How to get a pound sign (£) and euro symbol (€) on a US keyboard

Pound euro symbol on US keyboard

Thank you very much, Sainsbury’s UK, for selling me this HP keyboard. I guess I can’t complain about it being US configuration when there’s a massive “US” sticker on the box. And on the whole, it’s the same, except the @ and ” are swapped over. Oh, and there’s no pound sign on it. Even though UK keyboards have a dollar sign on them, the USA doesn’t appear to reciprocate.

So much for the special relationship.

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How to write a better call to action: 10 tips

The call to action (CTA) is one of the key components of a piece of copy. It usually sits on its own towards the end of the article, but there could be several sprinkled around the piece. It can be words, an image, a button or some other form of interaction.

Writing a better call to action

What is a call to action?

A call to action is an instruction to do something. In consumer marketing terms, that’s usually to buy something, but with larger, more considered purchase decisions, it can be to guide the reader further down the sales funnel. Typically, it will be in imperative mood, i.e. “Do this.” Online, calls to action usually form the text of a hyperlink or button. Obviously that’s impossible on hard copy (direct mail, TV adverts, newspaper ads etc.), but the intention is the same: to get the reader to do something.

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Professional titles and positions – should they start with a capital letter?

People have always been flattered by having their positions start with a capital letter. It marks them out from their subordinates, and makes Persons look Very Important. Anyone from The Queen down to the Area Manager can access an exclusive capitalisation club that is ever out of bounds to the cleaners, sales assistants and copywriters of the world.

But at what point is it wise to stop? If the Area Manager is capitalised, should the Branch Manager? The Assistant Branch Manager? The Team Leader? And if the Chairman of Shell gets a capital, should the Chairman of Bob’s Plumbing Services (Bob)?

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Can you start a sentence with a conjunction?

“You must not start a sentence with a conjunction.” That has been the mantra of many an exasperated English teacher, especially since the oiks started getting state education. Any pupil brave, daft or naive enough to raise a hand and ask “Why?” would receive some explanation along the lines of “Because it is said.”

So now we’re all grown up, we’ll ask again – why? The honest answer is that there is no reason. It’s just an arbitrary rule that’s been passed through the ages. But all language is arbitrary, isn’t it? Words and letters are but abstract concepts. Understanding them can only come through the education of rules.

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Seek Perfection and Ye Shall Find … Eventually

Perfection. It does exist, in certain realms. Think of the piston in an engine sized precisely to fit in its cylinder. The evolution of the shark. A hole in one (or 18 of them in a single round). The arrangement of the studs on a Lego brick. They are measurably, objectively and provably impossible to improve upon.

What about Hamlet? Mona Lisa? The Supermarine Spitfire Mk XIV? Eleanor Rigby? Compared to perfection, they fall far short. They might be loved more than loathed, but they are definitely loathed by some. Their qualities are subjective and open to debate.

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Our changing language: are editors doomèd?

An article by David Shariatmadari in the Guardian has inspired a bit of a buzz these past few days. It’s about the mutability of language, and how the quest for perfect English is a forlorn one. Read “Why it’s time to stop worrying about the decline of the English language” here (it’ll only take about 15–20 minutes of your time).

Copy editors and writers are inextricably tied up with the changing language. In my 20+ years in the business alone, I’ve seen English change – new words coming in, words changing their meanings and so on. I like the concept described in the article about generational change; words and phrases (or particular usages) that seem normal to teens feel alien and “wrong” to the older generation. They probably forget that they caused equal consternation to their own parents’ generation back in the day with all their groovy talk.

Are we gatekeepers or facilitators?

What is the role of the copy editor faced with an ever-changing language? The instinctive answer would be to resist change, and to enforce correctness where we see grammatical wrongdoing. But that misses the point of language, which is to express meaning in the best possible way to the audience it’s aimed at.

Copywriters know that if we’re writing copy aimed at retired people, the language, pace and tone will be very different to copy aimed at students. It’s not because elderly people should be spoken down to; it’s just that the language they feel comfortable with is different. We are, after all, in the businesses of informing and selling; brands that share values with their customers have a head start over the competition.

