Make Your Website Better

I’m revisiting William Zinsser’s  classic, On Writing Well, in preparation for a writing workshop I’m teaching in a couple of weeks. I’m enjoying re-reading a book that taught me a lot early in my career. Here are a few tidbits:

“Keep your paragraphs short. Writing is visual–it catches the eye befor it has a chance to capture the brain. Short paragraphs put air around what you write and make it look inviting, whereas a long chunk of type can discourage a reader from even starting to read.”  When I write marketing copy, my longest paragraphs are no more than six lines.

“Credibility is just as fragile for a writer as for a President. Don’t inflate an incident to make it more outlandish than it actually was. If the reader catches you in just one bogus statement that you are trying to pass off as true, everything you write thereafter will be suspect. It’s too great a risk and not worth taking.” Same goes for advertising claims… and blog and Facebook posts.

“Surprisingly, often a difficult problem with a sentence can be solved simply by just getting rid of it.” I have another guideline: when you’ve fallen in love with the cleverness of something you’ve written, you probably should delete it. 

Briefer is better, so I’m signing off for now.

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