All posts tagged copywriting

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.

Spelling mistakes: were you going for rude or inept?

When I first started working with web content it amazed me that people could merrily create web pages with spelling and grammar mistakes on them. It just seemed like a basic consideration that you would ensure that you had spelled things correctly – and not a difficult one to achieve.

Talk about naïve.

Sweet taste of success

Congratulations to SweetBar, who (I have just found out) were awarded Small Business of the Year Winner 2010 by Companies Made Simple.

SweetBar provide an old-fashioned pick and mix sweet cart for weddings and other occasions, and as you can imagine, need an effective website to back up their word of mouth recommendations and take bookings.

Last year SweetBar took up my offer of a free hour’s content work. I wrote them some copy for use on their front page. Many things have changed since I sent the words through but I notice that some of the copy was in place for the winning version of the site.

What ‘show don’t tell’ means for web site design

‘What is the use of a book,’ thought Alice, ‘without pictures and conversation?’

Show don’t tell is a core design principle here at Endis Solutions. But what does it actually mean?

Given the choice between telling someone something and showing it to them, you should almost always show it. Here’s how, and why:

40 writing tips, both quick and dirty

Admit it. Every now and then you want to read ‘how-to’s in a dirty long list. And every now and then I want to write them.

So here you go. 40 tips for writing well, on the web especially. Happy Christmas.

Workshop: how to write good

What stops you from writing more? It’s not just the copywriters who write in our organisations: we all do – managers, administrators, technical staff – whether we have been trained to or not.

Most roles require some level of writing skill, and increasingly for publication on the web. How can you get your staff writing clear and compelling words that work on and offline, to tell a consistent story to your customers?

One of the problems is confidence. People think of themselves as non-writers, and the process of writing as difficult. But it only takes a nudge of encouragement and a few key writing tricks to get them creating bolder and more effective copy. The ‘How to Write Good’ workshop will help you to:

Bespoke services are for tailors and halfwits

After the fun of ‘Are you stupid enough to use leverage as a verb?’ (in which you added well-considered perspectives on the evolution of language to my fairly bald argument of that’s one ugly word) I’m going to have to break my silence about the word bespoke.

Bespoke is another ugly word, this time an adjective, as in ‘we provide bespoke software solutions’.

It is not common in US English, but is increasingly found in Britain being used to describe services, especially in IT. It is traditionally a tailoring term, coming from the archaic verb bespeak, indicating speaking about or arranging something in advance.

Tailors have used it for centuries to describe suits that are hand-made to an individual’s measurements, as opposed to off the peg, pre-cut garments. Originally, the term described the process whereby a piece of cloth would be reserved for an individual customer. It suggested craft, care and unique personalisation. More recently, it has broadened in tailoring to imply anything that is made to measure.