Websites Need QC

The other day, I typed the URL of a website for a high-tech company that I wrote a year ago, with the idea of showing it to a potential client. The site’s launch was delayed for various reasons, and by that time I was immersed in other projects. So I had never taken the time to look at it in its public (live) state.

When I finally checked it out, my heart sank. Somebody had awkwardly rewritten the Home page. Other pages were rife with grammatical mistakes and clumsy, extraneous verbiage I’d never seen before.

Actually, this was far from the first time website copy I wrote that was approved by the client had appeared online in sadly altered form. We’ve probably all seen surprisingly stupid mistakes everywhere online, even on the sites of major corporations.

Why and how does this happen? I think there are three key reasons:

Impatience. It takes so long to design and program a sizeable site that companies tend not to want to wait even a few days longer for someone to proofread all the content and then make needed corrections.

Cost-cutting. Websites are so expensive to create that proofreading probably strikes most companies as a dispensable “extra.”

Ignorance. Many people don’t understand the “domino theory” of writing. Careful writers assemble sentences and paragraphs to introduce concepts in a clear and logical way. Eliminate or rewrite as little as one word or one sentence, and the entire structure falls down.

So what can be done to improve this situation?

> Site designers and web producers: Build in time for the writer/content provider to take a careful look at the site before it goes live. Realize that this helps ensure a polished finished product . . . surely worthwhile after all the effort you put into it!

>Writers/content providers: Include in your estimate a line item for site review. Even if you don’t consider yourself a proofreader (as I do not), this is the only way you can try to preserve the approved copy, minus last-minute client add-ons, line-break glitches, inadvertently repeated copy chunks and other website plagues.

>Clients: Please keep your hands off the copy you approved! If something comes up that requires a factual change, ask your writer to make the fix.


© Cathy Curtis 2010

The 'Sample of One' Problem

In my newspaper days, it usually happened on Mondays. Bursting with enthusiasm, an editor would announce a major feature story to be assigned ASAP. This groundbreaking piece would inevitably be based on something that gave him an "aha" moment over the weekend.

Such as Lawns.

“Uh, lawns?” we said. (What next? Flypaper?) “What about them?”

The editor sighed. (Jeez. These reporters must all be city kids.) “I was tossing a Frisbee with my kids on Sunday, and it hit me. Lawns are the center of the suburban experience. There’s so much to say about them. But I leave the digging (heh heh) to you.”

The Lawns story was written (thankfully, not by me). And rewritten. And heavily edited. And rewritten. And re-edited. It seemed that no approach to this topic could give life to the springy, bright green Unformed Thought in that editor’s mind.

When a rather dull story about lawns and their care was finally published, the editor disowned it. Not what he wanted. (Whatever that was.)

Most of us tend to think that just because we were bowled over by something, everyone else will be equally smitten. Even when we can’t seem to explain what was so great about it.

The opposite holds true, too: If I don’t like it, no one will like it. (Even if I can't really tell you what's wrong with it.)

A good friend of mine calls this the “sample of one” problem. It has a way of dominating the conversation and stomping on reason and practicality.

>If the target audience of a website is 11-year-olds, should it matter if the 40-year-old who is designing the site doesn’t find it compelling?

>If a client keeps rejecting prototypes for a new project simply because they don't "feel right," does this demonstrate a discriminating mind at work or the actions of an insecure person overly worried about keeping her job?

>If a copywriter who hates jargon removes all the technical words from a project description, will it be appropriate for its target audience of specialists?

The moral of this story is twofold:
1) If we feel strongly about something (pro or con), we need to be able to articulate clear-cut reasons.
2) These reasons need to make sense within the context of this specific project and its intended users.

Around and About

In a recent Advertising Age article about AOL’s projected hiring of hundreds of journalists, one sentence reads: “As an example, the Life network will include sites such as Kitchen Daily and Stylist; Family will include content around parents, kids, tweens, teens and pets.”

