Writing content is crucial for any business or agency. Social media, blogging or websites; they all need great content. As simple as this sounds anyone who is involved with copy writing knows it isn’t easy – a great sentence is never an accident.
So take a trip down memory lane to your English lessons at school…
1. Save The Best Until Last
The end of your sentence is one of the most important things to consider; this is how you leave the reader and what they will remember. The English language is built to allow for the strongest part of the sentence to come last – so enhance this, pick catchy and memorable words to end your sentences with.
2. Choose ‘Cool’ Words
A good tip is to also pick words that sound appropriate for the subject matter – literally. It’s like when you come across a word that just rolls off your tongue – it sounds great but you have no idea why (weird right). This is partly down to stop consonants and glide consonants. Put simply, stop consonants are words that block your vocal tract – they sound blunt and harsh. Glide consonants do not obstruct the vocal tract and are frictionless when spoken, they sound gentle and more feminine.
For example, the global fashion brand ‘Chloe’ uses a glide consonant as the gentle femininity suits the brand – you get the point. This can also be put to use for headings and titles – sticking to primarily one of the types of consonants will create a more memorable sentence/phrase.
3. Introduce With Short Sentences
Use short sentences and be-sentences to introduce a paragraph, short snappy sentences will entice the viewer in to read more. Be-sentences do just what they say, they include a be verb such as am, is, are, being, been and was – these take the viewer into the situation quickly and tell a story, they can also be paired to create longer sentences.
4. Think Poetry
Rhyming and alliteration are also underrated and useful tools, using this in a social media heading for example will create a tagline that will stick in the viewers mind. Think about what you click on when using Twitter, why are you attracted to certain posts over others? Making the heading read well is half of the job.
Tip: Read your headings aloud and see how they sound
5. No Jargon
Always keep your reader in mind when writing, you may know everything about the particular subject matter but that doesn’t mean your reader does. Keep things simple and easy to understand, if you need some more complicated terminology in there then make sure you explain it well and clearly.