As copy editors and writers are the ones who decide what material is put in front of readers, we therefore have a role in shaping language, but we must also take care to reflect it. If we try too hard to stick to the rules we were taught at school, we’re destined to get wronger and wronger as we grow. It’s a weird concept that people working with language can actually get less experienced as they get older, but it’s true of those who remain too set in their ways.

statue of mother holding baby

Thou shalt not …

A classic example is not starting a sentence with a conjunction. It’s a rule so drilled into the young me that it helped me to learn what a conjunction is. But look; I just went and did it. And I do it all the time. There are still those who complain about it, but they are swimming against the flow. Ultimately, just ask yourself: does starting a sentence with a conjunction actually damage English language? Or does it allow you to break concepts into bite-sized sentences with natural flow and pauses, rather like spoken English? It also removes the need to cumbersome words like “alternatively” or “additionally” every other sentence.

Now ask yourself if the word or phrase you’re uncomfortable with is as bad as starting a sentence with “Or”. It’s probably no better or worse.

So what’s the point of editors?

All this brings us to the crux of the matter. If nothing is right and nothing is wrong, why pay people copy edit or proofread your work?

All marketing is the act of persuading potential customers that your product or service is the one to choose. An important factor is showing you’re trustworthy, careful, diligent and conscientious. Customers notice things like sloppy grammar, overuse of buzzwords (especially when trying to appeal to a younger audience) and awkward sentences. OK, some customers will notice. But why try to appeal to half an audience when you can attract the whole?

Don’t forget, the change of language is glacial – it’s not in a state of flux. As the article shows, it tends to change a bit every generation, but there’s always a core rightness that stays the same. Over time, those foundations shift, but stray too far and you lose your audience.

Analogy Time

Think of the scene in Back to the Future where [spoiler] the prom audience is given a sneak preview of rock ‘n’ roll in a blues-dominated era and they love it. But as soon as Marty drags the genre forward to one of rock ‘n’ roll’s offsprings (80s heavy metal) they stop dancing and stare at the stage in disbelief.

Something familiar has been modified, but there are enough anchors to where it came from for it to be understood. But in real life, people needed to understand the grammar of rock ‘n’ roll before they were ready for heavy metal. It took about ten years to happen.[/spoiler]

Another analogy is Formula One motor racing. Every year, the rules change slightly. Tyres change. RPM is limited. Aerodynamics get new regulations. But nobody would say that it’s no longer Formula One, even though watching footage from the 1950s makes it look like a different sport. But it’s this year’s rules you have to obey; not last year’s.

Write and edit for the moment you’re living in, because that will invariably be right.

Be natural

Good copy editors and writers understand this, and don’t try and preserve their style of reading and writing in amber. In fact, we love observing and using the changing language. We understand that there’s a natural pace to change, and that forcing modernity is just as bad as forcing tradition.


Image: Nick van den Berg

Using “a” or “an” before an abbreviation

Should we say “an NHS doctor” or “a NHS doctor”? There are two schools of thought on this subject: “vocalisation of the abbreviation” and “vocalisation of the first word”.

Abbreviation verbalised

By this rule, if the abbreviation starts with a letter that starts with a vowel when vocalised, the article used is “an”; if it starts with a consonant-sounding letter, it takes an “a”. This would give “an NHS hospital” and “a BBC documentary”.

Vowel-sounding letters (take “an”): A E F H I L M N O R S X

consonant-sounding letters (take “a”): B C D G J K P Q T U V W Y Z

(Note: H is pronounced “aitch”, not “haitch”, although this rule might be becoming more fluid.)

Word verbalised

By this method, the first letter of the first word as it is read out determines whether “a” or “an” is used. Here we would have “a NHS hospital” (“a National Health Service hospital”), or “an UV lamp” (“an ultraviolet lamp”).

The second method can look and read quite awkwardly but is just about acceptable as long as the style is used consistently, or where abbreviations are commonly fleshed out in the head and in speech. (For the record, I don’t think either of the examples here qualify.) Since the first method reads more naturally in the head, it’s easy to slip into it when the second style is supposedly being observed. The first method is by far the more popular.

