All Writing the Web posts

Tautology, or how to write better than Tolkien

Few things have given me more pleasure than reading The Hobbit to my boys. I loved the book as a child and bringing it to life with silly accents and descriptions of Smaug that make my seven-year-old cower under his covers is priceless. The Hobbit is a charming adventure, and it doesn’t matter to me [...]

Readability tools that actually improve your writing

On the Internet, writing clear text that a 12-year-old can read is something to aim for, not be ashamed of. The clearer and simpler you write, the more people will understand what you are saying. Search for readability tools and you’ll find loads. Many of them will give you a list of scores for a [...]

Where does microcopy come from?

Well, when an editor and content management system love each other very much… No, really, who writes all those little words that play such an important role on a website? The image on the left is a low resolution picture of a spreadsheet containing the microcopy from a small ecommerce website. There are 260 lines, [...]

Copywriters – getting started with SEO

What advice would you give to new freelance copywriters about getting to grips with search engine optimisation? I wrote the following to someone recently who is starting out as a copywriter, and who wondered how techy one needs to be. I don’t think you need to be techy. Position yourself as a copywriter, not an [...]

Writing for mobile

At Fluent we’re making more and more mobile sites. Writing for mobile – whether apps, mobile only sites or websites optimised for the small screen – is a challenge. Space is limited. The user interface is different. Most of the time, users don’t want to read. This is how we’ve been facing the challenge so [...]

Would you rather – some sales or more enquiries?

When I was a kid we had a wonderful and slightly disturbing book called Would You Rather? by the brilliant illustrator John Burningham. It was fun choosing between supper in a castle and breakfast in a balloon, but there were also more alarming choices: which wild animal would you rather be killed by? Everyone knows that good kids’ books need a dark undertone…

The would-you-rather that Fluent comes up against repeatedly with clients is: would you rather have some sales or more enquiries? Usually the question relates to the hiding of key information. Tell prospects everything and they might not buy. Conceal something vital and they’ll have to get in touch.

For example, in the hunt for more bookings, one hospitality client is being tempted to remove the availability calendar. The reasoning is twofold: first, that an empty calendar might scare people away; and second, that forcing an enquiry form request gives the company an opportunity to sell alternative dates or holidays if the original dates are not going to work out.

Google’s own guide to content that rates highly

Confession time. I work with website content every day but I don’t think I’ve ever stuffed a keyword. Sure, I’ve added the odd one to the final copy if the subject doesn’t quite speak for itself, but in the main, a website is about what it’s about. I’ve been relying on Google to lead people who are searching for that subject to the site.

And, in nearly all cases, that’s been happening.

According to Google’s recent update, my faith in this simple approach will now be rewarded even more.