Enter the client brief.

Getting a comprehensive client brief starts a project on the right foot. It gives a copywriting project a far higher chance of success - which means a happy client.

My client brief (which gets filled out to kick start the project) contains:

• Name of company and motto (so I get the spelling right in the content).
• Contact name, phone number, and email address (so I know the person to chase up with any project related questions, and also who I’ll send the final version to).
• Description of project - for example one 250 word web page using existing marketing material (gives me a feeling for the size of the project, how much content I need to write).
• Unique selling points of product or company - for instance the only authorised supplier of xyz in Brisbane (helps with developing an angle for the content).
• Five words to describe the personality of the product/company (helps me decide on the tone and language to use).
• Company website url (for obvious reasons).
• Supporting information provided (so I know how much research I’m going to need to do).
• Main competitors (gives me an understanding of the industry).
• What do you want your call to action to be (such as give us a call, download our whitepaper, subscribe to our newsletter)?
• Who is your target audience (retirees, youth, parents etc)?
• Specific keywords to use in the content (so I fit in with any other SEO activities you may be undertaking).
• First draft of content required by (helps me plan).
• Final version of content required (again, helps me plan).
• Format required - for example .doc (I use Word 2007 generally, but I can provide other formats such as a plain .txt file).

I’ll also ask if you have an in-house style guide that you use. Helps me with things like heading style (of course I always recommend sentence case).

Do you think anything else should be added to the list?

In the past I’ve found that a lot of books leave you feeling warm and fuzzy and ready to take on the world - but when the push comes to shove they are light on with the real nuts and bolts of *how* to do it. Or, they seem too far removed from anything that you could possibly achieve - so you give up before you even start.

Today I had some reading time and discovered two gems in my collection: The Unlimited Freelancer and SEO Secrets.

Both have been written by people who I admire - clever, friendly and interesting web copywriters. Both are meaty - The Ultimate Freelancer is 200 pages and SEO Secrets is 213 pages. Both are great value for money.

And best of all - both give you some real, practical tools that you can apply to YOUR business.

The Unlimited Freelancer

The Ultimate Freelancer is written by Mason Hipp and James Chartrand (from Men with Pens) and published by FreelanceFolder.com. It’s easy to read, to the point, and very practical - real get your hands dirty advice (which I like). The focus of the book is on the behind the scenes stuff that a successful freelancer needs: good systems; a good team; and good revenue generating assets.

It’s been written to benefit any type of freelancer, not just writers - so it’s a lot about business sense not the freelance writing industry.

Software is suggested under the ‘Systems, software, and automation’ section - and there are even some that I can use (being in Australia). I am now on a mission to figure out what combination is going to help me the most.

I would have liked some extra case studies (I like seeing how others have done it), and even though it’s great that there are 200 pages - I did end up printing it out for quick reference. Which is good I guess as it’s definitely something I’ll go back and refer to as I clean up my systems and processes.

All in all, an excellent book - and a bargain at US$29. You can download The Unlimited Freelancer from the FreelanceFolder site.

The Ultimate Freelancer

SEO Secrets

First a quick disclaimer: I haven’t been paid in any way for this review but I have signed up for Glenn’s affiliate program for his book. So, if anyone from this site purchases the book I do get a commission. So please, if you are going to get the book - follow the link from this page

I found Glenn Murray from Divine Write on Twitter and have been an interested follower ever since. When he released version two of his SEO Secrets book, I was quick to download it. I admit it took me a while to get through it (it’s so big!), but now I’m kicking myself that I didn’t do it sooner as - even though I do know a fair bit about SEO - this book is going to be my go-to guide for any of my SEO questions.

It’s very practical, and drills down to a level that - if you follow the step-by-step instructions - you can improve your website quickly, easily, and without any real technical knowledge.

It covers:

• keywords
• search engines
• optimising WordPress blogs
• content optimisation
• developing optimised sites
• social media.

It’s an entry-level book on SEO - but covers the fundamentals so well that even people who understand SEO well will benefit from a read. At US$79.95 it’s also well worth the money.

SEO Secrets - Click image to purchase

Interesting.

When I was studying communication at the Queensland University of Technology in the late nineties, I had a lecturer called Roslyn Petelin who taught us that under no circumstances the word ‘last’ should be used if you meant ‘latest’ or ‘past’ (I will add that I was quite scared of Roslyn so this has stuck with me).