Why do so many writers use around in this sloppy way when there’s a simple and appropriate word — about — that begs to be employed instead? “Content around parents . . .” incongruously suggests that parents, kids, tweens, teens and pets are separate islands in an imaginary Content Lake.

For some reason, prepositions — the simple linking words we’ve used all our lives — are taking a beating in print today. They are constantly ignored, overused or confused with other members of their extended family.

Writers use to when they mean from (“My conclusion was different to hers”) and of when they mean with (“I am bored of this”).

Poor little two-letter on is often scorned for the grander-seeming (but usually unnecessary) upon.

At and of, on the other hand, have long been popular favorites, tacked on for emphasis where they aren’t needed. (“Where’s he at?” “I paid too high of a price.”)

Of often goes slumming with off. (“It fell off of the table.”)

Sometimes, a needed preposition goes AWOL, as in “He wrote her to explain” and “She graduated college.”

Meanwhile, around has become the workhorse of the preposition world.

The English language is in constant flux, of course, New usages are always creeping into formal writing, whether grammarians like them or not. But I wonder what it is about around that makes it so popular. Do people instinctively prefer its vagueness? Or its spatial quality?

It's a mystery to me.

How the Web Made Me a Better Copywriter

[first published in Voice: AIGA Journal of Design]

In 1999, when I left a staff job at a newspaper to start my own copywriting business, I never even thought about writing for the Web. A decade later, most of my work consists of Web projects. It struck me recently that this medium has led me to develop a different way of writing — tighter, simpler, more transparent. The results, I believe, are greater clarity and persuasiveness, and a speedier, more user-friendly read.

A different mindset

In my journalism days, newspapers were still thick with ads. There was plenty of room for long stories that “jumped” from page to page. Like any writer who wants to be read, I took pains to craft a compelling opening sentence (the “lede”). But I wasn’t terribly concerned with the mechanics of keeping readers interested throughout the story.

The novelty of the Web, on the other hand, made me question every move. During my first few years, I treasured the free online advice offered by Jakob Nielsen and other pioneering Web specialists. I became fascinated by theories about how users absorb information online. Everyone seemed to agree that the Web user was, above all, impatient.

Everybody’s a scanner

It’s one thing if you’re writing a blog with a devoted following. But a corporate, nonprofit or e-commerce website doesn’t come with a readymade group of friends. If users can’t immediately find what they’re looking for, they move on.

Web users tend to scan information rather than reading it closely. One reason is physiological. Research — by Nielsen, Stanford University/The Poynter Institute and others — has shown that reading pixels on a screen makes eyes work harder than reading ink on paper.

Another impetus for scanning, I believe, is the Web’s seemingly limitless content. It’s like being unable to enjoy yourself at a party because you might be having a better time at someone else’s house. Add the growing mania for speed (“This #%&* site is taking 20 seconds to load!”), and it’s clear that Web writing has to pick up the pace.

Subheads built for speed

To make copy easier to scan, I break it up with multiple subheads. They act as visual skipping stones — an eye-friendly break from blocks of copy.

Ideally, the subheads can also convey the main points of the story all by themselves, so they can’t be too cute. And they must speak to the general reader, with no insider terminology that would cut the conversation short.

The em-dash is my friend

That little horizontal line is probably the most useful form of punctuation on the web. Commas, semicolons and colons don’t do a good job of visually breaking up information, and they’re hard to see on the screen. Parentheses have to be used carefully, because the words they enclose are understood to be less important than the rest of the sentence.

But the mighty em-dash is easy to see, and democratic in the way it treats words on either side of it. As with everything, you don’t want to overuse Mr. Em. (You’ll note that he doesn’t make an appearance in these two paragraphs.) But he is the strongman of the longer Web sentence.

Bullet points have their limits

When I founded my business, Crawford Kilian had just published the first edition of his indispensable guide, Writing for the Web (1999, Self-Counsel Press). One of his virtually unbreakable rules is that no paragraph should be longer than 60 words. But I’ve parted ways with him on the issue of bullet points.