Acronyms

An acronym is an abbreviation that is read out like a word, such as NASA, OPEC, NATO, etc. So here we would always have “a NASA spacecraft”, etc. These will always be treated as words, not abbreviations, so will always take the appropriate indefinite article.

I love reading copywriting blogs

Ladybird, symbol of minimalism

I love reading copywriting blogs.

I even said it in the title.

Especially the ones that use short sentences.

One sentence to a paragraph.

One word to a sentence.

(No. I wouldn’t read that.)

Because copywriting is about paring down, not padding out.

Everybody knows that.

Time is precious.

But sometimes I wonder

What isn’t being said?

What assumptions are being made of the reader?

Are there situations when more is, in fact, more?

Can a conversational tone help the conversation?

That’s what the copywriter has to decide.


Image: Glen Carrie

Which ranking factors are affected by copywriting?

Because everybody wants their website to rank highly on Google, the SEO industry is now as important to companies as traditional marketing and PR always were. The boundaries are so blurred that most companies in one of these sectors usually seek to have expertise in the other two. To rank highly is to appear on the first page of a search for what your business does (although lower pages could also be deemed “high” in competitive sectors).

Search engines become popular when the results they give are most relevant to what they think the user has searched for. Resolving this impossibly complex decision has been the goal of every search engine in history, and it looks, for the time being at least, like Google has won. Essentially, its decision is based on how high quality and how trustworthy a source of information is. The way Google works it is to determine the number and quality of links pointing to a page or site. The more websites pointing to your website, the better quality it must be, as people don’t tend to like to associate themselves with rubbish.

The early years were tricky. All sorts of dodgy practices were put in place to increase the number – if not the quality – of links pointing to websites. But as time went by, Google became much better at determining which links were trusted, natural and valuable. Since it’s far and away the most popular search engine, let’s assume that customers are generally happy with the results.

Are there 200 ranking factors?

You might have heard that Google has 200 (or more than 200) ranking factors. These have long been considered to be things like:

  • your page load speed
  • how secure your site is
  • whether you have the name of what you do, rather than who you are, in your URL (which is why B&Q uses the domain diy.com, not BandQ.com)
  • whether a site has been blacklisted
  • whether a user has your site in its bookmarks

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Moz’s Gianluca Fiorelli points out that the famous 200 number is mythical. Repetition, deviation and plain untruths in the most popular lists of ranking factors (and a click-baity need to reach the magic 200) make such lists unreliable. And a huge factor in ranking is which device a searcher is using, and what their location is. Site builders have no control over that.

There are definitely a lot

That said, there are many factors that can confidently be determined to be signals that your site is of good quality. Since nobody outside Google knows exactly what they are, the SEO industry experiments and analyses data to try and come to conclusions. And we therefore have a pretty good idea of the elements of a site that add up to a better rank.

Ranking factors for which copy is important

With the above caveats in mind, here are the ranking factors that you should be able to improve through better use of copy.

Spam

Make sure every second word is a keyword to fool the search engines into thinking yours is the number one authority on the subject. That’s what we were all told in the mid to late 1990s. It took the search industry a while to figure out ways of ignoring or penalising spammy sites. But now they are very, very good at it, and will come down hard on sites that try to manipulate their language and links to fool the engines. Just write naturally, mentioning the key searchable factors a natural number of times, and Google will work out what your page and site are about.

Remember, it’s all about quality, trustworthiness and usefulness, and spam doesn’t satisfy any of those factors. If a human reading your page would feel dirty doing it, have a re-think.

Having a keyword in the title tag and URL

Google is much better at understanding synonyms than it once was, so this is of minor importance. But having some mention of what your business does or sells in the title tag and URL is useful. Starting the tag with the keyword might be helpful too. There’s certainly no harm in it.

Including keywords in the meta description tag

Not a ranking factor per se, but if searchers see the word they searched for in the description under the URL, they could be more likely to click through. That can mean more chance of interaction and conversion. Moreover, having a well-written meta description should make your search results listing more attractive, so rank becomes less important.

