Blog Writing Services, Web Site Writing, Freelance Copywriting and Editing in Clearwater FL and Tampa Bay

Murder Most Foul

Mary F. Dado — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 17:08:21 +0000

Mario Puzo’s The Godfather is in my top five favorite books of all time — not just for the incredible storyline and passionately flawed characters, but also because of its life lessons.

If you never rat on your friends, never take sides against the family, never forget the cannolis, never break anyone’s heart (like you broke Mikey’s, Fredo), and can keep your friends close and your enemies closer, you’ll probably be ahead of the game.

I caught a recent compilation made for TV that cobbled the three movies into one. It was interesting because this version included scenes I had never seen: not in my VHS, DVD or the more recent “meticulously restored with all new 5.1 digital surround sound” versions I own and have watched probably hundreds of times.

Included was a feisty scene with Fredo and his Vegas showgirl-wife in addition to one where Tom’s wife waited anxiously with the inner circle for his safe return…all these moments that haven’t had the opportunity to be made indelible like Kay’s one chance to ask Michael about his business.

So from Puzo’s original masterpiece, to the screenplay, to the floor of Coppola’s edit suite, moments in the lives of the Corleone family have been tweaked; but their story never diluted. When Tom Hayden was removed by Michael as the family counsel because he was not a wartime consigliere, it was only because he wasn’t the right fit for the Corleone family’s needs at the time. Tom made the director’s cut, but lost the job.

In editing for business writing, the now famous quote by Cambridge University’s English professor, Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, gives testimony to keeping your writing clean and clear of extraneous “stuff” that has no place. From his lecture series on writing:

“Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it – whole-heartedly – and delete it before sending your manuscripts to press. Murder your darlings.”

Murder your darlings…not to be confused with the Barzini family killing Sonny on the causeway or the thrust of Carlo’s astonished feet shattering the windshield….the peerless Mr. Puzo and the powerful Coppola had to kill and then kill again when the pace of the story needed to be free of clutter.

Sometimes you just need to edit the things you love to clarify your message. “You’re out Tom.” Nothing personal…

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Don’t Let Words Get in the Way!

Mary F. Dado — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 20:02:42 +0000

If you struggle with writing for your business and the thought of creating effective blog content gives you stress…stop for a second and breathe. First of all, you know your stuff – knowledge of your business is step one. Check. How about creating Top Ten Lists or Myths and Truths about your industry?

If you’re running a business you can review any aspect of it and blast out things consumers of your product or service need to know.

From the Top Ten Ways to Build Your Brand to the Top Ten Ways to Insulate Your Home, your social media or air conditioning company can provide information to potential clients. Keep the list clean and straightforward and offer genuine advice that is helpful and continues to establish you as an authority.

When you do set aside that time to write for your business, try drafting several sets of Top Ten lists at a time so you have them done. (Working from an inventory gives you freedom!)

Besides, these kinds of lists are incredibly versatile:

Use them on post cards
As blog posts
In your company newsletters
On your Facebook page
Release a tip of the day on Twitter!

We’re not marketing strategists, we run a copywriting company in Tampa; but understand that easily crafted content can be used in a variety of circumstances.

Don’t not write because you think you can’t!

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Oh, What You’ll Find!

Mary F. Dado — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 20:05:00 +0000

For me, editing is like an archeological dig. It’s not just about repairing grammatical errors; it’s about liberating someone’s message. I was speaking with a client the other day about whether or not everyone has a book in them.

I believe they do, but I think people who think they can’t write think they just shouldn’t.

But if you’ve got a good story or a great how-to guide or a genuine experience to share, the only thing getting in the way is the organization, presentation, and the polishing of the prose. There are all different kinds of editing and ways to fix structure, but you don’t have to go very far to unearth a story that has heart.

And here’s an update: since I started this post a while ago, (it has been in draft mode for months actually!) my client finished her book. I am halfway through the editing process and I’ve referred her to Creative Graphics in Dunedin to design the printed version.

Now that’s a great story…right there. Congratulations Charlotte! Ya did it!

