Suess's Pieces

By Sherri Ledbetter

Business writing. When I was a fledgling writer, the term business writing was new and scary to me. BUSINESS. Business was important; business was BIG right? I wondered, what is business writing anyway?

In general, most writing for business is geared toward informing and persuading the customer. For non-profits, it may mean writing in a compelling way to obtain donations or funding.

The main goal in business writing is to get the message across in a clear, accurate and simple manner. Below you’ll find 5 types of business writing you need to master as a freelance writer in this niche.

1. Website Content: Trading Paper for Bullets

The hottest form of writing is for company websites and blogs. Web writing often includes the additional requirement of establishing a good rapport with your online audience. Web writing is more casual, with a more relaxed language and attitude.

Because computer screens are harder to read than printed paper, it’s a good idea to…

• Break paragraphs into chunks; 3 to 4 sentences at the most.
• If you have a series of items, use bullet points to save readers’ time.
• Boldface important words and phrases so readers can quickly see key points.

2. Press Releases: What’s the Company Up To?

Press releases, sometimes called news releases, are written to inform the news media of a company’s new product or service, award, promotion or other recent event. The goal is to attract media attention and generate publicity.

3. Technical writing: No Jargon Please.

Technical writing requires communicating about technical or specialized topics, such as:

• Software
• Hardware
• Medical procedures
• Environmental regulations

Technical writers provide detailed, how-to instructions. Examples of technical documents include: user guides, installation guides, tutorials and E-learning modules.

4. Grant Writing: Show Me the (Free) Money.

Structure, attention to detail, concise persuasive writing, and the ability to follow guidelines are skills needed as a grant writer. Grant writing involves writing proposals or completing applications in order to apply for funds. Companies requiring grant writing skills include non-profits and educational institutions.

5. Commercial White Papers: My Stuff is Better Than Their Stuff.

Commercial white papers are marketing documents written to emphasize the benefits of a particular product, technology or method. The goal is to convince the customer that the company’s product is the best choice. Commercial white papers are often used to generate sales leads and educate customers. The three main types of commercial white papers are:

• Business Benefits: Stating a case for a certain technology or methodology.
• Technical: Describing in detail how a certain technology works.
• Hybrid: Combining the two types above in a single document.

These five types of business writing are just the tip of the iceberg. How about speech writing, game writing, resume writing or book reviews? The list goes on and on. Which type of business writing do you think you would enjoy doing the most?

Sherri Ledbetter is an Oklahoma freelance writer, editor and food blogger. Visit her online at Sherri Ledbetter Writes
 
 

I’m now a contributing writer over at Small Business Bonfire.

While I’ve already shared this link on Twitter and Facebook, I want to direct the rest of you to a post I wrote especially for small business owners over at Small Business Bonfire.

You can read my article, 7 Ways to Enhance Your Direct Mail Campaign, on the site’s blog. I hope you find the information useful.

I also encourage you to join the Small Business Bonfire community, whether you are a small business owner or a small business owner wannabe.

In college, I spent some time in the University Writing Center in Cavanaugh Hall at IUPUI helping students edit their work. And, if you know anything at all about teaching or peer tutoring, you know I was learning way more than they were.

When students had their big idea already on paper and it was revising time, I’d invite them to commence nitpicking. My favorite students were ones with overbearing writing tics or favorite words. “Okay,” I’d hand the student a yellow highlighter, “I want you to mark every place you wrote ‘due to the fact that.’”

At the end of the exercise, the too-proud-of-herself frosh would be holding a 10-pager drowning in yellow. “But if I take all of those out, I’ll only have 7 pages!” she’d cry.

Another easy way to improve your writing is to examine preposition usage. Since that’s what this post is really about, let’s get started.

Preposition Pitfalls

First, you need to understand why prepositions can be harmful.

• Use them too much, and your writing gets wordy. If you irritate your clients, you make less money. So chuck the useless details.
• Excessive use of prepositions makes you sound stuffy and bureaucratic. If you irritate your clients, you make less money. So write like you’d talk to them.
• Overuse of prepositions makes sentences too long and boring. If you irritate your…oh wait. Shhh. Your clients are sleeping.