Kilian saw them as the standard eye-friendly solution for sentences that contain multiple statistics, goals, activities and so forth. Up to a point, I agree. But bullet points that march down the page like buttons on a jacket are tiring to read. Back-to-back bulleted lists are visually numbing.

When I bullet information, I try to organize it so that there are no more than seven points. (Graphic designers have taught me that odd numbers are more reader-friendly.) Often, though, I prefer to write sentences that group the items into logical clusters. Topped with a subhead, these “chunks” are easier to read because their rhythm is flowing, not staccato.

Simple words for the average reader

My first newspaper editor told me that I should pitch my writing to someone with eighth-grade reading skills. But as a lifelong bookworm, I was proud of my extensive vocabulary. With the assurance of youth, I protested that I didn’t want my ideas dumbed down.

Years later, a piece I wrote for an early information portal (about how to seek a second medical opinion) was rejected because it wasn’t written for the “average” user. I still hadn’t learned.

Writing simply is a skill

Eventually, it dawned on me that conveying complex ideas in simple terms is actually a skill —one that I was proud to finally master.

Today, I’m comfortable with the idea that writing for the Web generally means using only words that are widely understood. It’s not only a question of education. Many websites are intended to reach an international audience unfamiliar with typically American expressions.

Transparency is powerful

Voice is another big issue. As many commentators have noted, writing for the Web works best when it speaks directly to the user. That’s why websites are ideally written in the first (“we”) and second person (“you”).

This approach has made my writing much friendlier. Stripped of big words, complex phrases and unnecessary adjectives, copy becomes increasingly transparent — spare and frill-free. Lacking the distracting imposition of a writer’s ego, copy becomes a more powerful tool of persuasion.

Polishing every word

As my Web writing grew more compact, it felt as though a spotlight shone on every word. I started reading my copy out loud to catch unintended repetition and awkward phrases. I also began using a larger font to keep my eyes from skating mindlessly over the words I’d written on the screen.

Even so, I’ve always found it necessary to print out every page. Whether due to my near-sightedness or sheer force of habit, editing copy with any degree of precision requires the crisp contrast and tactile immediacy of a hard copy.

Helping refine web architecture

Writing a news story or essay involves placing facts or opinions in a logical sequence. But a reader-friendly website is organized in a visually logical way. This concept was new to me.

“Think like a user” may be a Web cliché, but it is the key to producing effective writing in any medium. Much of what I learned about hierarchy came from paying attention to my own navigation — bumpy or smooth — through content-heavy websites written by other people.

Eventually, I took issue with the expectation that a Web writer’s role was simply to add content to predetermined slots. From the outset of a website project, I began suggesting that illogical or unwieldy aspects of the site’s architecture be modified. The resulting back-and-forth with designers and developers has led to an increased awareness of how people process information.

I also learned that turf battles can be reduced by making a sincere effort to understand and accommodate the technical issues faced by other Web specialists — another version of “thinking like a user.”

Sex, lies and plain talk

By now it might seem that everyone can see the benefits of a plain-spoken, streamlined approach. Unfortunately that’s not true.

Some clients expect a swirl of adjectives around each product. Others believe in perpetuating the empty boasts and vague promises of the traditional “mission statement.” People in certain fields tend to worry about leaving out the less important details of a complex program or procedure.

Trying to effectively counter these objections and explain how the Web works best has been a challenge. But — as with all the other aspects of writing for the Web — it has made me better at what I do.

© Cathy Curtis 2009

The Thing You Said You Wanted, or Why Consultants Can Be So Maddening

For years, I admired the tall, slender eugenia that screen the front of my house. I silently thanked them for hiding traffic, passersby and the ugly new houses built on the hill across the street. But after several heavy rains, two of these members of the myrtle family were no longer their old, upright selves. One had pitched forward to lean weakly on my front porch.