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The Curse of the Cursor: Effective Business Writing Tips

Mary F. Dado — Wed, 22 Dec 2010 16:07:58 +0000

What is the hardest part of writing for your business? It’s the starting part. Solution: Don’t fixate on the first sentence; it’s typically the last one you write anyway.

Writing is a Process

You’ll never win a staring contest with a blinking cursor. So whether you’re writing a blog post, an article for your newsletter, or a revision to the Services page on your website, think of it as a “multi-draft” task. So start anywhere, it doesn’t matter. Only after the piece begins to take shape do you need to fashion the interest-grabbing first sentence and polish the details. Hemingway said writing is re-writing and that’s pretty much the golden rule.

Time and Distance: Your Most Loyal Allies

First of all, if you give yourself sufficient time you’ll immediately remove a good deal of the associated stress. So after you’ve set your reasonable deadline and before you even begin typing, focus your mind on exactly what you want to convey, who will be reading the piece, and the tone and style you wish to present.

Then just start typing — with reckless abandon. Simply dump whatever is on your mind on the page, in no particular order of importance. Don’t re-read anything you’ve written (because you will just start trying to edit it); just save it and step away. Don’t look back!

When you return again to that heap of words (hours/days/weeks later) you can begin organizing the thoughts into paragraphs and placing them in a logical order. Then save it and step away.

By periodically revisiting the copy, you’ll bring a fresh perspective to it every time and give it the best opportunity to shine.

The Tools You’ll Need to Bring Concepts to Keyboard

To ensure effective communication:

Have a copy of The Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. and E. B. White at the ready – it is the essential writing style guide.
Keep a thesaurus handy, it’ll put the power of alternatives at your disposal.
Don’t use industry jargon or acronyms unless they are universally understood, you’ll detract from your message.
Watch those sentence fragments and run-on sentences. The fragments are incomplete thoughts that are punctuated and the run-on sentences are rambling thoughts that are not correctly punctuated.
Be really careful of the proper uses of their and there, your and you’re, and all the other commonly confused words that may not get picked up by your spell check.
Always have someone else read the piece to proof for grammar, typos, and clarity.
It’s best to conduct your final edit from a hard copy. You’ll see errors you will miss on-screen.

Website and Blog Content

In the online arena, you’ll want to write the way people read:

The modern reader “scan reads” so use headings and subheadings to introduce topics
Let your copy and your reader breathe…keep paragraphs short
Keep the content sharp and clean
Use bullets whenever possible
Make sentences different lengths so they balance one another
Focus on your clients’ needs; spin the copy so the spotlight is on them

Anyone can write for their business; you just have to give yourself sufficient time and put some distance between yourself and the piece. If you have patience with yourself when you’re writing it, your audience won’t need patience when they’re reading it.

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Writing Effective Press Releases for the Web

Mary F. Dado — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 22:21:35 +0000

When writing a press release for the internet, your approach is not that of a copywriter. You want to approach the story as a journalist. Before you actually sit down to create one, be prepared with the right tools:

The AP Style Guide must be used to assure that all grammar, punctuation, numbers and datelines are correct, otherwise your work will not be considered press-worthy.
Select your appropriate PR distribution websites and be sure to hit each of them with your article.

To draft the most effective press releases, keep the following in mind:

Inverted pyramids, the five “W’s” and a catchy headline are all essential elements in your article.

Inverted Pyramid – Start with the most important information first, then narrow down the other details until you get to the end of your 200 words, saving the least important fact for last.
The Five “W’s” – Who, what, when, where and why? Work all of the answers to these questions into the first two sentences of your article.
Catchy Headline – For inspiration, browse through your local newspapers and pay close attention to the headlines. Notice that more than anything, headlines are descriptions of what will be discovered in the story to follow. It has got to hook ‘em so they hear what you have to say.

Bottom line: Press releases shouldn’t be cute or coy….they should be clean and concise with a dash of clever.

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Keeping Your Website Content Fresh

Mary F. Dado — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 20:09:38 +0000

We Tweet and Facebook and YouTube and post our updates to LinkedIn. To compete in the modern marketplace, these are all necessary evils.

Typically, the objective is to make connections and establish oneself as an expert in a field while driving potential clients to the website so they’ll hire you.

