Make Your Words Come Alive

Who Do You Write For?

Think about the following:

• Who is your audience?
• Do you think your audience is interested in the topic? Why or why not?
• Should they be interested?
• What do they need to know about your topic? What do they already know?
• Does your audience have experiences that would influence how they see this topic?
• What do you hope to impart to your audience?

Why Do You Write

The next step is to determine exactly what you want to impart to your audience. Do you want your piece to:

• Observe -- Are you trying to help your readers see and understand a person, place, image, event or phenomenon that you have personally experienced?
• Summarize -- Are you presenting the main points of a topic or issue from various angles?
• Narrate -- Do you simply want to recount events?
• Evaluate -- Are you judging the worth of something based on a set of criteria?
• Analyze -- Do you want to break down a topic or issue into its component parts and examine the relationship between these parts?
• Argue/Persuade -- Do you seek to convince or convert your audience?
• Investigate -- Are you set on systematically discovering or uncovering facts that are not widely known or accepted?

At this point, you are ready to begin research. Now you know your topic, audience and the purpose of your web article. Let this knowledge guide your as you research and make your first draft.

Important Elements of Your Copy

Headline. With hundreds of thousands of websites vying for your readers' attention, you have to capture their interest quickly. A good headline will impress your readers and convince  them that your content is novel, vital and interesting.

The Subheader. With today's information overload, most site visitors won't have the time to read all of your copy. If your headline is the hook, your sub-head is the glue that will keep your readers interested. Make sure that you summarize all that you want to say about your topic in that sub-header. Be brief, however.

Tips Before You Begin Your Draft

Don't overhype.

With oversaturated markets, it is best to stay away from the marketing hype. Instead of writing your site content with the voice of your company's cheerleader, why not write it with that of a journalist covering the story? If you go overboard with praise, readers are bound to tune out quickly. They will raise doubts about your credibility, and consequently, you may burn the chance of effectively convincing your readers with your website.

Use the correct voice.

“That product is lousy as hell,” is very different from “That product struck me as quite dull.” While they mean essentially the same thing, your readers will perceive both sentences very different. Knowing your audience will help you find the correct voice and tone to use as you write.

Be Active.

"Say it," don't "have it said.” Actions do speak louder than words, and strong verbs will engage your readers.

Less Is More.

In today's hectic world, your readers will appreciate you more if you are concise. Simple, direct language communicates your thoughts more efficiently than the highfalutin words and long-winded phrasing that put people to sleep in English class.

Be Clear.

There is no overstating this rule. All your efforts will go to waste if you aren't able to write clearly. From the American English style guide Elements of Style by William Strunk and E.B. White, we learn the tip: One idea, one sentence. One sentence, one paragraph.

Omit needless words.

Cut out the verbal deadwood. Instead of writing: “It is worthy to mention that good copy employs simple words and superb style”  simply get rid of the phrase “It is worthy to mention.”

Use appropriate words.

Bad writing is littered with long or archaic words like usage and methodologies. It is also full of clichés that are used inappropriately. In contrast, good writing initiates and keeps a conversation with its readers. However, it should also capture the common terminology of your audience. Thus, if you are writing content for physicians, you can't write using the same words that you use for a grade school textbook.

Stay Positive.

Phrase your sentences in positive form. Instead of saying “Those services are not very often sought,” say “Those services are usually ignored.” Or better yet, use the active voice and write “People usually ignore those services.”

Break the monotony.

Don't keep blocks of text that are more than five lines on the screen. Break up boring masses of gray type by using formatting tricks, such as:

• lists or bullets
• bold headers
• blockquotes
• Contextual hyperlinking. Here's one good thing about writing for the web. Online articles have the power to link various bits of information to each other, allowing for richer learning—and a more pleasurable user experience on your site. So allow your readers to branch off and click through to other, more detailed, supporting content, depending upon a reader's level of interest.  Jot down the URLs of the sources you used as you did research and you can work those into your piece with contextual hyperlinks.

Attribute Sources.

When you don't tell your readers where you go the information you are presenting to them, they may feel that you are making it up. With attribution you gain credibility, and when you are credible, your readers are enticed to stay on your site longer.

Emphasize key points in various ways:

• use visual-textual tools such as bold, underline and italics for emphasis
• use a dash or a colon for more emphasis. For example, Markets today are oversaturated, there are too many companies, too many products all vying for your attention can be rewritten this way:  Markets today are oversaturated: there are too many companies and too many products—all vying for your attention.
• use the words: especially, particularly, crucially, most importantly, and above all
• Repeat words for emphasis. You will see that your efforts will bear fruit: good writing will attract new visitors to your site, good writing will keep those visitors, good writing will pique their interest in your services.
• Pay special attention to the first and last words on your sentences—these are inherently more emphatic than the middle parts. Use powerful words on those parts to emphasize your points or to capture your reader's attention.

Once you are clear about what you want to say and who you want to say it to, then you can begin to bother about style. There are no hard and fast rules about style, but this pertains to your own unique story-telling voice, and to other more tangible things like: do you use simple or compound sentences? Is your style bare, straightforward and straight to the point, or is it rich with description? Do you make use of figures of speech? Is it homey and down-to-earth or brisk and business-like?

Now you know who your audience is. You've made careful plans, you know how to make your words come alive. So go now and unleash those words like arrows. Go into battle. Captivate your readers' hearts and minds.