Your readers may be instantly disliking you and your brand. They may not know why – you may not know why. It all comes down to the tone and clarity in your writing. Improve your writing and you’ll improve your rapport with readers … here are some quick tips, illustrated with quotes from Game Of Thrones – just because …
- First line counts. Avoid a wishy washy intro – hit a pain point first line and then go into more detail below. Be concise and snappy!
- Use, don’t abuse, the keyword: Keywords should be used in the strategic spots but synonyms, adjectives and related words are important too.
- Give them something to think about, something to take away or a reason to take an action. Tell them clearly. Don’t assume they intuitively know.
Check your tense and stick to it
Present Tenses:
Present: We love Game Of Thrones now
Present Progressive: We are in the process of loving Game Of Thrones right this minute or we are frequently known for loving Game Of Thrones
Present Perfect: We have always loved Game Of Thrones – it was true in the past, and is still true today.
Past Tenses:
Past: Yesterday we loved Game Of Thrones. Today we did not love Game Of Thrones. (Clearly about the Red Wedding episode.)
Past Progressive: We were loving Gaming Of Thrones last night.
Past perfect: We had loved Game Of Thrones
Past perfect progressive: We had been loving Game Of Thrones when we discovered The Walking Dead.
Future Tenses:
Future: We will love Game Of Thrones
Future progressive: We will be loving Game Of Thrones
Future Perfect: By the time you read this we will have loved Game Of Thrones
Future perfect progressive: We will have been loving Game Of Thrones for two hours by the time you arrive
Check your person
First: I have a nice Wildling friend. It’s all about you. You are informal and talking about yourself or your business. Keep it for personal blogs or use “we” for business. Focusing on yourself though, will bore people.
Second: Your Wildling friend is pretty and well-mannered. This is the voice for most websites. It’s the business talking directly to the reader. It feels like the article is written JUST for the reader – it creates the illusion of a conversation.
Third: Wildlings have been observed to be well-mannered. This is the voice of formal writing. This is NOT the voice of a local store. This is the voice of a corporate or government monolith that puts professionalism and rules before friendliness. Corporate law firms for example, may prefer this.
There are plenty of small ways to improve your writing without changing your stories. If you’re still struggling our proofreaders can help.
Learn about our copywriting services – we can help you NAIL it.
