I wouldn’t say it happens all the time, but enough to make me wonder. After pointing to something in my copywriting portfolio and saying, “Write it in that style”, Joe Client proceeds to rip out many of the bits that probably drew him to the piece in the first place (albeit subconsciously). I suspect if you’re a blogger with a boss who reviews your posts before publishing, it’s happened to you too.

Why all the fuss? I’d always considered most of these devices kinda formal. I actually avoid them in more casual copy. I know “What’s more” contains a contraction, but c’mon! That alone surely doesn’t make it casual.

So I asked around on Twitter, and some of my copywriter buddies were of much the same opinion as me: it’s an affront to what some clients consider professional. (Here’s @angie1234p’s answer, @Skigod’s answer and @angusgmelb’s answer.)

But that still doesn’t tell me why! The real why. Why do some people think these devices are an affront to professionalism?

Determined to get to the bottom of it, I had a good think about it on my run yesterday. And I came to a conclusion. Here it is…

Some people are so used to formal copy being hard to read, that they think anything easy to read must be informal.

Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? But I reckon I’m onto something, and I have a justification for the theory. Unfortunately, if you wanna hear it, you’ll have to sit through a bit of grammar. But I promise I’ll make it as pain-free as possible!

“What’s more” from a copywriting perspective

“What’s more” and co. are great for linking sentences to each other. They make for a bump-free read, and, in Joseph Sugarman’s words, grease the slippery slide leading to conversion. I talked more about this in a previous post: A quick tip for keeping your readers on your copywriting slippery slide.

“What’s more” from a grammar perspective

“What’s more” and its greasy companions are all examples of transitional devices (or ‘linkers’ or ‘transition words’). They connect ideas to provide coherence.

“Unless readers can move easily from one thought to another, they will surely find something else to read or turn on the television.” (Capital Community College Foundation’s Guide to Grammar & Writing)

Extra Reading: Some great descriptions and examples at:

• Wikipedia
• Capital Community College Foundation’s Guide to Grammar & Writing
• ESLProf.com

Transitional devices can be formal or informal

The above readings list a couple of hundred other examples of transitional devices. If you take a look, you’ll notice they vary in formality. Some are really formal, like “moreover” and “notwithstanding”, while some are just your plain old garden variety conjunctions, like “and” and “but”.

This got me thinking. If some reviewers question both the formal and the informal transitional devices (I don’t need to remind you about the “Never start a sentence with a conjunction” reviewer), perhaps formality’s not the real issue. Perhaps it’s the use of the transitional device itself. ANY transitional device.

Formal writing often doesn’t use transitional devices

Check out any copyright notice or privacy policy. Or any boring old prospectus. Or virtually any government document. You’ll notice few – if any – transitional devices. (Don’t ask me why!)

I did a quick search. These are (honestly) the first documents I found. And whatdyaknow?! A real shortage of transitional devices.

• Copyright notice
• Privacy policy
• Prospectus (PDF)
• Government document

Now remember, these are the documents that most copywriting clients and blog reviewers think when they think formal.

Some reviewers just don’t like anything that greases the slippery slide

So I’ve come to the conclusion that some reviewers consider transitional devices informal, simply because they’re not used in stereotypical formal writing. Regardless of whether the device itself is actually informal. Put another way, some reviewers find anything that greases the copywriting slope kinda confronting.

Strange eh?

What do you think?

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I write much as I speak. So my style is conversational and my posts share some of the errors of speech. And that’s ok. For two reasons:

1. My style is CLEARLY conversational. Readers see the signals immediately, so they don’t expect rigorous, prescriptive grammar. In fact, they kinda expect the opposite.
2. Most of my technical errors are deliberate – perhaps even necessary. In a conversation, listeners would most likely notice if I DIDN’T make them.

And sometimes I use grammatical errors just to get attention. Case in point: “YOUR” in my headline. (We all like attention!)

