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I hope you find my writing and business tips and observations useful. My business and blog are dedicated to helping businesses communicate clearly and reach their potential. Read, subscribe to my newsletter, enjoy!Tash

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Don’t apologise for being Australian

Published 11 February, 2008 | By TashWord

We all know that spelling varies between Australia and some other countries, notably the USA. We write neighbour, they write neighbor; we write centre, they write center.

Which spelling you should use depends on who your readers are – if you want to attract Australian customers, use Australian spellings, and so on. If your domain ends with .au, then use Australian spelling and metric measurements even if you have an international audience – be proud of being Australian and use our conventions, especially as you have already announced your link to Australia.

As an Australian, I can read US spelling and understand it without too much effort (even when it annoys me on an Australian site!) and I believe that the Americans can cope with reading our spelling, too. I recently saw an Australian site with an explanation of the two spellings – to me, this implied that any Americans visiting the site were too stupid to understand ‘colour’ means ‘color’. That, or our spelling is somehow inferior and should be apologised for in case the Americans don’t like us.

Either way, it is not a good message to send and was a complete waste of the site owner’s time to prepare the table. So, be proud of our country and our conventions, and give others the courtesy that they are intelligent enough to respect and understand that.

Posted in web content, writing | Tagged , , , , | 11 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 , , , | 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 , , , , | 2 Comments

SMS shorthand

Published 12 January, 2008 | By TashWord

Like pretty much anyone else, if I am sending a SMS message I may use short forms and abbreviated words – it’s quicker and easier on a small screen and keyboard. Although it is becoming less necessary with smart phones.

However, as a professional writer, I cringe every time I see shortened words in other contexts.

There is no need to use SMS shortcuts on a website, in a newsletter or blog, or in any other business or professional document. Personally, I don’t think there’s much need to use it in personal emails or letters, either, but I’ll leave that alone!

Reading information about a business, we want to know if we can trust the business and that they will provide a professional service*. If the business can’t even be bothered writing out full words, they do not inspire trust that they will provide much for customers.

Examples…

1. Only days ago a friend forwarded me an email she had received. The subject of the email was “Here’s to a gr8 ’08!” and she forwarded it to me with the comment that she hadn’t even bothered reading it because the subject “really put me off!”

With something like an email subject, you only have one chance to entice people to read it, so don’t lose that chance by not using full words.

2. A while ago I was asked to review someone’s website for a service based business where she really needed people to trust her. The entire homepage was full of U (instead of you), lower case letters and other SMS-type words. Had I not been reviewing it, I would not have even read the page  – again, you only have a short time to grab a visitor’s interest on a website so make first impressions good.

So, go back to basics – use good grammar, spelling and expression to present a clear message even if you think your audience understands or relates to SMS texting language. Understanding it is not the same as respecting it away from mobile phones.

* By professional service, I mean service that is appropriate, courteous and business -like so it includes customer service in a retail setting as well as services from a service provider such as an accountant, lawyer or writer.

Posted in bad writing examples, grammar & details, web content, writing | Tagged , , , | 7 Comments

Always double-check your writing

Published 14 December, 2007 | By TashWord

Writing well is more than just getting words onto the page – you also need to check the correct words and spelling are there to be read.

I was looking at a website the other day and I’m sure they didn’t proof read it – maybe they didn’t actually read it at all once it was written. On their contact page it states:

Submit your answers and reply or call at no time.

The bit that jumped out at me was ‘call at no time’ – not exactly a welcoming message for a business! The mistake of ‘no’ instead of ‘any’ is simple to make but has a big impact on the final meaning of your words.

Of course, ‘submit your answers and reply’ doesn’t make sense either. Reading over their work (or getting someone else to read it for them) could have ended with webcopy that made sense.

So always read through and check your writing says what you wanted it to say, without missing words.

Posted in grammar & details, web content, writing | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Trusting suppliers

Published 2 December, 2007 | By TashWord

Outsourcing is a valuable activity in business – you gain expert assistance, time and completed projects.

Yet many business owners choose to not trust their suppliers. Now obviously you need to maintain control and ensure suppliers are providing you with what you’re paying for, but you are also paying for their expertise.

I recently did some webcopy for a client. Amongst other things, I rewrote their about us page – both adjusting the content (as requested by the client) and improving the flow and grammar of the page.

The feedback from the client was ‘that’s good thanks, but we made a few changes to the about us text’. That’s great – they should take ownership and make changes so it is accurate and they are comfortable with the final copy.

However, when I looked at their changes I saw that they had replaced a lot of my text with their grammatically incorrect text again. By grammatically incorrect, I’m talking about sentences like ‘we started our business because my son needed…’ without indicating who ‘me’ actually is. It ended up not making much sense and looking very amateurish, unfortunately.

The point is that if you’re going to pay a professional writer, then take their advice on grammar, flow and style, even if you want to change the tone or content of the work.

