The Upward Path

your message matters

writing

Does your website need a spring clean?

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Here in the UK it feels like we’ve been waiting a long time for spring this year! But now that sunnier days are here, thoughts naturally turn to clearing out the old and bringing in the fresh and new.

Are you looking at your website and thinking it could use a sweep through, but not sure what needs attention? Here’s a quick look at some important things to check.

Change the welcome mat so they know they’re in the right place

When visitors arrive, does the site show them clearly who you are and what they can expect to find inside?

That first screenful is critical in drawing in cautious passers-by, which you do with a combination of things – title, subtitle, the navigation menu text, the page heading, images…

Although that might sound like a lot to think about, the key for most of us is to keep it simple and effective. Try to put yourself in the position of a visitor who doesn’t already know you. Can they see what the name of the site is? If there’s important text or a logo, can they make it out clearly? (For instance, watch out for text on busy background images.)   [Read more…] about Does your website need a spring clean?

How to write for the web to turn visitors into readers

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Typing on laptop image

If you’re trying to reach an audience you probably write web pages, blog articles and maybe guest blogs, and social media posts. Here’s some guidance and a checklist to help you do it better so you can engage your audience with your message.

You can’t just throw text on the page and expect it to work. You have to respect the reader. It’s in your interest to respect the reader.

Their brain is poised to remind them of more important and enjoyable things they could be doing right now. And if it sees a page that looks like hard work, it will.

If you have a message that you want to get into their mind, you need to make it smooth. Any bumps are likely to throw them off. Your ideas don’t get their due consideration if they don’t get read.

But if you do a good job they’ll enjoy the experience, learn something from you, and maybe want more.   [Read more…] about How to write for the web to turn visitors into readers

Communication rule one

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Is there one principle, above all others, that you can take on board to gain the foundation of better communication? I think there is, and this is the most boiled-down version I’ve come up with:

WHAT’S IN THEIR HEAD
IS NOT WHAT’S IN YOUR HEAD

It’s about realising that you have a responsibility to meet your audience at least halfway. You can’t just throw some words down that you would understand yourself, presented in a way that you would find pleasant and digestible. Because they ain’t you.

Message Bottle image(You could make various parallel rule versions, like, “Their life is not your life”, or even, “Their computer is not your computer”. But I think the above sums it up pretty well.)

In Yorkshire, where I grew up, we sometimes said “so-and-so can’t see beyond their own nose end” – meaning that all a person thought about was themselves and their own picture of the world. Someone like that can never be a great communicator. They can only appeal to people like themselves, and get frustrated when they come up against barriers.

Getting good at this requires qualities like empathy and adaptability – the ability to step outside your own worldview and habits – alongside skills in use of language and presenting information.   [Read more…] about Communication rule one

6 ways you block yourself from communicating your message

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Headwall pic

If you have a message to share and an audience to engage, your website and documents and social media need to do that as well as possible, right? But we are humans with unruly brains, so it’s not that straightforward.

A lot of people have resistance around communication. This post is about shining a light on some of the internal blocks that might be holding you back. Do any of them seem familiar? If so, can you reduce their hold so you can do more for your message?

Of course there are lots of legitimate reasons why people might not want to work on their message right now. But I’ve found that most often people draw back from it without giving reasons, and I have to read between the lines. There are clearly internal stories going on like:

  • “I’m busy with more important things”
  • “That’s not for people like me”
  • “I already know all about that”
  • “I’m uncomfortable with that stuff so I’m fending it off.”

Here are a few things that I think are behind that. You might notice they’re interconnected.   [Read more…] about 6 ways you block yourself from communicating your message

The real reason spelling and grammar matter – video blog

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To a wordnerd like me, spelling and grammar mistakes jump out and make my brain itch to fix them. And I want to do the best job I can with language.

Most people aren’t wired up like that. If you’re not, is there a real practical reason why you should worry about that stuff?

Yes there is, if you have an audience – clients, supporters, followers, peers – and you care how they see you.

 

 

(This is part of my video skills learning journey. So I apologise for the tics, like saying “you know” every twenty seconds! It was done in one take, so not bad for a learner. Onward and upward!)

 

What’s your writing style?

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The words you choose and the way you put sentences and paragraphs together combine to make an overall shape, and that shape is the voice your readers perceive for you.

Style pinboardThe way you write can make a big difference to how easy it is to get your message across, and readers will also be extracting clues to decide whether to like and trust you.

So, what sort of writing style do you want to have? Here are some common baseline styles to think about.

Academic style

When you’re working in academic circles (or perhaps specialist teams in other settings), one of the key payoffs of your writing can be to show people how clever you are. It’s a natural social status thing, but it can lead to some peculiar writing. There’s a perceived reward for using big words, complicated sentences and jargon.

Now jargon can be a very useful thing, for speeding up communication between people in a particular field. But you need to be able to adapt to a different style of writing when communicating to a more general audience.  [Read more…] about What’s your writing style?