A Word On Writing Well
Okay, a bit more than a word…
“Content is king”, they used to say. The idea was if you wrote enough compelling material for your blog or website, then the readers, and search engines, couldn’t help but find you and rank you well. Sounds like a great idea, right? Then why do so many people write such bad content?
I don’t know either.
What I do know is that everyone and their brother have an idea about how to write good, compelling content for your blog or website. Take SEO Book, for instance, who ran a post about writing better blog posts back in December of 2008. They, in turn, referenced Seth Godin and a book titled [amazon_link id=”0060891548″ target=”_blank” ]On Writing Well[/amazon_link].
Now, I’ll grant you, I tend to share links to other resources, offering an opinion about them usually, but not as much original content as I’d like. But, still, I think that even those posts are written reasonably well. And, I think it’s worth taking the time, even on a blog, to write well. Not to improve my rankings in search engines, but because writing well, communicating clearly, is a worthy pursuit. It may not always be obvious here, but I actually worked quite hard to become a competent writer well beyond things like English class in high school. One way or another, I’ve written for years and take pride in my ability to write clearly, concisely and in an entertaining manner.
You see, the thing is, as much as we love video and photos and graphics and the like, in the end, we use words to actually communicate.
The next time you’re driving down the street in whatever town you live, notice how many signs have writing on them. Or, better yet, notice how many signs are, in fact, themselves, writing. Words, and writing, is still the medium we use to express ourselves, even on the web. How we write is an expression of how we think. Writing well is an essential skill that displays our intelligence and our education. Writing poorly, with sloppy grammar and with “text message” abbreviations, subtly tells people that we are not as smart as we claim to be, and not to be trusted or believed. Writing well, on the other hand, assures our reader that we are smart, trustworthy and competent enough to be relied upon. Our writing, especially on the internet, can be, as they say at Google and Wikipedia, considered “authoritative”.
I have argued with people via e-mail and comments who, when they found themselves in metaphorical quicksand, insisted that they would argue circles around me in person. I questioned how that would be possible if they couldn’t write sufficiently to defend their position when they had all the time they needed to consider the argument at hand and edit their work before replying.
Which brings me to the real point of this little screed; editing and revision.
I know the web is a fast and furious place and that fresh content is the most important thing, but, I do think we have the time to edit and revise articles, even short ones, before making them public. And, we can all use spellcheck now. In fact, the version of WordPress that I’m currently running has spellcheck and grammar check built into it. I would think more people would take advantage of this feature, as well as the ability to save posts in a draft format for later review before posting.
Granted, not every post is going to garner that sort of care and attention, but shouldn’t more of them get it rather than less? If we are our words on the internet, shouldn’t we care more how we sound and what we say? I think so.
I think it’s worth writing fewer words, or even writing fewer entire posts, so that a certain minimal attention may be paid to the content and style.
In short, I think if it’s worth saying, then it’s worth saying well.
Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"To keep your marriage brimming,
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you're wrong, admit it;
Whenever you're right, shut up."
--Ogden Nash
