followed a link to a website recently. The entire site was a blog (and we’ll leave having a blog as your business website for another discussion) and I read through a few pages of it. One page was an article listing 10 points that literally looked like:

  1. 1. this is our first point
  2. 2. and our second point…
  3. 3. and so on…
    11. closing paragraph one
    12. closing paragraph two

To give her the benefit of the doubt, I assume she had the article written elsewhere with one set of numbers, added it to her blog and selected numbered list again. Human error, probably; carelessness to not check the final result, definitely.

What is possibly worse are the sites you visit to find little red crosses instead of images, even when you visit again months later. It certainly gives the impression that they never look at their own site or pay attention to details – which is probably not a good impression to give prospective clients.

In my next post, I will cover some of the details I always check for in a final presentation draft.

Posted in blogging, grammar & details, newsletter content, web content | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Stick to your topic

Published 16 February, 2008 | By TashWord

When writing, especially if it is an article or blog post, it isn’t hard to get distracted by related topics and ideas. But if someone has chosen to read about a certain topic, that is what they expect to read about.

Changing topics within a piece of business writing can confuse your readers and reduce your ‘expert’ status. This is especially the case if you are presenting a number of points about a topic (such as ’10 ways to save money’ or ‘tips for reducing water waste in your office’.)

As an example, I recently read an article listing various ways to sell a product. It started with market stalls, direct sales and wholesaling, but then went onto networking and advertising which are not sales methods although they can increase the number of sales made.

If you do want to include points that are not part of your original topic, change the topic to indicate the scope of the writing. Alternatively, write two or more pieces, each about a separate although related topic, instead of one piece on different topics.

 Learn more writing tips from the Writing Well eBook



Posted in bad writing examples, blogging, newsletter content, writing | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Grabbing attention

Published 27 January, 2008 | By TashWord

When writing for your business, it is critical that you grab people’s attention quickly – there are too many websites, blogs, newsletters, direct mail letters and emails for any of us to read them all just in case they hold something good further down the page.

Having said that, you need to grab their attention in the right way or it can actually be damaging rather than a marketing opportunity.

What is the right way? Well, it varies according to the situation of course, but when preparing an opening to a document/webpage/newsletter consider:

  • make it relevant – no point grabbing the attention of people interested in retirement villages if you sell motor bikes
  • keep it honest – don’t promise a discount unless one is really on offer
  • keep it appropriate – swearing, sexual references, hateful comments and so on are not necessary and are unlikely to win you good customers
  • keep it as short and/or visual as possible – a half page paragraph is not going to grab like a 6 word word heading
  • aim it at what your customers want to hear, not what you want to say – I recently read an email which started by saying how great their two organisations were – the final paragraph was about a competition they were running. It would have been much more effective to start with the competition to grab my attention.
  • be realistic – or so far over the top that is obviously humour. An almost believable claim probably won’t build trust so people will move on
  • be sparing with bad (or gimicky) spelling – preferably stick to good spelling altogether and be as grammatically correct as possible
  • make it interesting or ask a question – or ask an interesting question!

Posted in blogging, newsletter content, web content, writing | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Writing professionally

Published 25 January, 2008 | By TashWord

I just read a blog post about writing online as a great career. Don’t get me wrong – I think writing is a great career! But I did not like this blog post.

writing is easy: all you do is sit and stare at a blank sheet until drops of blood form on your forehead. Gene FowlerHowever, the author of that  particular post (and I won’t link to it as I don’t want to been seen as supporting their site!) wrote about how the only writing worth doing is online writing (not business writing mind you, although he also referred to business writing being good) and that anyone can do it.

The standard of writing in the post itself was not particularly high and he was offering writing work to others ‘even if you hate writing essays’ and ‘just know a few advertising principles’.

In response, I want to say that writing is a great career but not everyone has the language skills and knowledge to do it. It also requires some business ability in order to get enough clients and succeed.

As a professional in any industry, why would anyone downgrade the skills of that industry? By saying ‘anyone can write’ he is downgrading his own employees and business – and is not building up a trust in their abilities for prospective clients. And downgrading the industry in that way could also decrease the accepted price ranges for the industry, too, therefore he is not helping his employees either.

As a blog writer, the other lesson from this person’s post is – don’t make your blog posts ads. There is no useful information in his post – it effectively says (in 5 or 6 paragraphs) that writing online is a great job so apply with him now.

Reading an ad instead of an informative post is not going to entice many people back to read another post. People wanting ads can go anywhere – blogs are for information or entertainment.

Posted in bit off track, blogging, writing | Tagged , , | 12 Comments
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