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Drop back in the first quarter of 2006 for these posts and more…

• Ten ways (count them) to be more productive in MS Word
• Free pocket web writing guide
• High impact copywriting, fast
• Common web writing mistakes you can avoid
• Free handbook for web editors

That’s all for this year. See you again soon.

Megan asks, “is there an optimum length for a blog post?” I don’t think there is a optimum blog entry length, any more than there is an optimum web page length. Entries vary from one line, to a few paras in length, to much longer posts.

However, blogs are informal. Each post generally focuses on one point in the context of much larger train(s) of thought. Normally, then, a couple of paras will be enough.

Don’t get too hung up size. The most important question is, “is my writing cogent, entertaining, and succinct?”

Two updates in as many days – you lucky people. The Streetmap Firefox extension now includes a fix for OSX builds. Thanks to Joe Maller for the solution.
More info and download »

Development of the Streetmap Firefox extension inches forward to version 0.931. The extension should now work with Firefox 1.5. Any problems – particular in Mac builds – please leave me a comment.
More info and download »

(Part two of ‘Effective copywriting: the basics‘.)

Copywriting is writing that does a job. It persuades someone to act. Typically, the action is to buy something. But it might be to make a call, write an email, or join a free course. Everytime you are writing to persuade, you are copywriting.

AIDA is a useful way to check your writing is doing the job of persuading the reader to act.

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(Part one of ‘Effective copywriting: the basics‘.)

Relevance means connecting your message with your audience. Before you start writing, you must really understand your message and your audience. So good copywriting depends on preparation.
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Last week I gave a short copywriting workshop for the NCVO Membership Forum. It focused on copywriting for membership schemes, but there’s some good general stuff in there, too. Here’s an overview split into three posts.
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Links to dozens of dictionaries, archives, encyclopedias, and language resources: ACES Reference Page.

Two classic columns by Jakob Nielsen are a bit misleading. To be sure, he has had a major positive effect on web design. In fact people still quote advice he gave eight (8!) years ago. It’s not out of date. But out of context, his advice on writing for the web consists of – at best – half-truths. Have another look.
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Streetmap is a simple UK streetmap search extension for Firefox. Just highlight a UK street name or postcode and right-click to launch a map of it from your favourite map service. 0.93 adds Google Maps UK and a slide-out menu to select map service. Oh, and a pretty icon for the menu.
More info and download »