1. Know what you want to achieve.
Work out what you want your writing to do. Do you want someone to buy something? Or to change someone’s mind? To get them to sign up for a newsletter? Or click ‘submit’?
You don’t always need to be specific, but if you know what you want your reader to do, it will be easier to get to the point.
2. Think about your reader.
Who is your reader? What do they want?
Write in a way that makes it easy for them. Avoid long words, and long sentences – they make it harder to understand your point quickly and easily.
Try to write the way you’d speak to a friend. Be natural and relaxed – one human to another. So feel free to use ‘don’t’, ‘isn’t’ and ‘can’t’, and use ‘you’ and ‘I’ and ‘we’.
3. Use active voice wherever you can.
‘The dog ate the toy’ is much shorter and simpler than ‘The toy was eaten by the dog’. It also helps you avoid being vague. ‘The toy was eaten’ doesn’t tell you as much.
There are times when passive voice is useful. It can help to avoid blame (‘the bill was not paid’) or leave a question open (‘the mistake happened’). But try to make these the exceptions.
4. The headline comes last.
Write more than one – write a whole page of headlines if you like – and don’t criticise any of them until you have a good selection. Then choose the best.
Same with a subject line of an email. Write it last, and write several you can choose from.
5. Read it aloud
Reading your piece out loud helps you to hear where sentences are too long or too complicated. Think about adding commas or full stops when you take a breath.
Reading aloud is also a great way to spot mistakes before you hit ‘send’!
Get in touch to ask for help with your writing.
Or you may want to investigate the Plain English Campaign, which runs courses.