But it’s not just an orgy of offenses. If you’re gonna break the rules, it helps to have a pretty good grasp of them in the first place. Then at least you’ll know you’re breaking them, and you’ll be able to make an educated guess about the likely impact.

Don’t worry, this post isn’t gonna be a boring discussion of the rules of grammar. I’ve simply picked out a few of the more common mistakes I see made, and plotted them on my ‘Can I Get Away With It?’ scale (patent pending ;-).

Click pic to enlarge

And now the nerdy explanation

If you didn’t get all you needed from the scientific diagram above, or you’re simply a word-nerd, here’s a bit of an explanation of each mistake.

• “who” v “whom” – You use “whom” when the person you’re talking about is the object of the sentence, not the subject. Most of the time, there’s an easy way to tell: if it’s got a preposition in front of it (e.g. “by”, “with”, “on”), then you use “whom”. If it doesn’t, you use “who”. If that doesn’t work – as in the example in my scale above – try this. The object is generally the person being acted upon, not the person doing the acting. In the example, “whom do you love”, you are doing the loving, and someone else is the object of your affection. They’re being acted upon. So you use “whom” to refer to them. But how often do you hear “whom” in conversation?! “Who” is good enough for most audiences.
• One word sentences – Technically, a sentence needs a subject and a verb. Huh! Rubbish! I say if it conveys your meaning, and you’d get away with it in conversation, use it.
• Split infinitives – An infinitive is a fancy-pants term for a construction like, “to go” or “to be”. Purists hate infinitives like these to be torn apart. So Star Trek’s “to boldly go” is out. And so is “to only be”. You get the picture.
• Sentences that end with a preposition – A preposition is a word that shows the relationship between two things (nouns). “On”, “in” and “with” are all prepositions. Purists don’t like sentences to finish with prepositions. I’m not quite sure why. They sound fine to me. I’m with Winston Churchill: “This is the sort of nonsense with which I will not up with put.”
• “different from” v “different to” – I grew up saying “different to”. But technically, it’s supposed to be “different from”. I don’t know the precise grammatical reason, but I know a rule of thumb to help you out if you get confused: remember that you’d say “oranges differ from lemons”; you wouldn’t say “oranges differ to lemons”. Mind you, many people say “different to”, so you’ll probably get away with it with most audiences. (In fact, “different from” still sounds a little stiff and formal to me. But that may be just because of what I grew up saying.)
• Treating a company as a plural, instead of a singular – A company or business is a single entity. You wouldn’t say “he are” or “it are”, so try not to use those constructions when talking about a company. However, sometimes it’s good to talk about a company as if it’s a group of people. It personalizes the company. (This is particularly true of the third example below.) Following is a list of examples of a company being treated as a plural.
  • “XYZ Corp are a great company” (should be “is”);
  • “XYZ Corp want you to visit their showroom” (should be “wants” and “its”); or
  • “XYZ Corp is very experienced. They have been around for 10 years, and their customer service is great…” (should be “it has” and “its”).
• “who” v “that” – This is one of the most common mistakes I hear. E.g. “I spoke to a woman that said…” It should be “who”. You use “who” for people and “that” for animals or objects. As it’s very common, it’s something you can often get away with, but to me it really stands out.
• “you’re” v “your” – To shorten “you are”, use “you’re”. Always. Many people will notice if you get it wrong.
• “it’s” v “its” – Only use “it’s” if you’re shortening “it is”. You don’t use it to indicate ownership. (e.g. This is correct: “the dog chased its ball”.) Just another example of the inconsistency of the English language!
• “their” v “there” v “they’re” – Use as follows:
  • “The boys rode their bikes.”
  • “They rode over there.” (A good way of remembering: “here” and “there” look very similar.)
  • “Now they’re going to ride back.” (Shortening of “they are”.)

That’s about all the grammar I can stomach for now. All I have left is to advise you to read the above in the context of your own audience. Writing and social media coach, Angie Haggstrom, says it best: “While every writer should aim for perfection, I honestly don’t think a misspelled word could destroy the entire piece. It depends on the situation, and the content itself.”

