(EP-i-gram)
noun

1. any witty, ingenious, or pointed saying tersely expressed.
2. epigrammatic expression.
3. a short, often satirical poem dealing concisely with a single subject and usually ending with a witty or ingenious turn of thought.

The WOTD in a sentence

(BLUHN-der-buhs)
noun

1.a short musket of wide bore with expanded muzzle to scatter shot, bullets, or slugs at close range.
2.an insensitive, blundering person.

The WOTD in a sentence

Glad you asked! This post could take any number of directions, but since we’re writing about web content, blah blah blah blah.

Lost you, didn’t I? I know! It was going in a very boring direction. Who needs boredom? But my purpose was to illustrate that boredom is not what your site visitors are looking for.

So don’t bore them.

Here’s how I avoid that sticky wicket:

1. I study the essentials of your product or service to create web content that clearly and thoroughly answers site visitor’s questions.
2. I write simply and succinctly, because when people are looking for information on the web, they want to get it and get out.
3. I keep web visitors from leaving. If a website does not offer an instant snapshot of a business, visitors will go away. And they usually don’t come back.
4. I create the backend tags for page titles, descriptions, and keywords that help search engines (and therefore potential clients) find your site. These are not magic, but they are essential. Care and feeding of a site (through new content, a blog, news, or articles) is also important.
5. I include keywords in your copy to help visitors find your site. Keywords are used naturally because my web copy is written for a human audience, not robots.
6. Here’s how I develop the content:

• Together, we’ll create a document that contains all the questions your website visitors want answered. Then I’ll ask a series of questions designed to help me answer those questions.

• Ideally, I’ll work in collaboration with the web designer to create content that matches the look and feel of the site—so there is no disconnect or confusion for the user.

• For example, if your business is serious and your web content is whimsical, visitors will not trust what they see or read. It needs to make sense.

• And if your business and web graphics are both whimsical, but the copy is serious, it will not make sense.

Three final thoughts:

1. The designer and copywriter need to work in collaboration to create the most efficient, effective website.
2. The designer and copywriter need to work in collaboration to create the most efficient, effective website.
3. The designer and copywriter need to work in collaboration to create the most efficient, effective website.

Sorry, did I repeat myself?

I sat in on a webinar presented by PRWeb, a huge online news release service. PRWeb thinks news releases are a great way to build web traffic for every business, and they have all kinds of data to prove it.

Today, however, I’m just going to impart some of the great ideas PRWeb generously shared about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for news release writing.

Why SEO? Because one little idea—Google’s web search engine—grew to become the rich uncle that websites are all vying for attention from. It’s pretty simple—people search on Google, and generally don’t go past the first page of results, so you have to do what Uncle G. likes if you want to be rewarded with top rankings.

What does Uncle G. like?
Keywords and keyword phrases. If your news release (or web content, or blog) contains the keywords your customers are searching for, you will rank higher.

More →

This morning I dropped in on a marketing communications webinar—you know, an online seminar. I sure do appreciate the technology that makes webinars possible, and the knowledgeable speakers who impart their expertise to an audience that might be taking notes and sipping coffee while wearing slippers and pajamas (penguins, in my case) instead of business attire.

Today’s topic was about communications writing, and why companies should avoid corporate or industry jargon. The speaker implored us to write for humans. I’m all in favor of that. In fact, I may be a bit ahead of them on this subject. My copywriting has always been full of YOUs, directed at real people, and as simple and engaging as I can make it.

Businesses don’t always feel comfortable with the human approach. When they want to sound like they know what they’re talking about, they sometimes use phrases like this:

“Our approach is multi-disciplinary and our holistic paradigm experience delivers best practices value to our synergistic relationships.”

Okay, so that’s not a real sentence. I made it up, but I swear I’ve seen something similar out there on the interwebs. You know what? Humans hate that stuff.

I can’t put it better than Albert Einstein, who said, “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” It’s the same with business communication. People—your potential customers and clients—don’t want to hear jargon. They simply want to know if you can fix their problem, fulfill their desire, or deliver what they need.

It’s not about you. It’s about them. Talk to your customers like the humans they are. Address their needs and answer their questions and they’re more likely to receive your message.