All good stuff….but what’s important to note is that we tend to forget about our website content — a lot.

We get so focused on all the activities to get clients interested that we don’t always take the time to keep current the stuff they’re going to see once we’ve captured them.

And at Business Writing, Ink. we’re the worst offenders in the world! Every time we’ve got blocks of time slated to renew/refresh or get a newsletter out, we bump ourselves because we get hired to create content for another business. It is what we’re here for so we aren’t the slackers we appear to be…this is just the “do as we say not as we do part of the program.”

___

Your About Us Page

Over time, details about your company may no longer be relevant, delete them and/or renovate the description

Your Services Page

You may no longer be offering certain ones or you’ve expanded your product line, add or delete accordingly

Your Recent News Page

If you still have updates from last year or 6 months ago, add something fresh; this is the biggest indicator that you haven’t visited your website in a while

Your Client or Portfolio Page

You worked hard to get those clients and do the work for them; you want to keep those pages updated to reflect recent work you’ve completed.

___

It is easy to neglect your website while it just sits there waiting for someone to see it. Most business owners don’t visit their own site often enough, it’s like your home phone number…you forget it because you don’t use it.

Everything doesn’t have to be done in a day; but when you schedule that all important time to work on your business, add your website content to the list or just check in on it once in a while; it’s one of the faces of your business.

Have a trusted colleague review it or just print the pages out and tighten it up; it only takes some periodic verbiage renovations to contemporize you!

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Effective Resume Writing Tips

Mary F. Dado — Sat, 15 May 2010 13:04:19 +0000

While we offer affordable resumes, there’s plenty you can do to shine up your professional documents so you stand out from the crowd:

Resume Tips

The use of an “objective” is a bit dated; if you want to set the tone, incorporate a brief personal branding statement
Your font should be clean and 11 point in size
Do not shade or color the background or include crazy borders
Do not indulge in paragraphs, let bullets do the job
A “Key Strengths” or “Accomplishments” section will streamline your profile
Overall, if you write less, they will read more; just make sure your less is more by leveraging powerful verbs
Maintain 1 inch margins
If you are a student or a recent graduate, confine the length to one page and increase the length as your experience grows
Instead of the blah, blah, blah of your previous job’s description, insert how your actual accomplishments made contributions to each company
Even if it’s a separate page, be proactive and include three personal and professional references rather than citing the standard: “References Available Upon Request”
Be honest about everything
Spell and grammar check the heck out of it; even when you think it is perfect, print a hard copy and proof it again – you’ll always find something else that requires correction!

Cover Letter Tips

Always include one that is tailored to the specific job
Direct it to a particular person
Be brief, but pointed:
- The introductory paragraph should state the position for which you are applying
- The second paragraph should state your qualifications and relevant knowledge and include some key words from the job description
- The third paragraph should mention how you can assist the company and that you look forward to further discussing your qualifications

Post-Interview Thank You Notes

Always send one…handwritten is best

Finally, don’t stress and don’t wait until the last minute to put the resume together. Good luck!

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Real Estate Writing Tips

Mary F. Dado — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 16:13:36 +0000

It’s easy to criticize right? But while pretty real estate descriptions won’t necessarily impress a buyer’s agent, they will make a difference to a buyer by putting a face and a personality on a Realtor’s listing.

Ninety percent of home buyers used the Internet to search for homes last year. That is an increase of 30 percentage points over the past six years.

Why not tap into that audience with some compelling copy?

Here are a few ideas to help your MLS public remarks stand out:

Use all of the character space allowed; may as well maximize the opportunity to describe the home.
Refrain from phrases like: “Move Right In!” “This is It!” and “Just Bring Your Toothbrush!” — even if the home is all of the above, buyers are jaded, they won’t believe it, and it is cliché.
Make the home features “relatable” by painting a picture of life in the home. Instead of “kitchen overlooks large family room” try something like, “Come home to a well-appointed kitchen adjacent to a spacious but cozy family room.” Not a big change, don’t want to go as corny as that, but anything that helps them to see themselves in the home can’t be all bad.
Instead of reeling off a laundry list of features, string them together as though you were conducting a tour through the home.
Always verify grammar and spelling.
Don’t use CAPS excessively or overdo it with the exclamation points!!!!!

