Writer's Tips: Web Content

WEB CONTENT

What makes web content that people will actually read?

Content that's relevant, easy to comprehend, and keyworded. 

Get to the point!

Readers assess webpages in an instant. Your content has a few seconds—three or less!—to encourage people to read more, to take action, or to navigate to another of your pages. Impatient readers will click the Back button in a hurry or will stop skimming and go to a search box.

Shape your text for online reading

Text that works best on the Web is text that gets to the point fast and that makes it easy for readers to pick out key information. Here’s why.

Online reading is an experience that’s different from reading text in print. A big part of that difference is physical: For most people, online reading takes longer—or feels as though it does. A computer screen displays text at a lower resolution, with less detail and sharpness than a printed page, so letters are fuzzier. And many people feel that their eyes tire faster reading text on a screen (especially a smaller screen) than reading type on paper.

GREAT RESOURCES:

http://styleguide.yahoo.com/writing/write-web

Continue Reading →

Writer's Tips: Website Copy

 

WEBSITE COPY 

Copywriting for Search Engine Optimization

SEO copywriting is the art of writing web page copy that is appealing to human readers, but also ranks well for specific search terms that people are looking for in search engines. Search engines have now become much more sophisticated, so the fundamentals of solid copy writing are more important than ever. 

Writing Headlines: The Most Important Copywriting Skill

Most writing designed to persuade sinks or swims right out of the gate. Whether the title of an article or the headline of a sales page, readers make snap decisions based on a quick scan of the top of the page. More often than not, they’ll simply move on to something else unless you craft an excellent headline. 

GREAT RESOURCES:

http://www.copyblogger.com/copywriting-101/

http://www.copyblogger.com/copywriting-course-reviews/

Continue Reading →

Writer's Tips: Online Ads

 

ONLINE ADS

Google Adwords offers great tips on writing ads online. 

So how do you create a strong ad?

1. Be relevant:

Make sure that your ad text is closely related to the product and services you offer.

2. Highlight what sets you apart:

In other words, why should someone contact or buy from you, and not someone else? 

3.Include a call to action:

• After someone clicks on your ad, what do you want them
• to do next? Do you want them to buy something, sign-up to your newsletter, contact you, or take another action?

CHOOSING THE RIGHT KEYWORDS FOR YOUR ONLINE ADS

• Use keywords that are 2-3 words long
• Keywords that consist of two or more words tend to be more specific and therefore may speak better to what a potential customer is searching for.  
• Use negative keywords
• Negative keywords keep your ads from appearing for searches that aren’t likely to drive business your way (e.g. queries including the word ‘free’).
• Use the Keyword Tool
• The Keyword Tool helps you discover new keywords and potential negative keywords.

GREAT RESOURCES

http://www.gstatic.com/ads/learn/en/keywordsforadwords.pdf

http://www.gstatic.com/ads/learn/en/writegreatads.pdf

Continue Reading →

A day in the life of amateurs

I was one who used to look at an editor as someone who went to school to destroy my writing. I had once a fight with a so-called news editor in college. We had an exchange of words after I marked our entire college paper with what I thought were glaring mistakes. He called me in and we discussed. Long and intense, as though our lives depended on how we can prove ourselves right against each other. I have never had such an absurd debate about things that were so stupidly obvious, he or the rest of his staff could not even figure out. Example: The sun sets in the east. Oh really? When did that happen? And so on and so forth.

Glad to let you know that after I gave him "lots of pieces" of my mind, I still got the last laugh. He invited me to become one of the editorial staff.

Anyway, the moral of the story is that I did not have any intention of being an editor back then. In fact, I hated editing. Now I'm a proponent of it. I realize how much crap is being published online that I couldn't even sit for five seconds before I want to get up and say I'm done. Editing is such a vital process in any publication, whether online or offline, that if you thought you have written everything right, you should think again. Of course, unlike my other colleagues, I plan to be more considerate with your feelings.

Continue Reading →

Copywriting for email: Shirk the spam filters

Do you ever wonder why some of the emails that you get are from someone you don't know and have words that are mixed with symbols such as ^free^ grant money or Check your --credit-- score today! 

One word comes to your mind: Spam. Professional copywriters for email marketing campaigns know that when the first thing to consider when sending emails to subscribers is to make sure the email gets delivered, then opened. Sometimes, you can't avoid using words like "free" or "opportunity".

Just FYI, these words usually go straight to the spam filter before it gets to your subscriber's inbox.

Don't waste precious words by writing them without giving a thought as to whether your subscribers will actually be able to receive them.

So how to get around this obstacle? Use words that are not likely to be considered by spam filters as spam. Maria Veloso in her book Web Copy  that Sells suggests http://www.lyris.com/us-en/contentchecker. For starters, she also lists the most common words that are likely to be filtered by SpamAssassin and other anti-spam programs.

Continue Reading →