That is all.

Some copywriters can create aria-inspiring headlines on their first try. But in my experience, the longer we have to work on something, the better it gets. That’s why they say the best ideas are at the end of the pencil.

Even with a stubby pencil in hand, we all compose more bad lines than good—and some even make it into print:

“We speak car. And apparently quite well.”
Ford print ad
Sprout dislikes this because it’s awkward, meaningless and untrue. (Car is not a language, silly Ford ad people.) And because “we speak car” sounds like something Tarzan would say. Not the ad’s intent, I’d venture.

“Power to the Passengers.”
American Airlines print ad
Sprout would like this better if it were touting improved customer service. Instead, AA is referring to power outlets, available to all First and Business Class passengers (and even to entire select rows of Economy Class losers passengers). It’s a good line, but it made me feel cheated with an implied promise of a very different type of power than they are actually offering. Sure, power at my seat would be nice, but if I’m in Economy (as I most certainly will be) I’ll bet you a five dollars AA is going to charge for it. Passengers will have real power when airlines stop nickel and diming (and dollaring) us to oblivion—in other words, never.

“Discover the next generation of espresso from illy.“
illy print ad
What is wrong with this line? 1. Next generation needs to go away. For several generations.  2. Replace espresso and illy with any number of products and companies and you have the formula for hundreds of headlines—but none that differentiate the product from its competition.

But they’re not all bad. Here’s one goodie:

“Why do most 16-year-olds drive like they’re missing a part of their brain? BECAUSE THEY ARE.”
Allstate print ad
Sprout likes this classic, attention-getting style. It tells the reader something they might not know, in a direct way that makes you want to read further. Not that I did. But still, it’s a good line.

Now it’s your turn: what do you think of these headlines? Everybody’s got an opinion—let’s hear yours.

Geraldine Brooks is a prolific and successful novelist. Her background as a journalist is apparent in her meticulous research, historical context and accuracy.  Add to that well-developed and interesting characters and you have a fulfilling read.

Brooks’s 2006 novel, March, is a retelling of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, from the father character’s point of view. I just picked up this Pulitzer Prize winner and anxiously anticipate cracking it open. The idea is brilliant: tell the story of a classic novel’s minor character.

It got me thinking More →

What happened to the gatekeepers of the English language? Have they all retired and been replaced by drones? Actually, drones would probably be an improvement on the sad state of what is now acceptable in advertising.

Today’s example: A local restaurant ran a newspaper ad containing the misuse of a word so severe that my brain actually turned to polenta. I had to read the thing three times before I could figure out what it meant.

Instead of describing their pinot noir-enjoying clientele quaffing samples while blindfolded, the ad invites them to comparatively coif blindfolded.  All I could picture were people feeling each other’s elaborate hairdos with bangs covering their eyes.

This mistake could have been avoided in one of three easy ways:
1. The restaurant could have hired a copywriter (me, for instance)
2. The newspaper could hire a proofreader
3. The person who wrote the ad could have used a dictionary

Every day, I see ads with missing punctuation, gratuitous quotation marks, and the ever-present apostrophe used to indicate plural. And every day, I’m nearer the point where they no longer will cause heart palpitations. This is not a good thing, mind you.

Today’s ad made me feel hopeless. Because I am realizing that we who care about proper language use and professional advertising standards are an endangered species.

Then again, there might be a market for us; perhaps it’s in that beautiful world they show in the Prius ads, where all the trees are made of people and the butterflies are children, and where zero emissions and correct use of the English language are the order of the day.

I remember my first visit to a Trader Joe’s, in Seattle years ago. I was not overly impressed. They had some nice cheese, some good snacks, the famous 2-buck (at the time it was 2 bucks) Chuck—apart from that, I didn’t see much of anything I couldn’t find at my grocery store or co-op. “Why is everyone so googley over this place?” I asked myself.

Oh, the naïveté.  I just didn’t know. Until they put one less than a mile from my house. I am, now and forever, an unabashedly loyal Trader Joe’s devotee. Trader’s has everything I need to live, except Tony’s coffee and Snoqualmie Falls oatmeal. And they have many treasures I didn’t even know existed, but now cannot live without. More →