• Be Concise • Use Active Voice - NOT Passive • Find your voice • Make text scannable • Provide a Call to Action • Use images & design
Best Practices for Online Writing
Be Concise
•Avoid redundancies
•A bad crisis
•A small fraction
•A structured framework
•Zombie nouns!
•“is a representation of” —> “represents”
•“provide an analysis of” —> “analyze”
Be Concise•Use the shortest form of the word or phrase
•“utilize” —> “use”
•“On the other hand” —> “However”
•Stick to 1 idea / topic at a time
•Remove unnecessary words
Active vs. Passive Voice•Active Voice
•The dog caught the ball.
•Passive Voice
• The ball was caught by the dog.
•Reminder: Subject + Verb + Object
•Active voice reduces wordiness and sounds more professional (i.e. the way reporters write).
•It’s okay to have SOME sentences with passive voice
•Rule of thumb: 1 every 500 words.
Find Your Voice• Write 3 adjectives about yourself
• Write 3 adjectives about your business
• Find a balance of personal & business voice
• Use regular words
• Resist the temptation to sound smart. It backfires!
• Read it aloud- do people (or you) speak that way?
Call to Action• What action do you want people to take after reading?
• Subscribe
• Comment
• Free trial
• Slide in CTA
• In-line CTA
Images & Design• Use images to emphasize main points
• Create vivid analogies —> Memory aid
• Tools
• Canva
• Fotor
• Pexels
• Pixabay