What constitutes good writing for businesses

Good writing ensures clear communication so it should be concise, direct and avoid excessive repetition. You need to check that your spelling, punctuation and grammar are accurate as it will help to give you a professional, authoritative voice in your marketing material which will reassure potential customers that you are competent and proficient at what you do.

Consider the following when writing:

• Shorter words are often preferable to longer words, unless there is some specific vocabulary that you need to include to demonstrate your skill or that relates to your business.
• Keep sentences clear:
  • Try to keep the subject and verb as close together as possible
  • Strip out clauses within clauses
  • One idea per sentence
  • Short- to middle-length sentences are almost always preferable to longer ones.
• Over-long paragraphs mean you are less likely to be making clear, specific points. Too much text can be off-putting so keep paragraphs concise.
• Use layout features like bullet points and subheadings to break up longer sections of text.
• Be consistent throughout:
  • Choose the tone you wish your writing to have (i.e. friendly, formal, reassuring)
  • Decide if you wish to use ‘I’, ‘we’ or your business name.
  • Decide if you will refer to your customers using the pronoun ‘you’ or the less personal ‘customer’ (e.g. ‘You can be assured of our commitment’ or ‘Customers can be assured of our commitment’)
• Avoid using acronyms that your customer may not be familiar with without first explaining what they mean. You don’t want people to read it and be put off by technical jargon that they don’t understand.
• Start each section or page with a summary so that your reader can browse quickly and find what they are looking for easily.

Above all, remember that customers may have been trawling through the internet for hours looking for a service, so you need your web content to tell them what they want to know quickly and clearly.