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In this week‰Ûªs internet marketing podcast, Andy talks to Robin Christopherson, Head of Digital Inclusion at AbilityNet, a charity that helps disabled adults and children use computers and the internet by adapting their technology. Robin gives us some insights about AbilityNet and what they do. He explainsåÊwhat is meant by ‰ÛÏaccessibility‰Û and ‰ÛÏinclusiveness‰Û and talks about common pitfalls in regard to online marketing. Robin then discusses a few recent case studies which were very successful.åÊ In the end he talks about legal basics everyone should be aware of and shares his insights about future developments, with a huge potential to change the lives of disabled people as well as everybody else‰Ûªs.

AbilityNet
Post from Apple Pie & Custard blog by SiteVisibility – An SEO AgencyAccessibility Inclusiveness ‰ÛÒ Robin Christopherson ‰ÛÒ Podcast Episode #234

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I‰Ûªm glad you are here.
Because I‰Ûªm excited to share a quick bit of free advice with you that will instantly make you a more persuasive writer.
It‰Ûªs the new edition of The Lede.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The five most persuasive words in the English language
• Demian‰Ûªs favorite of the bunch
• The importance of personalization (and how to do it effectively)
• Why context makes all the difference
• How because is effective because a reason usually follows it

And more.
Listen to The Lede ‰Û_
To listen, you can either hit the flash audio player below, or browse the links to find your preferred format ‰Û_

• Click here to download the mp3 | 19.2 MB | 13:21
• Click here to subscribe via iTunes
• Click here for the RSS feed (non iTunes)
• Click here for the show archive

The Show Notes

• The 5 Most Persuasive Words in the English Language ‰ÛÓ post by Gregory Ciotti
• Subject Line Data: Choose Your Words Wisely ‰ÛÓ study by MailChimp
• Made to Stick ‰ÛÓ by Dan and Chip Heath
• Blog Triggers Series ‰ÛÓ by Brian Clark

