The Ultimate Writing Guidelines? (Input Appreciated!!!)

I put these guidelines together for my writers and I'm hoping that some of the more seasoned and professional writers on here can chime in with their suggestions. :-)


Contractions

Use contractions in a consistent manner throughout your article or batch of articles. You generally should use contractions unless specifically asked not to.

They make writing flow better, are more succinct, are more conversational and easier on the eye. Nothing is drier than: "Dog training should not be taken lightly because it is an extremely vital part of having an enjoyable relationship with one's pet." ...Yuck!

A better version might look like this: "Dog training shouldn't be taken lightly since it's SUCH a vital part of your relationship with your pet." Can you feel the personality and conversation going on in the second sentence juxtaposed against the clinical feel of the first?



"One" vs "You"

Using the impersonal pronoun "one" gives web content an unnecessary degree of impersonality and pomp. Unless you're writing a technical document, or some other formal piece, stay way the heck away from "one" and use "you" instead. "You" engages your reader in dialogue; "one" engages nobody.



Forget Grammar

OK, don't forget grammar, only use your good grammar to the degree that it's necessary and appropriate for a given assignment.

Your job isn't to impress your high school teacher with your mastery of the rules of English; it's to provide value to the reader in the most digestible format possible.

Speak to your reader as you would to a friend because while your friend will call you out on your pretentiousness, the reader will simply leave the site and cost clients money, or, more accurately, fail to make them money.

Don't let Microsoft Word bully you into changing interesting writing into boring pablum any time it has a "suggestion" for you. Better yet, write in notepad.



Look Stuff Up

If you don't know the meaning of a word, look it up. If you're looking for a synonym or an antonym or any kind of nym, Google it.




Be Pithy

Convey as much as possible with as few words as possible while still observing the rules of readability and a conversational tone. Fill your writing with content, not with words; there's a difference.

Now it's true that some topics don't give you much to write about but don't use that as an excuse to say the same thing several times or beat around the bush.

Repetitiveness and redundancy make your writing look 3rd world and it is extremely annoying to read this kind of writing. If you have to, do some more research, dig deeper and go off on a bit of a tangent.




Keywords

You should use the exact keyword in the first and last sentences and no more.

You should also overusing any words, in general. In my opinion, keyword density of above 1% constitutes overuse post-Panda.



Research

Fact of life: becoming a good writer means becoming a good researcher. In fact, the majority of your time will go towards gathering the material to write about and not to the writing, itself.

If somebody is searching for information about the topic you're writing on, give it to them!

Provide real value by educating them with facts, learned observations, statistics, etc. Incidentally, YOU will also receive an education in the process.



Personality

Throw your personality into your writing! Make it quirky, unique, irreverent, sardonic, whatever. But be tasteful; there's a fine line between a little attitude/humor and shtick. The content is the meat and personality is the spice.




Write For People

Forget about writing for search engines; write for human beings. Write the kind of stuff that YOU would enjoy reading.

In this business, karma is currency and your reputation is your purchasing power. Why? Better reputation = more trust, more customers, BETTER customers, higher rates, less work, more interesting work.