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It’s still one point

Published 17 April, 2008 | By TashWord

When writing a list of ideas or tips, it is worth making sure each one has enough value to be in the list – it is better to read a short list of valuable ideas than a long list of mostly junk surrounding a few good ideas.

Even if you’re calling your list something like “top ten tips” or “101 things to do with cheese”, don’t get tempted to make the list longer just so the title seems more impressive. Your credibility will suffer if the list doesn’t provide the help or interest people were looking for.

What I find even more annoying is a list of say 20 things which actually turns out to be a list of 10 or 15 things. I’m not sure if these writers are deliberately trying to plump out a short list or don’t realise how repetitive they are being, but either way it wastes my time and I don’t like it.

Here are the common ways I’ve seen people repeat list items…

giving the same point in different terms. For example, “use good spelling and grammar” and “don’t misspell words or use bad grammar” as two separate points – obviously, they mean exactly the same thing!
making the same point in different words so it almost seems a different point. For instance “remember to market your existing customers as well as potential customers” is really the same as “don’t neglect your current customers in word of mouth campaigns” in a list of ideas for treating customers well
breaking one point into two points – neither point fully makes sense alone, but if they are long enough they can look acceptable

Are there are other common repetitions or problems with lists that you have come across? What has been your reaction to these annoyances?

Happy writing!

Posted in blogging, newsletter content, web content, writing | Tagged breaking, credibility, impressive, list, long, points, short, terms, valuable, words, writing | Leave a comment

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

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 blog, feedback, improve, negative, newsletter, readers, testimonials | 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 banner, blog, descriptive, good, link, text | 5 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 assess, credibility, defines, honest, include, review, summary, value | 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. this is our first point
2. and our second point…
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 check, Draft, expression, grammar | 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.

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

Newsletter back issues

Published 31 January, 2008 | By TashWord

Offering an online newsletter is a great way of communicating and staying in touch with potential customers. Although some websites place their newsletter on the same page each time, most websites develop an archive of old newsletters – these previous editions are also called back issues.

What are the advantages of keeping back issues on your site?

the information is still available for people to read
the content is available for search engines so can help your site rankings
people unsure about subscribing to your newsletter can read a back issue or two and decide if it is what they are looking for
it develops trust – you aren’t hiding anything
it demonstrates your business has been operating for a while
it shows how often you send out newsletters – even if you say it is monthly, a visual reminder is useful

How do you present back issues?

It depends on what format your newsletters are in, but you can have an archive section which links to all newsletters or you may just link to a few recent editions on your ‘our newslettter’ page.

If you offer an archive, you may want to limit how far back you go with it, especially if you reuse a lot of information from older newsletters.

As long as the date of each newsletter is clear, it is ok to have newsletters public with expired competitions and special offers.

What not to do with back issues…

I recently came across a site with a free html newsletter that charged for back issues. I was recommended the newsletter, but was dubious about it’s quality based on what I saw on the website itself. For me to subscribe to the newsletter, or trust this person with my email address for that matter, I needed to see a back issue. However, I was not going to pay for one so I left the site without subscribing.

Even if you decide that charging for back issues is a good way to recoup some costs or make some extra income, I strongly suggest having one or two editions available for free to show people what they could get out of your newsletter. However, paying for something out of date that is generally given free will irritate most people and probably won’t bring in a lot of sales anyway.

Posted in newsletter content, web content | Tagged back issues, communicating, customers, newsletter | Leave a comment

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 appropriate, attention, honesty, interest, relevance | 2 Comments

Newsletter or blog?

Published 7 January, 2008 | By TashWord

Many small businesses find it challenging to prepare content to fill a monthly (or weekly) newsletter, so adding a blog to their to do list makes them question the value of having both.

Although the value of each will vary with each business according to its client base and product/service range, the following points may help you decide whether a blog, a newsletter or both is the best solution for you.

Newsletter

it reaches people’s inbox so they are reminded of you without any extra effort on their part
most people know about email but a lot don’t know about or like blogs
maintain consistency if you have had a newsletter for some time
it can seem more personal and intimate as it is not generally available online; it is a one-to-one relationship between you and many people, especially if you personalise each newsletter with their name
can be quite short and link to articles/products/news on your site or in your blog
can attract advertising revenue – advertising on blogs is less common (although this is changing)
can be passed onto to other people – they may well read a newsletter but may not get around to clicking on a link for a blog

Blog

easy to include up-to-date information
entries can be very short or as long as you like – variety in length is good but a variety in newsletter length may not be so positive
if on your domain name, it can greatly impact on your site’s traffic and ranking
people can access older posts easily
people can comment and give you feedback; you can build a community
individual posts can be linked to by other sites and other pages within your blog/site
a younger demographic may relate well to a blog

If you decide to run your own blog and newsletter, you can save yourself some time by

using information from one to fill the other – for example, your newsletter can refer to a blog post. However, don’t overdo the repetition as some people will read both
using articles from Word Constructions or article directories such as Evan Carmichael (not all Australian)
inviting guest bloggers to write for you
write things in advance – fill newsletters or pre-date blog posts so that you aren’t faced with thinking of a topic and writing it the day it is due out

Posted in blogging, newsletter content | Tagged blog, convieneince, newsletter, online | 6 Comments

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