Any other examples you’d like to cite, please comment.

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Well, maybe not wasting it, but certainly not making the most of it.

First impressions count. And I reckon if your design’s tacky, people will conclude that your product or service is tacky too. So when they read the headline, instead of being already in harmony with you, they’re at odds with you. They’re not ready to be engaged by it, or compelled to read on. They’re ready to doubt it, and to MOVE on.

In fact, I’m convinced that this is true.

What I question is whether you’re likely to get any benefit out of copy at all, with a crap design? Again, my gut tells me that even the best copywriting will make little difference to a site that screams cheap and nasty (unless, of course, cheap and nasty is your niche). My gut tells me you’d be far better off investing some money in a new design. Better yet, invest in a new design AND new copy!

But I don’t have any stats to back me up.

What do you think?

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Bring on the songwriting discussion!

A while back, I discussed how effectively the lyrics of Cold Chisel’s ‘Bow River’ captivate the band’s target audience. And how we copywriters could learn a thing or two from Ian Moss. Today, I’d like your opinions.

What songs boast lyrics that really resonate? And why? Comment away, and feel free to wax lyrical. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist!)

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Specifically, she examined the effect of linking to the Home page using keyword rich anchor text. These results are very instructive (thanks Ann!), and they make a lot of sense. Google is right to penalize sites with over-optimized internal links. Here’s why…

When a visitor first arrives at your site, one of the first things they’re gonna try and do is find the Home page. (Jakob Nielsen: Top Ten Guidelines for Homepage Usability) And when they do, they’ll look for a link, menu or button that says “Home” (or they look for a logo at the top left of the page). They won’t look for a link that says, “Computer Spare Parts Home” or “SEO Copywriter Home” or “Red Tennis Shoes Home.”

So by optimizing links to your Home page, you’re certainly not improving usability. Your optimization is purely an SEO tactic with no visitor benefit. (Indeed, if you replace all straight “Home” links with optimized links, you’d be actively undermining usability.)

Why should this affect your ranking? Simple. Google wants quality, helpful sites in its SERPs. If you make your site less usable, that’s not gonna reflect well on Google, so it makes perfect sense that your ranking will drop as a result.

I hate to say it (well… err… no, actually, I don’t ;-)), but Ann’s results reinforce what good SEO copywriters have been saying for years: “never sacrifice readability for searchability.” It’s also what Google’s been saying all along.

And, although Ann’s results relate to Home page links only, the usability message (and maybe even the penalty) applies to all links. Don’t over-optimize them. Here’s just a few reasons why:

1. 79% of users scan; only 16% read word-by-word. (Nielsen: How Users Read on the Web)
2. People look for links when scanning a page. (Nielsen: How Users Read on the Web)
3. Concise copy is 58% more usable, and scannable copy is 47% more usable. (Nielsen: Concise, SCANNABLE, and Objective: How to Write for the Web). Over-optimizing links makes them both less concise and less scannable.
4. Low-literacy visitors don’t scan effectively. They tend to read word-for-word. And if the text gets to dense, they look for the next link, often skipping important info in the process. If that link is also dense, they’re more likely to skip it too, resulting in more info skipped. (Nielsen: Lower-Literacy Users)
5. The first two words of scannable items, like links, are vital, because they’re often all the visitor sees. They should be words that carry the most information. (Nielson: Passive Voice Is Redeemed For Web Headings, Writing Style for Print vs. Web and Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2005) And that generally won’t be your keywords. In most cases, the visitor is already on a page related to your keywords. Starting a link with those same keywords really only tells visitors that the destination page is related to the current page. It doesn’t tell them anything notable about the destination page, so they can decide whether they want to read it. Knowing that it’s related to the current page isn’t enough.
6. People love clicking on links; it’s the Internet’s most used feature. (Harald Weinreich, Hartmut Obendorf, Eelco Herder, and Matthias Mayer: Not Quite the Average: An Empirical Study of Web Use) So you want to make it easy for them to do what they like, and to find what they’re looking for when they do it.

