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My local coffee shop uses a variety of styles on a blackboard to advertise the different drinks it offers. Inside the café there are comfy chairs, sofas, plants and books and lots of other interesting things to entice people in and make them want to stay awhile. And while enjoying the environment, they might possibly buy more too.

It’s the same with your blog post. Make it stimulating with plenty of punchy paragraphs, and headings that split up the text. Play with the font, use bullets and numbering to spice things up. Above all, grab attention with pictures and images, hand-written text or cartoons.

Keep it novel

Readers have short attention spans. So unless you’re offering a very short blog post, then they need novelty, something that will break up the monotony of plain text. Readers get bored with blocks of writing and so if you don’t entertain them with plenty of visual delicacies, they will click off to some other, more interesting-looking site.

Photo Credit: Michael Coghlan, Penny Farthing promotes cafe

The purpose of your blog is to attract new website visitors and, if you’re a business, hopefully, convert them into leads. But how often should you post a blog to maximise its efficiency?

Wondering whether a newsletter is worth the time and effort? Well, consider this – many more people check their email than go online or visit social media sites. Doesn’t that convince you?

How do you show potential customers how good you are at your business?

Michelle set up her business as an online florist in 2015. She commissioned a website design company to build her a beautiful website to showcase her beautiful bouquets.

Imagine a shop window. It is stuffed with fresh produce, bursting with beautiful, vibrant colours. Doesn’t it make you think of the shopkeeper as someone who cares about his work and takes pride in it?

Jargon, hackneyed expressions, industry lingo, management speak – most of us have used it, and many of us have it thrust upon us on a day-to-day basis in the meeting room, in our business correspondence or from our boss. Here’s why you need to keep it clean.

Often, I hear the words “I don’t have time to write a blog, and I don’t see the point anyway”. Is this you? And is it true? Do you really have no time to sit down and create a short piece of writing to let your clients and potential clients know what you’ve been up to?

Imagine sitting down to read some promising online content and you start to nod off, bored with the corporate waffle you are being offered. Chances are you won’t buy what they’re selling. Am I right?

As a business owner you are concerned with selling your product or service. In order to be able to do this effectively you’ll need words. Good words. Because words win readers, and readers are potential customers only if you can interest and tempt them. Your words should make readers feel something, and make them act on those feelings. Use the wrong words and you will put off your readers from becoming customers.

The wrong words

If you put too little effort in, or if it’s clear that you have no skill with words (in which case what else do you have no skill in, your business perhaps?) then your best customers are going to walk. Perhaps they’ll walk to a business who talks a good talk, who won’t come across as pushy and who can appeal to the reader’s emotions (without them actually realising it). These are the businesses who are more likely to gain readers, and therefore customers.

You love your business, you don’t necessarily love words

OK, so you may be able to put words on the screen. Indeed, you may be as poetic as Bob Dylan, but can you write to sell?

You might know your business inside out and back to front, but do you know how to sell your beloved business using only words? (and no, superlatives like ‘fantastic’ and ‘amazing’ do not cut it). It’s not as easy as you might think. It takes a lot of practice.

What your words should do

To be effective in gaining interest from potential clients your words need to do the following;

• Hit your target audience – if you try to appeal to everyone then no-one will read, let alone respond or buy
• Engage on an emotional level – it is appealing to the emotions of potential customers that gets the sales, not lists of benefits or products
• Perfectly capture your company, its principles and its ethos
• Make the words exciting and engaging, even for the driest subject
• Be aware of trends to keep your content fresh

If you can do all of these things, then I apologise for wasting your time. If not, please understand that good sales rely on good copy, and good copy requires skill. It is not simply a matter of putting words on a screen. These days, with so many companies in your field competing for eye time on the web, your copy must stand out. Make sure you are – or have at your disposal – the right person to create that copy.