I’ve heard graphic designers, accountants, web designers and database programmers express this frustration, too. In all instances, the professional has done what the client wanted but is disappointed in the result as they are aware of the errors. The professional is also unlikely to add that project to their portfolio so you won’t get any free advertising that way, either.

Question a professional by all means, make a suggestion even, but listen to what they tell you before you assume your way is best.

If you are not ready to take professional advice and direction, then maybe you aren’t ready to give up any control of your business and outsourcing won’t help you.

Outsourcing will help you and save you time, but only if you are ready to accept that help.

Posted in business info & tools, grammar & details, web content, writing | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Why use a professional writer?

Published 24 November, 2007 | By TashWord

Not many people actually ask me outright, but you can almost see the thought cross their mind – “why would I pay someone to write stuff for me? I know how to write a sentence.”

One very important reason some people choose to hire a writer is simply to save time. It is a task to be outsourced so you can spend more time doing what you’re best at. This is especially true for people who struggle over every word and find writing very time consuming.

Another reason is distance – a professional writer is not so close to your business so will have a clearer perspective of what needs to be said. When you are close to the business, it is easy to get caught in details that aren’t necessary in a marketing document for instance. And when it comes to something like an about us page on a website, many people find it hard to write about themselves anyway.

A professional writer (or editor) may just review what you have done – finding those little errors you can’t easily find in your own work. It is handy if you work alone and don’t have anyone else who can proof read for you.

Of course, a major reason for using a professional writer is to get words that work well, are easy to read and are grammatically correct. For some people this is easy to achieve, others have to work hard at it and some people just can’t get it no matter what they do. Even if you can write fairly well, if you aren’t experienced at writing in a certain way it may be worth getting a professional to do it for you. You can always use their work as a model for future projects.

I think of it this way – I can hold a pencil or paint brush and make marks on a page but I would pay someone else to actually paint something to hang on my walls. We all have our talents and I’d prefer to outsource to experts than try to find time to do everything myself. Which of course leaves me with more time for writing…

Posted in blogging, newsletter content, web content, writing | Tagged , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Convincing someone to join in

Published 15 November, 2007 | By TashWord

A few days ago I shared part of an email I received – the person was trying to convince me (and others as it was a mass email) to participate in her forums. Her email was unlikely to work, so I thought I’d share some ideas on how to convince someone to participate in something they are reluctant about.

1. Consider why they are reluctant – maybe it is lack of time or they think it is too expensive, or maybe it is just too hard or intimidating. Once you have the reason, or most likely reasons, answer those reasons.

For example, if people aren’t buying your product because they don’t think it has value for money, don’t tell them they are wrong but explain the value – “This product is fully reusable and made from sturdy materials that will last for years” or “This price includes delivery, a 12 month warranty and a spare battery pack.”

2. Point out the advantages for them, not you.

For example, “Did you know posting on forums can help your search engine results?” or “If you have questions, ask them on the forum – we have experts who may be able to help you” or “When you leave this event, you will know how to save hours every month”

3. Show respect and give the person space to say no without loosing face. No one likes being forced into anything or being nagged, and no one appreciates being made to feel stupid or cheap for not participating in something. So invite and then give them room to decide for themselves.

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

Fresh web content tips

Published 20 October, 2007 | By TashWord

Carrying on from my last post about Lucie of MultimediART’s talk, it was interesting to get her interpretation on fresh website content. It has often been said that fresh content is important for search engine rankings, but what does fresh content mean?

Three main points to consider are:

  • change the content on your site at least once between each visit from a search engine spider (check your stats to find out how often that is for your site)
  • keep the content change within 2 clicks of your homepage
  • swapping around a few words or even a paragraph is probably not enough to count as fresh for a search engine

Search engines apparently search your site more or less often depending on how fresh they judge your content to be.

Content includes any articles and text on your site, as well as products, tools, news items, RSS feeds, and so on.

So how fresh is your website?

Word Constructions
Word Constructions ~ for all your business writing needs

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

Website marketing

Published 18 October, 2007 | By TashWord

I went to a Business Mums Network morning tea this morning – in fact I hosted it!

The speaker, Lucie Battaini of MultiMediART, spoke to us about using simple and mostly free techniques to get more people to your website. Although I knew a lot of what Lucie spoke about, it was great to hear it all put together and I learnt some new things, too.

For instance, Lucie spoke about keywords – apparently, keyword metadata isn’t used by most search engines now but the use of keywords in your content is crucial. That means you should include a couple of important words as many times as possible in your web content for search engines to find and correctly categorise you.

However, it is really important to not overuse your keywords – imagine if I used ‘business writing’ at least once in every sentence – boring and confusing to read. I find it better to write the information normally so it flows properly, and then go back and see if there’s a way to add a few more keywords without loosing the flow.

And of course, Lucie pointed out that content is King, so I’d better get writing!

Word Constructions
Word Constructions ~ for all your business writing needs

Posted in web content | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments
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