Maybe Google is already taking all of these usability issues into account, maybe it’s not. One thing’s certain though: your visitors sure are!

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Now, one of the copywriting tactics that Sugarman discusses for ‘greasing’ the slippery slide, is what he calls ‘seeds of curiosity’. He often ends his paragraphs with things like, “But there’s more” or “So read on” or “Let me explain.” These are explicit meaning-based cues that encourage the reader down the slide. But they’re not the only way to create momentum.

In fact, when you’re dealing with sophisticated audiences, explicit cues aren’t always the best approach. Sophisticated audiences can be quite sensitive to explicit greasing techniques. And they don’t always like being greased; it can make them feel like someone’s trying to sell them steak knives!

So sometimes style-based cues – not meaning-based cues – are what’s required. What do I mean by style-based cues? Well, I’ve used three of them already, in just four paragraphs. “Now” links para two back to para one, “In fact” links para three back to para two, and “So” links para four back to para three.

I could TRY to explain why these two elements work, or how they work, but I’d probably fail. I’m a copywriter, not a grammarian! An easier – and much more effective – way is for you to read the first four paragraphs WITHOUT “Now”, “In fact” and “So”. Read them out aloud. I guarantee you’ll find it a bumpier ride.

Of course, there are plenty more where they came from. Try a few of these on for size:

• “What’s more”
• “Nevertheless”
• “Of course”
• “Needless to say”
• “And”
• “But”
• “Still”
• “Importantly”
• “Just as importantly”
• “Additionally”
• “Furthermore”
• “No matter which”

These are all tactics that successful copywriters use daily. And they’re just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Should be enough to see you through all but the longest pieces of copy!

In coming posts, I’ll be discussing additional ways to keep readers on your copywriting slippery slide. So stay tuned. In fact, why not subscribe?!

Please comment.

Happy copywriting!

PS. All of this applies to blog copywriting too!

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Your website is globally accessible, so your readers could come from anywhere. It may seem a trivial consideration, but many readers really care. British readers, for instance, tend to have a strong preference for British English. US readers tend to prefer US English. (Australian readers prefer British English, but will usually tolerate both.)

What’s more, it’s not just a question of pleasing readers when they’re actually reading your copy. You may also have to consider the search engines. e.g. What do you do if half your target audience Googles “search engine optimisation” (with an “s) to find you, and the other half Googles “search engine optimization” (with a “z”)? Although Google is smart enough to know that “search engine optimization” is the same as “search engine optimisation”, if someone searches for “search engine optimization” (with a “z”), most of the results will be about “search engine optimization” with a “z”. And the opposite applies when someone searches for “search engine optimisation” (with an “s”).

So in reality, your primary concern should be the search engines. Whatever choice you make could significantly impact the traffic you actually attract, not just how that traffic reacts to your copy.

Fortunately, for most businesses, it’s not the quandry it might first appear to be. To answer the question, just think about your target audience. Unless your business is truly global, you’ll probably be most interested in customers from a particular country. That being the case, just use whatever version of English they use. If your target audience is American, use US English. If Australian or British, use British English.

It only becomes tricky if you’re juggling audiences. If you’re a multinational, there’s a very simple answer: create localised versions of your site (one for US, one for Australia, one for Britain, etc.). You’ll probably have non-language reasons for doing this anyway; things like currency, legal and product versions.

However, if you’re a small business, you have to make compromises. You can either figure out which of your audiences delivers the best revenue and write for them, or you can try to write for both audiences (i.e. sometimes use US English, and sometimes use British English). The problem with the latter approach is that many readers will notice the inconsistency, and thus pay more attention to your choice of language. The other problem is that you’ll be diluting your keyword density for both the US version of your keyword and the British version, so you may, in fact, harm your search engine ranking for both audiences. (But that’s a discussion for another day…)

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I’ve lost count of the number of freelancers who’ve sent me samples chock-full of things like “we will” and “you are” and “we are”. Even fairly conservative audiences like to read the way they speak (within limits). There’s nothing wrong with a bit of “we’ll” or “you’re” or “we’re”.