The Transcript
Click here to read the transcript
Please note that this transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and grammar.
The Lede Podcast: How to Use Persuasive Words
Jerod Morris: I‰Ûªm Jerod Morris, and welcome back to The Lede, a podcast about content marketing brought to you by Copyblogger Media. If you want to get a content marketing education while you walk your dog or while you‰Ûªre in your car, this podcast is the way to do it.
In this episode, Demian Farnworth is back and we continue our series providing you with the third ingredient that every blog post needs: persuasive words.
Why did I end the last episode of The Lede with this statement: ‰ÛÏYou absolutely won‰Ûªt want to miss this new episode, because it‰Ûªs free advice that will instantly make you a better communicator.‰Û Because it includes the five most persuasive words in the English language, at least according to one of the single most popular blog posts in Copyblogger history, an article that, at last count, had over 4,000 re-tweets and nearly 2,000 likes. Those five words are you, free, because, instantly, and new. Hat tip to Gregory Ciotti by the way, for writing that piece.
Demian, do you have a favorite among those words?
Demian Farnworth: That‰Ûªs a good question. I do have a favorite among those words. Before I get to that point, let me go through the other words.
The 5 Most Persuasive Words
So thinking about this idea of ‰ÛÏyou‰Û when we talk about this, is that this it is nothing more than just personalization, and Ciotti makes that point in the blog post. And that personalization can be improved, too, when we talk about going from the generic ‰ÛÏyou‰Û in a blog post to actually using the first and last name in your communication.
We know this works in the e-mail industry. MailChimp recently had a study where they looked at millions of open rates. They found out that if you had the first and the last name it exceeded open rates over just having the first name or just having the last name. In fact, just having the last name actually exceeded having the first name, which kind of demonstrates that you know a little bit about this person. So being able to personalize that is huge.
What was interesting about this study, too, is this idea of the word ‰ÛÏfree.‰Û Because it is a good word. We talk about some things in that never change, and we always think the word ‰ÛÏfree‰Û is one of those words, but in fact, what this MailChimp study found out was that in some industries like the medical, the travel, and retail industries, they should avoid that. It actually decreased the open rates when they used the word ‰ÛÏfree.‰Û So if you‰Ûªre in those industries, you may want to rethink that strategy.
But also the study, too, showed that words that were time-sensitive or that implied time sensitivity, like ‰ÛÏurgent,‰Û ‰ÛÏbreaking,‰Û ‰ÛÏimportant,‰Û or ‰ÛÏalert‰Û also boosted open rates, while words like ‰ÛÏreminder‰Û and ‰ÛÏcancellation‰Û suppressed open rates.
Going further onto Ciotti‰Ûªs list, the word ‰ÛÏbecause‰Û is the reason ‰ÛÏwhy.‰Û Like, ‰ÛÏWhat‰Ûªs in it for me?‰Û That‰Ûªs what everybody‰Ûªs asking. What Ciotti demonstrated in that post was that if you say, ‰ÛÏHey, I need to make copies,‰Û whatever you said after the word ‰ÛÏbecause‰Û didn‰Ûªt really matter. It‰Ûªs just that people hear that, and they think, ‰ÛÏOh, there‰Ûªs a reason that he wants to do this,‰Û instead of ‰ÛÏHe just needs to use the Xerox machine.‰Û
Jerod: Right. And really quick, Demian, it goes back to that line that I ended the last episode with, right? ‰ÛÏSo you absolutely won‰Ûªt want to miss this new episode‰Û_
Demian: Right.
Jerod: ‰Û_because,‰Û and then you get this reason. And it makes the important point that even giving weak reasons is shown to be more persuasive than giving no reason at all.
Demian: That‰Ûªs right, and this is the same reason. It‰Ûªs really hard to tell people ‰ÛÏNo.‰Û Like when someone asks you to do something, it‰Ûªs really hard to tell people ‰ÛÏNo‰Û without giving a reason why.
Say I invite you to some sort of cocktail party, and you say, ‰ÛÏYeah, sure; I‰Ûªve got the time,‰Û you‰Ûªll tell me yes. You won‰Ûªt give me a reason why you‰Ûªre coming. You won‰Ûªt say, ‰ÛÏYes, I‰Ûªm coming because of X, Y, and Z,‰Û you‰Ûªll just say, ‰ÛÏYeah, I‰Ûªll be there!‰Û But if you tell me ‰ÛÏNo,‰Û you‰Ûªll say, ‰ÛÏI can‰Ûªt be there because I promised my girlfriend I would do this, and that ‰Û_‰Û People feel compelled to give reasons, and so when we hear that, we are like ‰ÛÏOkay, he‰Ûªs just not telling me no because he‰Ûªs a jerk and doesn‰Ûªt want to hang out with me,‰Û or whatever. So yeah, great point.
Jerod: Well, if you‰Ûªd ever ask me to a cocktail party, Demian, I‰Ûªd give you an answer.
Demian: (Laughs) Well, if I lived closer to you it would be all the time.
Readers want instant gratification (and why context matters)
Demian: The last word that Ciotti mentions, the word ‰ÛÏinstant,‰Û and again, he talks about how we desire immediate gratification. A great point of this is on Amazon, right? Amazon offers books either in the print edition or the Kindle edition, and the Kindle, the beautiful thing about that is that instead of having to run to the store or wait 2-3 days, you can have that book immediately, which is huge. So you tell people that something is instant, they love it.
And this is why too, say you‰Ûªre talking about the weight-reducing industry, for example. People want to lose weight, but they don‰Ûªt want it to take a long time. So if you can carve out some sort of idea that, like, you could lose 7 pounds in 7 weeks, that‰Ûªs good. If you could lose 1 pound in 1 week, or however you want to shave that down so the results are getting to immediate, instant results.
Jerod: Yeah. I mean, people don‰Ûªt like delayed gratification. And I‰Ûªve actually seen success with this on one of my side projects.