With the ton of tasks associated with obtaining and servicing a listing, the last thing a Realtor has time to do is toil over the public remarks; but every little bit helps and it is a great chance to touch a potential buyer on an emotional level.

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Website Copywriting Tips

Mary F. Dado — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 00:52:55 +0000

It is not that we don’t want to read anymore, we just don’t want to plough through 682 words of fluff to get to the information we want.

We’re impatient, we should be, we want it now. (I run a Clearwater writing company and I’ve just lost 60% of my readers with those 37 completely unnecessary words!)

Anyway…

When writing for your website, keep it sharp and clean and grammatically correct:

People scan, so use headings and subheadings to introduce topics
Let your copy and your reader breathe…keep paragraphs short
Use bullets whenever possible
Make sentences different lengths so they work off of one another

If you’re struggling with how to start writing something:

Just start typing anything about the topic
Don’t worry about using great words or spelling anything correctly
Keep typing until you’ve dumped everything on the page
Save it and step away
A day or two later, organize your paragraphs and hit save
Return to the copy again and pump it up with riveting verbs
Return to the copy again and fix all the grammatical errors
Return to the copy again and apply the final polish

You need to take time to get perspective on what you’re writing or you’ll find yourself ensnared in the “can’t see the copy for the words” syndrome.

Ernest Hemingway said “Writing is rewriting” and I’m sure he came to that revelation after his 39th revision to the ending of A Farewell to Arms. He said he just wanted to get it right…

Seriously, anyone can write effectively; you just have to give yourself sufficient time and distance from the piece! And if you have patience with yourself when you’re writing it, your audience won’t need patience when they’re reading it.

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Web Copy Tips

Mary F. Dado — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 02:19:51 +0000

Here are a few website copywriting tips that I presented to my NPI Group on Thursday. I told them I would pass along an email for their reference, but decided to make it into a blog post and kill two tasks with one document. How lazy am I?

(If anyone is looking for an extraordinary networking group by the way, you just can’t beat this organization and this collection of professionals!)

The tricky thing about writing SEO copy is that you need to serve two masters: the search engines and your clients. If you really pander to the search engines by jamming in your entire list of keywords with reckless disregard for people, your site or blog post will be a crappy read and will not necessarily tell potential clients what they need to know.

While you want to be ranked and celebrated, you still need to appeal to your carbon-based visitors:

Make your copy easy to scan by using headers and sub-headers
Write short paragraphs
Use bulleted lists — you are competing for the time of an impatient species…if someone has to sift through blab-blah-blah they will just go to one of the 3 million other sites that offer your same products or services!
Shoot for about 450 words per page, if you want to blah-blah-blah about your bulleted list of services, do so further down on the page. Put the meat at the top before you lose ‘em!
Vary the lengths of your sentences, but keep them simple.
Use powerful verbs…if you are limiting your number of words to around 450/page then make sure the ones you do use count.
Although spelling and basic grammar should be observed, web copy writing is a bit more relaxed and conversational, very structured writing can be very boring on screen!
Search engines don’t recognize punctuation so if you have an awkward keyword phrase, try splitting the words over two back-to-back sentences so the first half of the phrase is at the end of one sentence and the second half is at the beginning of the next. If your keyword phrase is the stilted “copy editing freelance” try: “We specialize in copy editing. Freelance opportunities will be made available to anyone who submits an impressive portfolio along with ten client referrals.”
Pepper your keywords throughout your page title, headers, and sub-headers as well as the web page itself, but never let their use take precedence over compelling content! It’s a delicate balance, but it can be done!
Copy is actually a graphic element, so make sure it works with the design elements of the site so they show one another off and look well together on the page.
Be genuine

It’s really great to be Googled and found, but if a customer gets to your site and isn’t drawn in or find what they seek, you’ll be banished with the flick of a mouse!

Search engine optimization comprises a litany of techniques. But a crucial element in optimization is your site’s readability. Write for people first and search engines second. Man over machine, baby!

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