Don’t let business copy get like an old mattress

Rebecca Thomas — Wed, 17 Apr 2019 08:40:20 +0000

Don’t abandon your pages like an old mattress

A mattress, just hanging around. Slumped on the wall. ‘Once people loved to flop onto me… now they just give me the swerve,’ it thinks.

Pages packed with wordy out-of-date copy can have the same effect on your website. You keep walking round the mattress, wondering if you should call the council. It gets more cumbersome every day. You turn a blind eye, while your potential customers cross the road to avoid it.

Call a professional copy-editor, copywriter or content designer; gloves on, we’ll be straight round with the van. We’ll replace that weary mattress with useable, accessible words that help people find what they need to know on your website.

Important stuff should be easy to read.

Get in touch with Thomas Editing.

Punctuation step 2: let’s consider colons

Rebecca Thomas — Fri, 29 Sep 2017 11:00:08 +0000

Start a list:

Ready for the coding that joins thoughts and ideas? Used sparingly, these symbols can help you engage the emotions of your potential customers

A colon is code for ‘here’s what I mean’. You can use them to introduce a list, or at the beginning of reported speech. She said: ‘I’m getting thirsty.’

A semi-colon is subtle; it is code for ‘pause, and think’. It’s a full stop sitting on a comma, with a longer pause but not quite a stop.

(I’m watching my word count but you can find a full explanation of both, and some useful tests here).

Don’t be intimidated

Don’t feel you have to use them; these bits of codes can be a challenge to get right. Online, it can be better to use full stops to create short and clear sentences instead.

But don’t be intimidated by them either; remember they’ve added clarity, drama and emphasis to everything you read.

Brackets (add a bit of useful information that isn’t essential to the meaning) or [explain something in the text].

Dashes are a handy, informal substitute – though avoid overdoing them – for semi-colons and brackets.

Let’s not forget the question mark, which I nearly did. ‘Where’s the Malbec?’

Step 3: why the apostrophe is your friend

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Simplicity – Thomas Editing

Don’t let business copy get like an old mattress

Punctuation step 2: let’s consider colons

Ready for the coding that joins thoughts and ideas? Used sparingly, these symbols can help you engage the emotions of your potential customers

Don’t be intimidated

Step 3: why the apostrophe is your friend