It‰Ûªs a college sports site, and after games we send out an analysis. It immediately goes out to our e-mail subscribers. Well, to get new e-mail subscribers we put it on an autoresponder, and so as soon as they sign up for the e-mail address they get it. And so tweeting out, and putting it out on social media as, ‰ÛÏHey, instantly get our latest analysis by signing up for the free e-mail list,‰Û we‰Ûªve seen tons and tons of conversions doing it that way. And I think it‰Ûªs that immediate gratification that really pushes people over the edge to stop what they‰Ûªre doing and say, ‰ÛÏokay, let me go invest this 20 seconds to sign up to get this instant thing back in return.‰Û
Demian: Yeah. I think we‰Ûªve been quite spoiled with the internet. We think that if anything is going to be delayed, it seems absolutely ridiculous because most things with software, and the amazing amount of ways in which the formats we can consume content, is available and there is no reason why I can‰Ûªt have a PDF or podcast, or a movie, or whatever, within seconds of actually registering or requesting it.
Jerod: And it‰Ûªs important to remember too, and Gregory makes this point in the article, that context is so important. So just because these words are persuasive, and studies have shown they‰Ûªre persuasive, doesn‰Ûªt mean that you can just dump them in every post and they‰Ûªre going to work.
Like you said, that MailChimp study showed that there are certain industries where using the word ‰ÛÏfree‰Û doesn‰Ûªt work. And it‰Ûªs mentioned in that post. Emphasizing the freeness of guides and courses ‰ÛÓ that can go a long way to attracting attention, but you can also devalue other parts of what you‰Ûªre trying to do if you overuse that word ‰ÛÏfree.‰Û
So again, you have to understand not just what words work, but why they work, so that you‰Ûªre using them within the right contexts.
The importance of personalization (and how to do it)
Demian: That‰Ûªs right. So back to my favorite one out of that list of five, and it would have to be that word ‰ÛÏyou.‰Û But it‰Ûªs not necessarily that word ‰ÛÏyou,‰Û it‰Ûªs the idea of personalization.
In a business context, we talk about permission marketing where you are building trust to get people to say, ‰ÛÏYes, I want to receive your information,‰Û whether it‰Ûªs as a subscriber, or an e-mail newsletter, or even as a registered member in a membership program. So you want to build that personalization up around an audience, around a blog, or elevate it through an e-mail. But it‰Ûªs that idea of getting to know somebody.
So in a blog post, for example, you naturally would say to yourself, ‰ÛÏWell, I can‰Ûªt personalize a blog post.‰Û Well, all that we‰Ûªre really saying there is to write to one person. The person reading should feel like you are writing to them. And sometimes that means being very narrow and speaking and talking, and teaching, about a very specific thing so that you are communicating, maybe, with just 50 versus 55,000 people, and understanding their problem, identifying it, and relating to it. People will listen to that.
Jerod: Yeah. And one other point that I want to finish with here is that you see a lot of people say, ‰ÛÏWell, I‰Ûªm not writing persuasive copy,‰Û right? Even if you scroll down the comments of Greg‰Ûªs article you‰Ûªll see this. And no, you may not be writing copy to sell a product, but if you‰Ûªre writing then presumably you‰Ûªre writing to sell an idea, or you at least want people to continue reading if you‰Ûªve written something, right? So you are always at least persuading people to continue reading.
So again, you need to use the right words for the outcome that you are looking for, and that‰Ûªs where, when you‰Ûªre choosing your words, choose them carefully and choose the ones that are going to persuade people to keep doing the action that you want them to take, even if that‰Ûªs just to continue reading on down the page if it‰Ûªs just ‰ÛÏnormal‰Û web copy.
Demian: Right. Yeah. And back to that cocktail party I never invited you to‰Û_
Jerod: (Laughs)
Demian: ‰Û_say you were there, and we were talking, and even in that context people want to hear their name. They want to feel like you are paying attention to them, so even in that context when you‰Ûªre talking to somebody and you feel like you might be losing them, or you want to bring their attention back towards you, you would use their name. I would say, you know, telling Jerod about football, and then say your name, Jerod. That would bring you back.
Interestingly, Dan and Chip Heath wrote the book ‰ÛÏMade to Stick,‰Û and they told a story about a small, mid-sized city newspaper where they had a readership rate of about 110%, which means that there are more people reading it than there are actually in that city. So they have, actually, a wider reach than they thought. And the way they did that was because their philosophy was names, names, names. They tried to identify people within the community and write articles around them, about them, about topics that were important to them, and so people would look toward that magazine to see if their name was in that paper. And that‰Ûªs how they got such a high readership rate.
So the idea is writing to one person. Make them feel like you‰Ûªre writing to them. And if you can do that, you can do that better in the e-mail. But then that‰Ûªs important too, we talk about elevating those relationships from blog subscribers to e-mail newsletter, eventually to a registered membership or some other position.
Jerod: Yep. And for more absolutely great information on this topic, Brian Clark did a series on blog triggers back in the early days of Copyblogger. We are going to link to that in the show notes.
In the meantime, Demian, I look forward to seeing you at the cocktail party, because I‰Ûªm very appreciative that you asked me.
Demian: Yes, you‰Ûªre welcome. We‰Ûªll have to‰Û_
Jerod: (Laughs)
Demian: ‰Û_we‰Ûªll have to make that happen in Denver.
Jerod: All right. Sounds good, man. Talk to you soon.
Demian: Thank you.
Jerod: Thanks everybody, for listening. If you‰Ûªre enjoying the content provided here on The Lede, please consider leaving us a rating or review on ITunes, and we always appreciate it when you tweet out links to the show.
The next time Demian joins me, we move on to the fourth essential ingredient of a blog post: How to write damn good sentences. If you like watching a superstar take batting practice, tune in to hear the Duke of Damn himself knock this topic out of the park.