In fact, when editing freelancer work, I’ve found that introducing more contractions is all that’s required to transform something jerky-sounding into something smooth and easy-to-read.

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In his book, ‘Scientific Advertising’, legendary ad-man, Claude Hopkins, says:

“We are attracted by sunshine, beauty, happiness, health, success. Then point the way to them, not the way out of the opposite.

Picture envied people, not the envious.

Tell people what to do, not what to avoid.

Make your every ad breath good cheer…

Compare the results of two ads, one negative, one positive. One presenting the dark side, one the bright side. One warning, the other inviting. You will be surprised. You will find that the positive ad out pulls the other four to one…”

If you’ve ever wondered why, here’s one theory… It’s called ‘Prospect Theory’. Developed in 1979 by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, it has its roots in Behavioural Economics. Simply put, it says:

1. give someone the choice between a guaranteed small gain and a possible large gain, and they’ll probably take the small; but
2. give someone the choice between a guaranteed small loss and a possible large loss, and they’ll probably risk the large.

Here’s an example cited in a recent CIO article by Bruce Schneier:

“Take a roomful of subjects and divide them into two groups. Ask one group to choose between these two alternatives: a sure gain of $500 and 50 percent chance of gaining $1,000. Ask the other group to choose between these two alternatives: a sure loss of $500 and a 50 percent chance of losing $1,000.

…When faced with a gain, about 85 percent of people chose the sure smaller gain over the risky larger gain. But when faced with a loss, about 70 percent chose the risky larger loss over the sure smaller loss.”

Obviously there are limits to the theory (you wouldn’t choose a guaranteed $100 over a shot at $1million…), but as most of a copywriter’s work is done within these limits, this theory should work well for us.

In the positive v negative advertising debate, it’s point 2 above that’s of most interest. It suggests that if you use negative advertising, most customers will risk the impact of not buying (i.e. the possible large loss) rather than pay for your product (i.e. the guaranteed small loss).

(Point 1 above pertains, not so much to the question of WHETHER to talk up benefits, but more to the question of WHICH benefits to talk up.)

Schneier goes on to say that a possible exception to the rule occurs when you introduce true fear. People are known to do almost anything to make that feeling go away. But on this point, I’d question him. It’s true that people don’t like to feel scared. So much so, in fact, that they’ll do almost anything do avoid feeling fear, in the first place. So when you use scare tactics, people may just cover their eyes and say, “That won’t happen to me!” The infamous Australian Grim Reaper AIDS campaign is a case in point. People remember it, but it wasn’t very effective.

So if you plan to use fear, you have to be careful. It’s a fine line. Too much fear, and it may boomerang. Too little, and customers may simply see a risk worth taking in order to avoid a guaranteed smaller loss (the purchase price).

In the end, the safest bet is – surprisingly enough – to take the safe approach. Listen to Hopkins, and focus on positives. Using computer security (the subject matter discussed in the CIO article) by way of example: if your audience already accepts the need for security, focus on the quality of your particular offering (it’s speed, ease of use, comprehensiveness, etc.); but if they’re not so sure they need security, focus on the benefits of security in general (peace of mind, the comfortable feeling that you’re doing what the experts recommend, faster computing, greater uptime, etc.).

Happy writing!

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As you’ve probably already guessed from my headline, Divine Write has launched a copywriting forum. It’ll interest copywriters, business owners, marketing managers and webmasters most, but ‘regular’ writers will also find it useful (I hope). Current forums include:

• General copywriting
• SEO copywriting
• Web copywriting (non SEO)
• Direct Marketing (DM) copywriting
• Advertising copywriting
• TV, print & radio copywriting.
• Grammar, punctuation, etc.
• Copyright of copywriting
• Copywriting as a career
• Critique my Copy

You can register by clicking the ‘Register’ link at the top of the main page. Hope to see you there!

Anyway, that’s it for today.

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