One of the things which you should avoid when creating content for websites, writing blog posts or developing any other web content is the passive voice. It’s often been said that the passive voice is weak, and research suggests that some people find it harder to understand than the active voice.
But whilst the recommendation is to write in the ...
Continue Reading →For those writers and marketers just beginning to explore the possibilities of article marketing, writing articles in good English can be more of a challenge than might at first be expected. It’s all very well writing letters to your family, a report for work or even a CV, but article marketing is different, and for two good reasons.
Firstly, you have a much wider audience. Whereas your personal letters and notes might only be read by one or two ...
When it comes to article writing, do you think that correct grammar is important, or not? Let me ask the question a different way.
“When you is wrote articles does you thought grammar ain’t not important?”
All right, I confess, I almost felt physical pain writing that last sentence, although 12 years as an English teacher in secondary schools provided me with plenty of material from which to work when crafting ugly, ungrammatical writing such as that. Forgive me.
However, the point is ...
Continue Reading →One of the questions I’m often asked as a provider of a UK based SEO article service is whether I am familiar with the differences in language between US English and UK English. Increasingly these days it can be confusing for people, with television and the internet often blurring the gap between the two.
Yet that a gap exists is undeniable, and to ignore the fact is to potentially cost your business dearly. It may seem that there is relatively little ...
Continue Reading →Posted by: Justin Arnold
Every writer has at least one pet hate, and one foible – what is yours?
I have a writer friend who has always had a special hatred for those who qualify an absolute, such as suggesting that something is ‘almost unique’ or ‘almost new’. Naturally, as frequently argues, a thing is either unique, or it is not, but it can never be almost unique; similarly, a thing is either new, or it is not, but there can be no room for ...
Continue Reading →Summary: The Linguisticator is a tool which will help to improve the readability of your writing, improve the quality of your writing, and reduce weak or complicated writing – all with a single click, and at half the price of tools which can only do half as much.
First of all – I make no apologies for the appalling name!
The Linguisticator was the result of my own wish to locate a tool which would help to analyse my writing. I had ...
Continue Reading →So let’s have another look at getting rid of the definite article then.
The other day I wrote about an interesting challenge with which I was presented – to write three versions of an article, with each individual sentence fully interchangeable with the other two articles, and each version of each sentence 100% unique.
I explained that creating wholly unique sentences with identical meaning and comparative length presented slightly more of a challenge than I anticipated. The problem was not so much that the major words ...
Continue Reading →The definite article – a word that can hardly be referred to without including it within its own introduction. For those not so familiar with English grammar – I am talking about that innocuous, but oh so prevalent word – ‘the’.
Why am I thinking about this little word? Well, it all started with a special request I received from one of my clients…
The task was to rewrite each sentence of an article twice more, so that each sentence could be interchanged with ...
Continue Reading →Posted by: Justin Arnold
UK English or US English? Switching from one to the other can be like trying to write in a foreign language.
Like many writers who do a good deal of business as copywriters for online companies, I am often required to write using either UK or US English. Sometimes converting between the two can be a nightmare, not only when it comes to the many hundreds of spelling differences, but also those little idioms, phrases and descriptions which can easily be overlooked.
Which is ...
Continue Reading →Writing SEO articles in English is a tough job if English isn’t your first language – or even if it is, but you’re not terribly confident with it. Writing articles and web content that could, potentially, be read by millions can be a daunting task for anyone not confident, or competent, with writing English.
Yet almost all web content, or at least the vast majority of it, is in English. If you want your website to be noticed, then English is ...
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