Financial website writers, match headlines to content or lose readers
Your web pages should deliver on the promise made by your headlines. That doesn’t happen in the economic commentary example shown below (with company name blacked out). Let’s look at what went wrong, so you can avoid these mistakes. 1. Most of the paragraph is unrelated to the headline A Wall Street Journal report about […]
Writing sensitively about tragedy in your investment commentary or blog
Tragedy strikes more often than you’d like. It could be an event like the initial Malaysian Airlines plane disappearance, the Boston Marathon bombings, or something that happened in your community. Discussing tragedies can bring us closer together. It can make stale topics timely. However, it can also offend and disturb your readers, as discussed in […]
Free help for wordy writers!
Wordiness is a curse. Long-winded writing obscures your meaning and scares off readers. However, many writers don’t realize that their writing is dragging on and on. A free online tool—the Hemingway App—can help you recognize when your sentences are too long. Hemingway highlights sentences that are too long. It also suggests some ways to improve […]
E-book or white paper: which is better?
“What’s the Difference between an E-book and a White Paper? (And When Should You Use Them?)” is the title of a chapter in Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, E-books, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business by Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman. It’s a great question. Sometimes what […]
Famous quotes make your commentary memorable
It’s hard to make your investment commentary stand out. After all, everybody’s writing about the same facts. However, adept use of quotes can make your commentary memorable. For example, here’s how The Wall Street Journal’s “Ahead of the Tape” column started with a quote from the Bible (Matthew 20:16) on June 30, 2014: Similarities between […]