Having keywords in heading tags

H1 tags, or headings, give Google a lot of clues about the content of a page, and therefore the website. Including them in your H1s is important, but making them interesting and readable is a copywriter‘s job. Although H1s are the most important, don’t forget about your sub-sub-headings (H2s, H3s etc.).

How long and relevant the page copy is

The optimum length of an article is one of the most hotly debated topics in SEO land. Some say 300 words, others 500, others 1000, and some people will insist that the longer it is, the better. From a reader’s perspective, the article should be exactly as long as it needs to be. Waffling on to please the search engines isn’t a good idea, especially if you’re looking for backlinks.

Some studies suggest that if all else is equal, a page with 1500–2000 words will cover more information and therefore give the search engines a better indication of the page’s content. And that can result in higher ranks.

If people find your piece interesting enough to link to, it’s long enough.

Keyword density

This used to be an important factor but because it was optimised to death, it became less important. Don’t aim for a percentage as such. Just make sure you mention your keywords, write great copy and don’t spam yourself. And remember, words that mean the same as your keywords, or signify similarity, are just as good.

Duplicate content

Having the same copy on two or more pages has a negative effect. Where you’ve got similar things to say over several pages, completely re-write the copy on each one. If you sell blue sheds, red sheds and green sheds, don’t use your “what is a shed” copy on each page, followed by a sentence about the colour – come up with something new for each page.

Keeping content fresh

A constant supply of new copy is a good thing. It tells the search engines that your site is a living, breathing thing, and that it’s not been abandoned. Take time to write new content that demonstrates your authority in your industry, and gives a positive signal to Google. It also increases the likelihood of its being linked to.

Since repeat traffic could be a good indicator of quality, make sure you use newsletters and social media to let people know about your new content.

You can even give your static pages a refresh from time to time. Your “About Us” page, for example, might change as you take on new clients and expand; and your core services probably change over time, too.

Spelling and grammar

A pure ranking factor? Possibly, but if you want people to trust you and to keep those bounce rates low, make sure your writing makes sense, reads well and is correctly spelt.

Original content

Make sure your content is your own. Don’t be tempted to copy and paste text from other websites, even if you do go to the trouble of changing a few words. It’ll probably be flagged as duplicate copy, and might even get you a letter from a solicitor.

Readability

Like spelling and grammar, your site’s reading level probably isn’t a ranking factor in itself, but if you bamboozle your typical readership, it’ll show up in your bounce rates and inbound links.

Anchor text

This used to be a powerful factor until it was abused wholesale, so now it might be a tiny signal of relevance. Make the text in your links relevant and logical and don’t worry too much about it.

Bounce rate, dwell time and time on page

These factors are all concerned with how a user interacts with your page after being sent there from a search engine. They have similar but different meanings, as discussed here. Whether they are ranking factors is still debated in the SEO community, but do analyse your visits. You’ll see which pages visitors stick around with or use as the starting point for a journey around your page, and which ones they simply close or click back to the search results.

If Google sees a page where every visitor bounces after 2 seconds, then the promise of the results page isn’t being delivered, and that that page is not relevant to that search term.

Featured snippets

Have you noticed how sometimes you search for something and the answer appears in the search results page, rather than in a link to the site it came from? These controversial things are called snippets. They’re controversial as some site owners believe they are costing them clicks, because the user gets the answer without having to visit the site. But still, a lot of companies try very hard to become the one that’s chosen for a snippet because it makes them look authoritative (and the snippet will include a link if further reading is called for).

Snippets are chosen for the quality of the content and how accurately they answer the questions being posed by the searcher. So once again, good quality content wins.

Mentioning your locality

Google uses all sorts of signals to work out where you are, but if your business is geographically sensitive (a local shop or venue, for example), make sure there are mentions of the district, town, postcode, city, country etc. to help pinpoint where you are.