*Credits: Both the intro (‰ÛÏBridge to Nowhere‰Û by Sam Roberts Band) and outro songs (‰ÛÏDown in the Valley‰Û by The Head and the Heart) are graciously provided by express written consent from the rights owners.
About the authorJerod MorrisJerod Morris is the Director of Content for Copyblogger Media. Get more from him on Twitter, Google+, or at JerodMorris.com.

The post How to Use Persuasive Words appeared first on Copyblogger.

In this week‰Ûªs internet marketing podcast, Andy talks with Felice Ayling, Digital Content Account Director at SiteVisibility about all things content marketing. To begin, Felice gives us some insights about her background and how she grew into her current role. She discusses some of her most favourite examples of content marketing and gives us some great tips what to do and what not to do in the industry.

Post from Apple Pie & Custard blog by SiteVisibility – An SEO AgencyContent Marketing Case Studies ‰ÛÒ Felice Ayling ‰ÛÒ Podcast Episode #235

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Well look at that.
Can you believe this is already the fourth installment in our 11-part series on the essential ingredients of a blog post?
Time sure does fly when you‰Ûªre having pure podcasting fun ‰Û_ and churning out a new bite-sized episode each week.
We‰Ûªve already explained how to write a magnetic headline, discussed how to nail your opening, and (hopefully) convinced you about the importance of using persuasive words.
Today, we take it one step further.
Demian Farnworth imparts his vast wisdom to teach you what makes a good sentence a damn good sentence.
In this episode, we discuss:

• The importance of showing versus telling
• Why you should trust your reader
• How thinking about the 5 W‰Ûªs (and the H) can help you write sentences
• Active versus passive voice
• Why reading Hemingway is one of the best lessons in sentence writing you could ever give yourself
• Tips to improve your writing that you can implement today

Listen to The Lede ‰Û_
To listen, you can either hit the flash audio player below, or browse the links to find your preferred format ‰Û_

• Click here to download the mp3 | 20 MB | 13:54
• Click here to subscribe via iTunes
• Click here for the RSS feed (non iTunes)
• Click here for the show archive

The Show Notes

• 5 Ways to Write a Damn Good Sentence ‰ÛÓ by Demian Farnworth
• 10 Ways to Write Damn Good Copy ‰ÛÓ by Demian Farnworth
• 7 Ways to Write Damn Bad Copy ‰ÛÓ by Demian Farnworth
• Think You Know ‰ÛÏHow To Write A Sentence‰Û? ‰ÛÓ NPR podcast with Stanley Fish
• Robert Bruce‰Ûªs Twitter and Google+ accounts