I knew I needed expert help. But as a homeowner, I had never been able to find a contractor or handyman who will: (a) listen carefully to what I want done; (b) not insist on bundling unwanted services into the estimate; and (c) do what I said I wanted, in a professional and efficient manner.

All I wanted was to find out if the fallen tree could be saved, and if so, have it and a couple of its neighbors staked.

One arborist spent more than an hour walking around my small property, explaining what was wrong and what should be done.

“I just gave you $150 worth of free advice,” he said at the end of his information-packed tour, punctuated by amusing, elbow-flapping pantomimes of trees that lacked sufficient room to grow.

So now I was supposed to feel so guilty that I would be compelled to hire him to perform various other services I never asked for? Hey, it was his idea to spend his time this way.

Another arborist embarked on a lengthy discussion of how I could find out the name and treatment of the disease that was blistering some of the leaves of my trees. When I finally was able to get a word in, I told her that I already knew what it was, and had been told not to worry about it.

“I appreciate all your information,” I said. “But what about the tree that’s leaning on my house?”

In marketing communications, the same sort of consultant-client miscues often occur.

You probably feel that you know what kind of marketing communications you need, and why you need it. And maybe you’re in a particular hurry to have it produced — for a convention or a fiscal year-end deadline or the incorporation of your new business.

It is reasonable to expect that I will quickly give you a quote specifically for The Thing You Said You Wanted.

But first, I need more information — about the materials you already have (what don’t you like about them?), how you intend to use the new piece, and the identity of your primary and secondary audiences. I need to know how your company sets itself apart from the competition, how it is currently perceived by your customers and how you wish it were perceived.

You and I need to devote some time to this information-gathering activity. We also need to talk about design, which is not some kind of frosting on the cake, but a key ingredient.

[A quick note for those who still believe that a good template is all you need: High-level copywriting and design work together to reinforce your professionalism and promote and sustain your brand identity. Which is just a fancy way of saying that they enable the public face of your company to convey its unique personality in an advanced and systematic way.]

Finally, I’d like to know your ballpark budget, so that I can explain what I can do within your range.

After these questions are answered, I might suggest something other than (or in addition to) The Thing You Said You Wanted. And now that you’ve looked at the bigger picture with me, you may agree.

* * * * * * * * * * *

So I decided to go with the guy who spent so much time looking at the big picture of my garden. He convinced me that I needed more done than The Thing I Said I Wanted — but he also staked my eugenia. His price was reasonable for someone with the right credentials. And he did a great job.

©Cathy Curtis 2010

When Famous Slogans Die

The headline for a JC Penney ad in The New York Times reads, “Full Spring Ahead.” It doesn’t make sense unless you know that the original phrase is “full steam ahead,” a relic of the age of steam-powered ships. But I would bet that this fact sailed past 99.9 percent of the ad’s target audience.

We copywriters assume that our audience has access to a huge cultural warehouse of buzzwords, maxims and slogans, ready for the tweaking. In reality, many age-old sayings no longer, um, ring a bell.

I’ve noticed that when young singers cover old songs, something often gets lost in translation. While I was shopping before Christmas last year, I heard a rendition of “Winter Wonderland” in which Parson Brown (“In the meadow we can build a snowman/ Then pretend that he is Parson Brown”) was transformed into the meaningless “person Brown.”

For those who are still confused, the conceit of the song (written in 1934) is that the snowman is a minister who can marry the singer to his sweetie.

Today, of course, we have new sayings that just about everyone knows: Just do it. Have it your way. Got milk? But they were all dreamed up by copywriters, not by somebody’s great-great-grandma, Ben Franklin or folks down on the farm.

So what does this mean for copywriting?

I think we need to remember who our audience is before trotting out a hoary maxim that no one is likely to recognize. Sad but true. (No, I am not referring to the Metallica song.)

© Cathy Curtis 2010