Quality counts

So in summary, make sure your copy is well written and researched, has good intentions and is not copied, stolen or otherwise duplicated. Write like a human and humans will respond, and your search ranking should – perhaps slowly – improve. Think about the content that you like to consume, and be inspired to better it.


Image: Liane Metzler

Companies, teams and organisations: singular or plural?

are companies singular or plural?

A subject that never goes away is whether organisations should be treated as singulars or plurals. That is, whether we should say:

Tesco is the UK’s largest retail company
or
Tesco are the UK’s largest retail company

In this example, it seems pretty straightforward. The first reads more naturally and makes more sense. There’s no awkward disagreement between “are” (plural) and “company” (singular). And ultimately, Tesco is a single entity. Yes, it’s a collection of people, but it’s also the buildings, the trucks, the website, the light bulbs and everything else that gives it value.

This simplicity has made it a concrete rule that companies, teams and other organisations are singular, as Jacob Rees-Mogg pointed out last week (and I tentatively agreed with).

When the singular rule starts to look shaky

As is so often the case with written English, the rules are often best bent. I usually find that wherever there’s debate in grammatical circles, it’s because there’s a jarring between a rule that someone has imposed and the way a language is actually spoken. Here are a few examples that prove the rule should be obeyed case-by-case.

Sports teams

The rule never looks more crow-barred in than when dealing with football and other sporting teams. Consider this sentence:

Manchester United was once champion of Europe, but now it languishes in fifth place in the league.

No natural speaker of English would be satisfied with this statement. Is it the grammar? No. Look at this:

Steve Davis was once world snooker champion, but now he languishes in 200th place.

When it’s a singular entity, there’s no doubt it’s grammatically correct. But didn’t we say organisations are singular too? Just like Tesco, Manchester United is a mixture of people (players and staff, and perhaps even fans), plus real estate (Old Trafford) and other physical and virtual assets. So why does it sound weird to be a singular? It’s probably because when we picture United in our minds, we see the players, the crowd and the management, not the listing on the Stock Exchange (look at the difference in language here, and how natural it looks).

It’s the same with national teams, too. “The United States has won the Women’s World Cup” sounds too dry for the circumstances, whereas “The United States has imposed trade tariffs on China” does not. What’s going on here? It’s probably down to the human factor. We’re thinking of the team sweating and bleeding to win the trophy, not some policy document.

Also, national team names are really just shorthand for something longer. When we shout, “Come on, England”, we’re really shouting “Come on, the England national football team”, not “Come on, the bit of land that juts out of the North Sea bordered by Scotland and Wales”. If I had my way, fans would be thrown out of the stadium for chanting anything less than the full title.

“England have done it! In the last minute of extra-time!”

John Motson at Italia ’90 after David Platt’s famous goal

Talking about your own company

Another situation where treating a company as a singular feels wrong is when you’re talking about your own business. How would you think about this fictional company if you visited its “About It” page and saw the following?

Ace carpentry was founded in 1972 by husband and wife Larry and Sally Ace. It has now grown to cover four towns and employs 44 people. It really prides itself on the quality of its work – no job is too big or small for it. Why not give it a call and talk to one of its sales team? You’ll be delighted with its “Ace” service!

It’s clearly wrong, but is the logical conclusion to always treating companies as singulars. And of course, no company, however large, ever has an “About it” page.

are companies singular or plural?

Do what comes naturally

The few examples here (and there are many more) illustrate why it’s unwise to apply a hard and fast “singular” rule on your company’s literature. There are times when your company will be best represented as a singular entity, and times when it won’t. If pressed to come up with a rule for a corporate style guide, I’d say it’s all down to the intent of the sentence. If you’re talking about the company itself, take a singular route. But if you’re referring to the actions of its people, use plurals.

If you’ve ever wondered why a lot of corporate literature starts with “At Company X, we …”, it’s usually to get around the singular rule. It takes the focus off the company as an object and onto its people, which is usually what they are actually referring to when they’re promoting themselves. As a reader, you’re immediately more empathetic towards the company. It’s no longer a faceless organisation; it’s a collection of people working to make your life better.

And that’s exactly what it wants you to think.


Image: Annie Spratt