The Transcript
Click here to read the transcript
Please note that this transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and grammar.
The Lede Podcast: How to Write Damn Good Sentences
Jerod Morris: You‰Ûªre listening to The Lede, a podcast about content marketing by Copyblogger Media. If you want to get a content marketing education while you mow your lawn or while you fold your laundry, this podcast is the way to do it.
I‰Ûªm your host Jerod Morris, and in this episode we resume our series on the essential ingredients of a blog post. You are going to learn about sentences, but not average or okay sentences ‰Û_ damn good sentences. And who better than the Duke of Damn himself, Demian Farnworth, to explain how.
Demian, I like alliteration and I like giving credit where it is due, and so I have a new nickname for you: The Duke of Damn. It‰Ûªs one that you have earned with damn fine blog posts about how to write damn good copy, how to write damn bad copy, and of course, how to write damn good sentences ‰ÛÓ which is the fourth in our rundown of the 11 essential ingredients of a blog post. You are a master at the art of the sentence, which is why I want to do a lot more listening than talking on this episode.
So let‰Ûªs start with the obvious question: What is the difference between a good sentence and a damn good sentence?
Showing versus telling
Demian Farnworth: It boils down to this: the difference between showing and telling.
A good sentence would tell you what‰Ûªs going on in a particular action. So I might say, ‰ÛÏShe is crying,‰Û versus something like ‰ÛÏShe sobbed,‰Û or ‰ÛÏShe was trembling.‰Û It‰Ûªs simply the quality of ‰ÛÓ you have a concrete, specific image versus a sort of vague, ambiguous instruction. See, what you‰Ûªre after is this goal of allowing people to use their imagination, and I think it comes down to this idea of being able to trust your reader, to trust them to use their imagination. And they will. I think there‰Ûªs some confidence that comes in enjoying, embracing that idea that people are going to. If you say, ‰ÛÏShe wept,‰Û that‰Ûªs going to be more powerful than ‰ÛÏShe was over there and her eyes were wet with tears.‰Û It‰Ûªs a lot more powerful when it‰Ûªs short and sweet, and it‰Ûªs powerful like that.
But it‰Ûªs not easy, right? I‰Ûªll admit that. It takes years of practice, but what you‰Ûªre thinking about when you‰Ûªre trying to show somebody, what you‰Ûªre after, is being specific and concrete. And one way that I use to get to that point is to think through the five W‰Ûªs. So you‰Ûªre thinking of the who, the what, the where, the when, the why, and even the H, the how.
For example, you want to write a damn good sentence, so you would say, ‰ÛÏIn Istanbul, the bullfighter liked to drink vinegar because it made him angry.‰Û So you‰Ûªve got a pretty specific, concrete idea that would allow you to get a vivid picture of what‰Ûªs going on in that ‰Û_ there‰Ûªs life to that ‰Û_ and there‰Ûªs imagination. I know that just by saying the word ‰ÛÏIstanbul‰Û that people will get in their minds a sort of exotic, far-away, ancient city. There‰Ûªs a lot of stuff that‰Ûªs sort of swirling around, and that‰Ûªs really the power of choosing the right words, choosing those powerful words, using those words that generate and paint that picture.
For the next part, in getting to that point of writing a damn good sentence, is this idea of creating images, and I kind of already did that. But here I want to talk more about something like this idea of the five senses. That‰Ûªs what I kind of did in that previous sentence. But if you want to paint an image, you want to think through the five senses, also. So for example, that same sentence, I talked about, what is the weather like there? Is it hot? Is it cold? I imagine it‰Ûªs probably hot there, so we might add some sort of elements of humidity, like ‰ÛÏThe air was humid, was moist, was thick with water.‰Û We might talk about something like, what time of day is it? And what color is the sun? Is it golden, or is it more orange or red? And you might think of an odor, like vinegar. I said ‰ÛÏvinegar‰Û and a lot of people probably turned up their nose at that. So there was that sense of smell and odor going there. And so you‰Ûªre thinking‰Û_.
