I don’t know about you, but when it comes to hunting down information about my favorite subjects online, there’s nothing that leaves a bad taste in my mouth more than phony web copy that’s obviously been designed to pull me in to a specific website. I use the word “designed” very purposefully here, because for the most part such articles can’t really be considered “writing”… not in the traditional sense,

Google loves fresh content – and there’s no better way to get more of it than to get your users to do the work for you! This article looks at specific examples of how you can get more user-generated content for your website.

This article looks at four fast and effective ways to promote your new blog and make sure it gets the traffic it deserves!

If you have a telecoms company and you’re looking to market online, this article will give you some inspiration – based on a case study of one of the highest ranked telecoms websites in Google for the UK

With the advent of the Internet and gravitation toward online social media marketing, it may seem that most people and businesses have turned the lights out on offline copywriting. Not so! Somewhere in the world, there are those who still prefer the good old fashioned written word transmitted through print magazines and billboards, television and movie scripts, radio advert copy, and even that personal handwritten letter. Offline copywriting is anything

The last time we met, I went off on a near-thousand-word tangent about how disturbing it was for me to come across perfectly beautiful websites with lousy copywriting. But that’s not all that’s wrong with the world, and although I hold no aspersions to being able to change everything (I’m just a copywriter, after all), I felt compelled to speak up. Again. In my perusals of other people’s substandard web

Summary: This article aims to briefly discuss the benefits of CSS over table based layouts, and offers best practice CSS tips to improve SEO, accessibility & manageability. Overview CSS has become an integral part of modern web design and brings with it many inherent benefits. CSS (aka Cascading Styles Sheets) can dramatically improve a websites manageability, SEO and accessibility. What’s more is that CSS can work together with several additional

I was trolling the internet a few days back, reading random blogs (because that’s what a professional copywriter does all day, we sit around reading other people’s stuff trying to convince ourselves that our web copy is better than everyone else’s) and I came across something that truly dumbfounded me. It was the closest thing to a crime I’ve ever witnessed on a blog. And it just so happens to

Summary: This article looks at RDFa, Resource Description Framework in attributes, and how you can utilise it for better results in Google. Firstly, what is RDFa? RDFa stands for ‘Resource Description Framework in attributes’. It allows you to mark certain information within your web pages so that Google knows what that information is. The results are called ‘rich snippets’. Let’s start with an example: <div xmlns:v=”http://rdf.data-vocabulary.org/#” typeof=”v:Person”> My name is

Summary: When setting up a website (or rebuilding one), you may have considered using a website templating system.  This article considers the merits of templating systems and looks at one such system, SMARTY. If your website has a lot of content, chances are, it’s database driven.  You might have a fair amount of code, perhaps php, scattered around your pages, for connecting to the database and retrieving content.  That’s the

Although it may seem obvious what makes for bad writing when you’ve just watched that latest horror movie or perused a supermarket serial, the world of quality content writing may be a bit more subjective. And, it may vary even further on the type of copywriting that is being critiqued. In my mind, the following ingredients of effective copywriting are a must in making delicious and engaging content. Whilst it

Summary: Understanding the 3 main types of Search Engine Queries to Leverage Usability & SEM. Search Engines have become a significant tool in the daily lives of many people, providing direct access to web resources, products and services.  Research suggests that nearly 70% of web users start with a Search Engine as their point of entry.  Since around 2002, web search queries have been categorised by the searchers intent.  In

Summary: A business with a .uk domain name that Nominet looks after cannot opt out of having their address published on whois. From time to time, as a website owner, you might come across another website where you want to contact the owner. For example, you might find a site that’s copied your content, misquoted you or is even impersonating your company. You want to take action – you run

Copycats are cool! According to Google we are all copycats. Just write a sentence down, a new product name or an idea and the chances are someone has been there before you. Check it out and you will soon find that originality is a rare commodity. Whenever I get carried away in the belief that I write original copy Google brings me thundering back down to earth. The first lesson

Too often, I come across blogs that are effective at only one thing: chasing me away. Actually that’s a bit of an overstatement. The word “chase” leaves the impression that I ran screaming, a reaction far more preferable to the reality because at least there would have been some shock value involved. It’s more accurate to say I’m driven away. And always with the heavy heart of a professional copywriter