Let’s face it: Many industry blogs and whitepapers are tedious to read and tough to focus on. If your writing is a chore to get through, you will likely lose readers and engagement will suffer. We want yours to be better.
Our job at Intrepid is to make content easier to consume, so we’re sharing our five favorite tricks to integrate into your own writing. The trickle-down effect? Your readers are more likely to engage with your website, get to know your brand, and convert.
One note we want to call out: Whether your brand tone is sophisticated & professional or light & witty, all of these tips will apply. You should still vary your sentence length, use visual metaphors, and… well, you’ll just have to read the rest of our tips. Off we go!
1. Beware of Too Many Descriptors
To a writer, adverbs and adjectives can feel like a soft, cushiony padding when you’re trying to convey something difficult. But they can delay your point and dilute your message.
Remember:
- Not every word needs a descriptor.
- A sentence rarely needs two adverbs back-to-back.
As Stephen King wrote in his memoir: “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.”
Example 1: Check out this stylish home office, carefully appointed with tasteful decor and accented with refreshing touches of live plants in an open space filled with light.
It takes effort to read that sentence, and although it’s filled with information, it’s better to have an easy-to-read sentence than extra descriptors.
Here’s the edited version: Check out this stylish home office with tasteful decor and refreshing live plants—all in an open space filled with light.
Example 2: The medium-duty bristles on the Scrubber Brush are spaced out to provide flagged-tip coverage on broad surface areas to easily clean through tough messes.
Here’s the edited version: The bristles provide flagged-tip scrubbing across broad surface areas, easily cleaning through tough messes.
Beware of Too Much… Everything
Example: Our Standard Tire & Rubber Cleaner rapidly and effectively cleans, degreases, and removes the dirt, grime, and browning from your tires and rubber.If you’re using this many “and’s,” try to split the sentence into two or remove extra words. In this case, it has two adverbs (rapidly and effectively), three verbs (cleans, degreases, removes), three direct objects (dirt, grime, and browning), and two indirect objects (tires and rubber). All of those things need to be connected with “and,” which slows the sentence down and may tire out the reader. Here’s the deal with “and.” Each time you use it, the reader’s brain pauses to combine things that go together before they move on to the next part of the sentence. That’s how “and” is supposed to work, after all. But the cumulative effect is lexical bumps in the road.
Here’s the edited version: Standard Tire & Rubber Cleaner rapidly removes the dirt, grime, and browning from your tires and rubber.
2. Beware of Softening Verbs That Dilute What You’re Trying to Say
- Enable us to
- Continue to
- Begin to
- Ensure that
Example: Data-driven & ROI-focused strategy that enable us to continue to adapt and deliver results.
Here’s the edited version: Our approach adapts regularly based on data and ROI—so you see results faster.What you can do instead is either choose a new main verb or say more clearly what you’re trying to skirt around.
Example: We are excited to enact strategies that will enable us to measure success more accurately.
Here’s the edited version: We are excited to enact strategies that will enable us to measure success more accurately.
3. Vary Your Sentence Construction & Length
This isn’t the 19th century. A string of long sentences is a death sentence to your reader’s attention span. The brain tires quickly when reading, especially now that people consume written material very quickly and tend to scan rather than read every word.
So, we need to surprise them.
In these examples, the short sentences are highlighted purple, medium ones are green, and long sentences are blue. And red indicates the super-short sentences that pop.
Example 1: Currently, there is no such thing as a truly mobile-friendly PDF document. However, there are some things you can do to improve readability and the experience for mobile users. These include left-aligning your text, using bullet points, using images cautiously, breaking up content with relevant headings, and shortening paragraphs.
Example 2: Do you really want to knock it out of the park this Valentine’s Day? Here’s an idea: Just stay in. There’s no need for reservations when you can whip up an elegant homemade dinner instead — no white tablecloth required. And before you dismiss the idea, thinking that it will be too much work (or too difficult), we have yet another idea: let us help!
Tip: Don’t put more than two sentences together that are the same length. If you’re reading a passage and it seems sluggish, that’s probably because it is. Cut a long sentence in two, add an em dash to break up a complex construction, or add a very short sentence just to liven things up. Pop!
4. Toss in Descriptive Language
One of the top things that fatigues the modern corporate reader is a lack of visual metaphor. Used extensively in poetry, prose, and song lyrics alike (Love is a battlefield, after all), we humans perk up when a metaphor makes us see something.
So when things are getting dull, toss in something that sparks a visual.
Examples:
- Still haunted by that nightmare where someone in an SEO meeting uses a term you don’t know? Stop waking up in a cold sweat, and put your mind at ease with the official Glossary of SEO Terms.
- Find most SEO guides about as exciting as watching paint dry? Our “Glossary of Technical SEO Terms” is the caffeinated wake-up call you didn’t know you needed.
- No, “log file” does not track firewood, “meta robots” are not your mechanical servants, and “anchor text” is not written on ships. Time to brush up on your SEO knowledge with the official Intrepid Glossary of SEO Terms.
In our experience, even if your brand tone is very strait-laced, you can still insert a well-chosen visual. Take this example from a report from PriceWaterhouseCoopers, arguably one of the more formal brand tones out there. They maintain their professional tone but use a quick two-part nautical metaphor, which livens things up:
“While executives have been very vocal about their concerns in our survey, from board refreshment to time commitment and skill gaps, a strong beacon of positivity emerged regarding executives’ level of trust in their boards. Despite their criticisms, executives are showing a renewed faith in their boards’ ability to steer the ship in times of crisis, make value-driven decisions and plan for the future.”
5. Always Re-Read Your Writing
If we can quote Stephen King again (and we shall), he said this about revisions: “Write with the door closed, rewrite with the door open.”
Never assume your first draft is good enough. Not an email, not a social post, and certainly not a blog.
For blogs, web pages, and anything over 400 words, re-read and revise at least 2 times, preferably with another person editing as well.
When you’re reading your writing, if you stumble on something or read it wrong the first time:
- Notice. If you’re stumbling on it as the writer, that means others will, too.
- Highlight it
- Come back to it and fix it
To fix an icky sentence, try:
- Taking out extra words, especially when there are >1 verbs or adverbs
- “effectively and efficiently” or “quickly and easily” should be prime targets for your delete button
- Split it into two sentences.
- How would you say this sentence or idea out loud? Write that.
- Send it to your trusted co-worker or your Intrepid editor. (Seriously, we love requests like these from our clients, whether the troublesome bit is big or small.)
A Note About AI-Generated Content
As more online content is presumably being generated by AI tools, using these tricks will catapult your writing above the average.
By working to make your sentences tight, visual, and different from each other, your readers will appreciate the quality of your work and gain more trust in your brand. Over time, search engines are also likely to take note of longer times-on-page and higher quality—a long-term reward for better writing. Win-win.
Once again, as our pal Stephen King says, “The key to good description begins with clear seeing and ends with clear writing, the kind of writing that employs fresh images and simple vocabulary.” Until AI tools can master that, human writing will still be far superior, with the ability to win over readers and rankings. Good luck!