Jerod: Let me ask you a question really quickly, Damien, because I know a lot of times we talk about specific and concrete, and sometimes that can be boiled down to mean ‰ÛÏshort,‰Û because we talk a lot about short sentences.
Demian: Yes.
Jerod: How do you determine what is a detail worth giving, an image worth painting, and what is too much?
Demian: That‰Ûªs a great question. I think it‰Ûªs a gut thing, really, because obviously you can‰Ûªt think through every sentence and put in the five senses, because then it would just become too much. It would be almost impossible for you to get anything done. It would also be overbearing for the reader himself, so you have to be selective. And it just takes time to kind of catch an ear.
Like, you may in one sentence just want to highlight some sort of color. Like the sight. And the next sentence, you want to heighten something about the texture and the smell. In the next sentence you may want to simply talk about the taste, or a sound they heard. And a good writer would combine those with action, right? With some sort of action. So instead of ‰ÛÏHe ran up the stairs,‰Û say ‰ÛÏHe darted up the rough-hewn stairs.‰Û
You want to combine all those pieces together, being specific, using active verbs versus passive verbs. And make sure you mesh those together, and sprinkle them throughout your senses when you‰Ûªre hitting these sort of concrete and specific images.
Active versus passive voice
Jerod: Can I add a quick note on active versus passive verbs?
Demian: Yes.
Jerod: So you‰Ûªre right, you want to make your verbs active, not passive. And if you actually want a good example, look no further than this very podcast, because last week I received an e-mail with the subject line simply, ‰ÛÏPassive voice.‰Û And it said, quoting one of our episodes, ‰ÛÏChange ‰Û÷next week Demian and I will be resuming our series of the eleven essential ingredients of a blog post, we‰Ûªll be discussing persuasive words and you won‰Ûªt want to miss it,‰Ûª change that to ‰Û÷next week Demian and I resume our series on the eleven essential ingredients of a blog post. We‰Ûªll discuss persuasive words, and you won‰Ûªt want to miss it.‰Ûª‰Û The difference, of course, is the verbs. ‰ÛÏWill be resuming‰Û gets replaced with ‰ÛÏResume,‰Û and ‰ÛÏwill be discussing‰Û gets replaced with ‰ÛÏwe‰Ûªll discuss.‰Û It makes those verbs active, right? You hear how much better that sounds, and it reads better too, because the subject of the sentence becomes the doer, and the verbs are invigorated.
And I‰Ûªll give you one guess who sent me that much-appreciated, clear, concise, reminder about how to write better sentences. (Laughs)
Demian: (Laughs)
Jerod: So‰Û_.
Demian: Yeah.
Jerod: So yes, be active with your sentences, not passive, and it‰Ûªs something I try my best to do that all the time, and it even slips in like that and you don‰Ûªt even realize it. It‰Ûªs definitely something upon an edit you can go back, because that‰Ûªs one way to eliminate some of those unnecessary words so you can put in some of the ones that paint the picture, that make your sentences so much better.
The best sentence-writing teacher you can read
Demian: Right. And so, being an Ernest Hemingway fan ‰ÛÓ and working for Copyblogger, you sort of have to be ‰ÛÓ I read a ton of him probably 10, 15 years ago. And the thing that I walked away with was the simple sentence structure. It‰Ûªs a subject, and then a verb.
And when we talk about active versus passive verbs, you‰Ûªre talking about instead of having an action done to something, someone is doing an action. So where it would say, ‰ÛÏThe dog was kicked by that man,‰Û it would be just a simple inversion: ‰ÛÏThe man kicked the dog.‰Û So yeah, talking about Ernest Hemmingway, I just remember reading it, such a simple sentence structure. Basically it was just subject and verb.
And I think that as far as we‰Ûªre talking about, like ways to become better at this, is practicing writing that way. Simple sentence structure. Subject, verb.
Jerod: Mmm-hmm. That‰Ûªs a good point, and let‰Ûªs go to that, in terms of practice, and this can probably be a tip that we leave everybody with.