‘Last’ is final. You can eat the last biscuit in the packet, but (unless you are Nostradamus) hopefully 2008 isn’t last year.You can have the latest budget (or past budget), but the last budget indicates there isn’t going to be anymore.

I’ve done some research on the web, and it seems that this rule isn’t as hard and fast as it was during my uni days. But, what do you think? What is your preference?

They break up pages into neat, bite-sized chunks - making content easier to scan and read. But unfortunately, they are also often incorrectly punctuated.

Here’s a cheat sheet:

• If the bullet points are complete sentences (like these), punctuate them as you would a sentence with a capital at the start and a full stop at the end.
• It doesn’t matter if there is a lead-in sentences or not (with a colon), as long as each bullet point makes sense as a stand alone statement.

But, if the bullet points are a carry on from the lead-in sentence:

• you use a colon at the end of the lead-in sentence
• you don’t capitalise the first letter
• there is no need for a full stop until the final point.

I hope this helps!

Step Two Designs

Definitely the leaders in all things intranet, KM, and CMS, James Robertson and his team provide an invaluable insight in what to do and what not to do with these types of projects. The best thing about their site is the abundance of useful articles and papers, most of which are free to view.

Mark Morrell - the BT intranet guy

Mark is lucky enough to work in an organisation where the value of a good intranet is recognised and cherished. He takes you through different redesigns, enhancements, and general observations on how to manage a large intranet. Well worth the read.

AGIMO better practice checklist - Implementing a CMS

Even though it has a government focus, it’s still a really useful checklist that you can also download as a PDF.

CMS watch

If you’ve got some money to spend, then CMS watch can be quite good. You have to pay for the detailed reports, but the blog can contain some useful info.

What other resources are out there? Please let me know.

Quick refresher:

Sentence case is when you only capitalise the first letter of the  first word in a heading - like you would in a sentence. Proper nouns also have a capital.

With title case you capitalise the first letter of each word.

This Is Title Case.

Even though there isn’t a hard and fast rule over which style is better for the web, my personal preference is for sentence case. Here’s why:

• There is some evidence to show that the use of capital letters slows the ability for people to scan content - it breaks the flow.
• Sites that use title case often use it inconsistently. Sometimes You Get This. But Sometimes you Get This. Sentence case is far easier to teach, implement and apply quality control. (Great if you’ve got a decentralised authoring model.)
• Breadcrumbs in sentence case are far easier to scan - you can easily see the different levels of navigation. For example: Home > About us> Corporate profile > Management team.
• If you do a lot of work for government or universities, there is a trend towards minimal capitalisation for all publishing - a style that they carry to the web.

What does everyone else think?

The lovely Carlee at the Social Network for Opportunistic Businesswomen (SNOBs) has written a feature on Snappy Sentences for the New Kids on the Block section. This really has been my lucky week - first making it on the list of the Top 50 Australian writing blogs, now this.

Fantastic!

Thanks Jon! You can follow him on Twitter @kimota

Our roof leaks.
Drip!
Drip!
Drip!

Last night when I was reading my son’s favourite book - There’s a hippopotamus on our roof eating cake - it occurred to me that the first page uses two of the most basic and powerful writing techniques: Alliteration and Onomatopoeia.

Alliteration

Alliteration is the use of repetitive consonant sounds in a phrase or rhyme - as in ‘Drip! Drip! Drip!’. It is used widely in the media. Newspapers love tongue twister headlines: Local loser finally lucky in love. Bloggers too use the technique to spice up post titles: Twitter tweeters try TweetDeck. You get the idea.

Alliteration also gives content structure and creates interest. It’s especially useful when speech writing, with everyone from Winston Churchill, John Kennedy and - more recently - Barack Obama delivering historical speeches laced with cleverly crafted content. (Sorry, couldn’t help myself.)

Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeia describes words that sound the same as the action they are describing. Think boom, bang, drip, zap, meow, and fizzle. Or ‘baa baa black sheep’, ’snap, crackle, pop’, and The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe.

It’s a great technique when describing a scene as it adds a layer of sound to your words:

The radiator hissed and gurgled as the old car clanged and banged into the driveway.

Just make sure if you are using it when script writing that it’s easy enough to say aloud. You’ll lose the impact of the words if they are too hard to pronounce together.

Learn more

For more weird and wonderful writing techniques, my favourite refresher is Daily Writing Tips.

I also came across an interesting breakdown of Obama’s victory speech by David Straker that shows how simple methods, combined with the right words can create such a powerful moment in history.

Enjoy.