4 reasons you shouldn’t write a white paper
White papers can be great marketing tools. Done right, they give web surfers reasons to join your email list and persuade them that you understand—and have solutions to —their problems. However, done poorly, white papers waste your time—and your readers’ time. To help you avoid pointlessly sinking your energy into white papers, I’m sharing four […]
Guest bloggers: 2014 in review
Looking for marketing and writing tips from diverse experts? Check out the posts from my 2014 guest bloggers listed below! Blog 5 Secrets to Finding the Best Virtual Assistant to Streamline Your Financial Advisor Blog by Kathy Goughenour (@expertVAmentor) Three Decisions You Need to Make Before Setting Up Your New Blog by Elizabeth Kricfalusi (@EKricfalusi) […]
Time to think as a writer’s technique
Is taking time to mull over your topic one of the best things you can do to succeed as a writer? The following quote from Rudolf Flesch’s chapter on “The Shape of Ideas” in The Art of Readable Writing set me to thinking: Every professional writer knows that this period of just-sitting-and-thinking between legwork and outline […]
Spelling tip: When in doubt, close it up
Spelling challenges many of us. To make things more complicated, correct spelling changes over time, as discussed in the “Anticipate The Future” chapter of Wired Style: Principles of English Usage in the Digital Age. I like the rule proposed in this chapter: “When in doubt, close it up.” The authors suggest that instead of separating […]
Financial website writers, match headlines to content or lose readers
Your web pages should deliver on the promise made by your headlines. That doesn’t happen in the economic commentary example shown below (with company name blacked out). Let’s look at what went wrong, so you can avoid these mistakes. 1. Most of the paragraph is unrelated to the headline A Wall Street Journal report about […]