You know, as we prepped for this I was reading something ‰ÛÓ and I‰Ûªm going to put this in the show notes. There‰Ûªs a podcast, an NPR podcast with Stanley Fish, the author of ‰ÛÏHow to Write a Sentence.‰Û And he recounts in his book, actually, a story from Annie Dillard‰Ûªs book ‰ÛÏThe Writing Life‰Û where she had a conversation with a painter ‰ÛÓ asked him how he got into the profession. And he told her, ‰ÛÏI like paint.‰Û And of course, as Fish explains, you have to really have a feel for the nitty-gritty material of the medium, and so as a writer there‰Ûªs nothing more nitty-gritty than words and sentences.
Demian: That‰Ûªs right.
Tips to improve your sentence writing
Jerod: And so Demian, what would you say is a tip or two that people can take away from this that will make them better at just that simple, nitty-gritty art of writing sentences?
Demian: I would definitely encourage anybody, whether they can stomach his stories or not, to read as much Hemingway as you can.
Outside of that, one of the ways that I kind of mastered the ability to do this, at least get really trained highly in it, was early in my career I wrote a ton of text ads ‰ÛÓ Google AdWords text ads. So I was forced to compress those words into a meaningful, persuasive message in a short space. So that really forced me to write small. But you don‰Ûªt have to do text ads like that.
You could also treat your Twitter account this way, and just give yourself the task of, say, writing 100 Twitter posts a day for seven days, and in each one you just try to, within 140 characters, tell a story. Make a message. Use one of the five senses. Dig into the five ‰ÛÏwhos.‰Û
Another trick you can do is try to condense an event, like a historical event like the Civil War, into one sentence. Sometimes I will go read the front page of Wikipedia or the front page of The New York Times. Read a few of those stories, and then try to tell that story within one sentence.
And finally after every article or blog post that you actually read, try to summarize that particular article or blog post in one sentence. That will give you practice. Not only will it help you remember what you just read and sort of process what you just read, but it will also force you to write those sentences, saying a lot into one sentence. That‰Ûªs really what it boils down to: just trying to stuff a lot into a small space, as much space as you can with the sentence.
And here‰Ûªs the thing to keep in mind, too: you‰Ûªre not going to do this with every single sentence. I don‰Ûªt sit there and agonize over every single sentence. It‰Ûªs pretty much kind of native to me now, and I do dozens of rewrites of stuff that I write where I‰Ûªm working systematically through each word. But I don‰Ûªt give the same amount of attention over each sentence. I just try to, for the most part, kind of work that into the sort of warp and woof of what I‰Ûªm writing.
Jerod: Yeah, and if you want to see a great example of what Demian was talking about with Twitter and summing up a story in one sentence, follow Robert Bruce on Twitter and Google Plus.He does a great job of showing that.
All right, Demian. Thank you very much.
Demian: Thank you.
Jerod: I thought you did a damn good job today.
Demian: (Laughs) Thank you, Jerod. I appreciate it. Lived up to my name.
Jerod: (Laughs) We‰Ûªll talk soon.
Demian: All right. Thank you, sir.
Jerod: Thank you for listening to The Lede. If you are enjoying our show, please consider leaving us a rating or a review on ITunes, or tweet about us, or tell a friend. We appreciate your helping us spread the word any way you can.
The next installment of our series on the essential ingredients of a blog post will be about killer bullet points. Now you may not think bullet points are a topic with enough meat to demand their own episode, but you‰Ûªd be wrong. Listen and you‰Ûªll see. Talk to you soon, everybody.
# # #

*Credits: Both the intro (‰ÛÏBridge to Nowhere‰Û by Sam Roberts Band) and outro songs (‰ÛÏDown in the Valley‰Û by The Head and the Heart) are graciously provided by express written consent from the rights owners.
About the authorJerod MorrisJerod Morris is the Director of Content for Copyblogger Media. Get more from him on Twitter, Google+, or at JerodMorris.com.

The post How to Write Damn Good Sentences appeared first on Copyblogger.

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