Content is Still King
January 8, 2010 at 4:49 pm
That’s the first thing I learned when I started working on websites back in 1999. It was important then, and it’s equally as important now. It doesn’t matter how beautifully designed your website is, if it’s got nothing to say people won’t come back to it. Often businesses put up the blurb from their marketing brochures as the text on their website.
WRONG!
On the web, the big difference is that people can click away from your website and land on a competitor’s site in a couple of seconds.
When they’re reading your brochure, that’s not as likely to happen.
So – what can you do?
- Write 50% less than you would normally. This is because we know that people – even when they’re concentrating really hard – take in 25% less when reading it off a screen.
- Write your headlines like literature; body text like a tabloid journalist. ie. Be really clear what your text is about… but when you’re writing it, keep to short sentences, no multi-syllabic words, keep it simple.
- Stick to classic copywriting rules about sentence structure and length. Bulleted lists. Punctuation and more.
It’s not rocket science, but you do need someone to show you how to write for web just the once. After that, you’ll fly. If you write content that is published on websites, on a blog, on emails, or you just generally want to spruce up your business language style generally – you might be interested in attending a 1 day online copywriting course run by Brightspark.
Thursday 28 January, 10am-5pm, Dublin City Centre, €295: www.brightspark-consulting.com/write-for-web.htm
We’ve been teaching Irish people how to write for web since 2001 and get great results. Online copywriting is a core skill for business this century. Why not get 2010 off to a good start and skill up in this important area? All that – and we guarantee you’ll enjoy yourself. More info on online copywriting training.
Tags: online copywriting training, Write for Web Training
3 Awesome Tips for Making Amazing Lists
March 10, 2009 at 4:16 pm
A question came up at the online copywriting training course last week concerning punctuation for bulleted lists. Specifically question marks. I would appreciate opinions from any of the Grammar Police out there for this particular case of an obdurate question mark.
Rules for Bullets
- A numbered list of bullets is used when order is important. For example, recipes. It is important that the eggs are whisked first before adding sugar.
- A blobby list such as this one is used when order is not important.
- Try and keep your bullet points to 5 at a maximum. Any more than that and our eye can’t read them. Have a look over here and you’ll get the picture.
The Punctuation Rule
- When you present a list of bullets that will be read online
- Try not to use punctuation such as full stops at the end of the bullet point
- Because that is just adding characters for our already hard-pressed little brains to take in
But if you have a list of bullets and one of them is made up of more than one sentence, like this:
- Then the rule is to add a full stop at the end of every bullet in the list.
- This is because our brains strive for consistency. Yes, even yours. It’s doing it involuntarily.
- I’m not mad about adding full stops either.
The Conundrum
- What do you do in this case?
- Just because that one above has a question mark.
- Now I have to add full stops all the way along.
Or Not? It still looks good like this:
- What do you do in this case?
- Just because that one above has a question mark
- Now I have to add full stops all the way along
I didn’t know the answer to this one, so I consulted with Cork Copywriter Calvin Jones and he also wasn’t aware of any rules. He suggested that it would be dictated by your own writing style, or a corporate style guide if you’re working to one.
So that’s it. There is no rule. It’s a little piece of Grammar Presentation Anarchy! What do you think?
Tags: bullets, grammar, online copywriting training, punctuation
