1. Wrong Use of Words.
I know, I know. The English language can be confusing sometimes.
(As my lovely Turkish friend reminded me recently: Why is the word oven pronounced uv-ven and not o-ven? Good point!).
But were an English-speaking nation and we should try and use the right words if we can.
What really bugs me are these common wrong usage of words and I see them all the time:
Your instead of Youre
Your means something belonging to you. Youre is the contraction of You are.
To instead of Too
To is used for expressing movement. Too means in addition to.
Loose instead of Lose
Loose means free or not tight. Lose is to fail or be without.
Their instead of There
Their means something belonging to them. There means in that place or at that action or time.
2. Wrong Use of Apostrophes.
Ah, this little doozie
Putting apostrophes in the wrong place can be so annoying that theres even a website dedicated to it called Apostrophe Abuse. Ha!
An apostrophe should be used for the contraction of words, like
Youre, Thats and Havent or the ownership of something, like
Lils or Tonys.
It is NOT meant to be used to improve the appearance of plural words that end in a vowel!
Common errors include:
- Menus instead of Menus
- Sodas instead of Sodas
- How-tos instead of How-tos
- Pastas instead of Pasta (no plural required!).
Another common error is using Its instead of Its. Its means
something belonging to It, and Its is the contraction of It is.
And what about Partys instead of Parties?
Grrrr .!
3. Being too Stiff.
We were all taught at school to write formally and to use big,
flowery words in our essays. Well, in the real world, this kind of copy
isnt going to please anyone except lawyers and English teachers.
If you really want to engage your readers, you need to communicate
with them in their language. And this means having a conversation with
them, and writing as if youre talking with them face to face.
Here are some quick tips to help you write copy that connect with your readers:
- Write like you talk
- Use simple words no jargon
- Start your sentences with And or But (dont listen to your English teachers!)
- Use contractions as much as possible, eg. Im, Theres and Wouldve
- Use first-person wherever you can especially you.
And if youre writing a blog post or an article thats
personality-driven, also include exclamations and colloquialisms like
Wow!, Oh yeah or Whew! as you would in person. This makes you more
real!
4. Going on and on and on and on
Yep, Im talking about rambling or what I call waffling. Going on and on without any sub-headings or paragraph breaks, or massively long sentences without punctuations.
Whenever I see a web page or article that has screeds and screeds of
copy with no breaks in between, my eyes instantly glaze over. I click
out even before finishing the first paragraph!
So how do you stop rambling?
- Cut to the chase be direct and say what you have to
- Use lots of sub-headings and make them descriptive, so your readers can see at a glance what you have to say
- Use bullet points wherever you can
- Write short sentences and be as brief as possible
- Use punctuations commas, dashes, full stops. The purpose of punctuations is to make your copy easier to digest so use them!
5. Keyword Stuffing.
Arrgghhh . this drives me crazy too!!
Ive come across so many articles that may actually contain good
content, but I wouldnt know because theyre so full of keywords that
Id already switched off and clicked away.
You see, copy is supposed to flow, but when every other word is a keyword, the content becomes stilted and difficult to read.
I have to say I like the changes to Googles algorithm because it
means we get better-quality content, written more for readers than
search engines. Hoorah to that!
What About You?
Is there anything that drives you mad? Have you made any of these
copywriting errors yourself? Perhaps youve come across other
copywriting errors that drive you batty? Id love to know please leave
me a comment below.