Common Prepositions

Next time you write a blog post, an e-newsletter, a proposal or even an email for your small business, take a few minutes to examine your prepositions. If you can’t remember them all, use the list of common prepositions I’m spoon-feeding you. Find ‘em and highlight ‘em in your text. (Bonus tip: Writing in MS Word? Use the “Find” tool to locate and judge each instance of ‘in.’ Then it’s just lather, rinse, repeat for the other preps.)

Flashback to my days as a tutor: “But, Emily,” the whining starts, “it’s impossible to write without prepositions.”

“Well, duh. Just get rid of the frivolous ones—not all of them. Let’s start where you have three or more prepositional phrases in a sentence.”

Deciding What’s Frivolous

Let’s keep this simple and focus on just two things.

• Get rid of details your readers don’t need.
• Put your subject first.

Example 1:

In college, I spent some time in the University Writing Center in Cavanaugh Hall at IUPUI helping students edit their work.

After re-examining, I don’t think my audience of small business owners and bloggers really needs to know that I worked in the Cavanaugh Hall UWC. (There was also a University Library UWC, but I bet you don’t care about that either.) So I revise the sentence and eliminate one of the prepositional phrases:

In college, I spent some time in IUPUI’s University Writing Center helping students edit their work.

Example 2:

The best place for the eating of pizza is at Chicago’s in Clermont.

This time, I’m going to be hardcore about it. Betcha I can rewrite that sentence with just one prepositional phrase!

Chicago’s in Clermont is the best place to eat pizza.

Of course, you could always try to say the same thing without prepositions.

The Clermont Chicago’s has the best pizza.

How would you edit the following sentence?

Using the products from our brochure will add to the value of your company by reducing the amount of downtime you have between your projects.

If you’re launching a new business blog or launching a new blog for an established company, this article will help you generate content—even if you are starting from scratch.

When it comes to content creation, you have a few options.

1. You can hire a professional writer. Pro: You get great content in short order. Con: Not every business owner has the budget for professional copy.
2. You can get all spammy and go with a spinner. Pro: Sorry, just can’t think of one. Con: This can hurt your search ranking and your reputation.
3. You can get organized and do it all in-house. Pro: You don’t have to scrape extra money together to pay a writer. Con: You have to make time to write.

This blog post is for everyone who picks Option C.

Build an Org Chart for Your Small Business Blog

Your first order of business is to make an organizational chart like the one in the graphic below. You can’t write without ideas. In our example, Annie is a flower shop owner. She starts with her business’s big picture—flowers. From there she makes a chart of the different kinds of flowers she could blog about: daisies, roses, and orchids. And, voila! Almost instantly, she has level two of her organizational chart.

Annie wonders how she can come up with subtopics for flowers, and in a matter of seconds has level three for her chart. Realizing that lots of people want to know the symbolic meanings of different flowers, she adds a topic for symbols to each variety. People also need to know how to care for flowers, another level three topic.

You can see for yourself where Annie goes from there.

Use the Chart You Make to Generate Titles for Your Small Business Blog

The items on the chart are not your titles, they are a point of focus for thinking up titles. Start with level one, your big idea, and work your way through the chart. Here are Annie’s level-one titles:

• How to Identify Flowers
• 10 Reasons Annie’s Flowers are Better Than the Competition
• Types of Flowers and Where They Grow

Moving on to level two:

• 6 Interesting Facts about Daisies
• Types of Daisies
• The History of Daisies

Now, one of these blog titles is not as good as the others. Can you guess which? Bingo! “10 Reasons Annie’s Flowers are Better Than the Competition” doesn’t really belong. That’s because it’s too sales-y. Keep your readers’ interests in mind, and use your business’s blog only to inform or entertain your readers. There are plenty of other places to use a sales pitch.

Get Billions of Interlinking Titles Instantly for Your Blog

Well, maybe not billions. But the chart above only shows you half of Annie’s brainstorming session. She has another level-two topic for occasions. It is further divided into topics for anniversaries, birthdays, and sympathy. When you consider that each rectangle on the graph can represent more than one title, content ideas grow exponentially.

As you make your way down your own chart, you may notice that your blog’s articles move from general to specific. That’s a great thing! Not only will you have a little something for everyone who drops by, but you can link your posts together. Using the org chart, you can easily see which posts are closely related. Add hyperlinks, and you’ve got a veritable Web web for your potential customers to browse.

You can use this process for any business, whether you sell tangible goods or provide a service.

So what are you waiting for?