Prompt Proofing Blog Post: Writing Effective Business Copy

VANCOUVER, BC, July 29, 2011 (Press-News.org) One of many services we offer at Prompt Proofing is business copy writing. This can range from blog posts, articles and press releases through web copy. If you are responsible for writing any kind of copy for your particular business, whether it is your own business or whether you have been given the job by your employer, your aim should remain the same. The text you are writing represents your business - it may be the first thing a potential customer reads - so it must be professional. Also you must give the impression of reliability. In other words you do need to be something of an expert in your field; trying to write about a subject of which you have limited knowledge is the fastest way to appear like an idiot to thousands of readers - a scary thought!

Your style will obviously depend on the type of website / business you are writing for; if your business is creating social media networking groups then you will want to use a casual, chatty style. If you are an event planner you will also want to be fairly casual while also giving people the information they are looking for when they visit your website. On the other hand if you are involved in a financial organization or you work in the medical field, your style must obviously be far more formal.

Regardless of the level of formality, it should go without saying that your text must be absolutely correct in terms of grammar, spelling and punctuation. I say it should go without saying but unfortunately, judging by the number of websites I read on a daily basis who fail on this point, apparently it does need to be said! In my previous existence as an English teacher, students would bring me their writing efforts to 'grade'. After ploughing through run-on sentences, 'sentences' that actually weren't sentences at all since they did not contain a finite verb, not to mention some of the strangest spellings ever seen, I would turn and ask the student if they had actually read their work through before bringing it to me. Sadly, this question was frequently met with uncomprehending stares, clearly such an idea was completely alien to most! To someone who (call me anal if you want) would never dream of submitting anything in writing without thoroughly checking it through first, this is a difficult concept to comprehend. I do understand that people work to deadlines and things get 'dashed off' at speed, but for something as important as a company's website surely being anal is pretty essential? It is also a good idea to have someone else - a reliable someone else - look over your work. Our eyes tend to see what we expect them to see and - especially when we know what we wrote, and what it ought to say - it is easy to miss errors. Interestingly, when I asked students to read me a sentence (that clearly did not make sense) out loud, they would 'read' something that was pretty much correct, but not at all what was actually written down!

Finally, be concise. I have said this before, I know, but people have short attention spans, particularly when reading online - it is all too easy to click on the next page or the next website. Be brief and break text up with pictures or just plain empty space!

About Prompt Proofing

Prompt Proofing is based in Vancouver, BC, Canada and was officially launched in 2010 by a team of editing and writing professionals who have over 40 years of experience in the education, news media, public relations and recruitment fields. Prompt Proofing prides itself on affordable services delivered with fast turnaround times, without sacrificing quality or accuracy.

Offering content writing, editing and proofreading services, Prompt Proofing takes care of your individual or business content needs. Visit our website for more information at http://www.PromptProofing.com.

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