Know Your Style

Posted by admin

October 27, 2008

I was recently talking to a client about some writing that I’m doing for her website, and I asked an important question that I believe is crucial to good web content, “What is the tone that you would like your website to project?”

Many clients haven’t really considered this question, and sometimes they don’t really understand what I mean by the question. Often, I’ll ask that question in another, more subtle way. “What is your business climate like? Are you very professionally dressed when you come to the office? or Do you dress business casual on a daily basis?” These questions help me as a writer to tailor my style to the climate of the office that I am writing for.

Knowing this helps me to choose the appropriate vocabulary and writing style for the job. If someone works in a very formally professional environment, I am probably not going to write content for them that contains a number of contractions, or that refers to the reader. Likewise, if I’m writing for a more casual client, I want to choose words and sentence structures that convey this message to my client.

The client I was working with conveyed to me that her most important style consideration had to do with the fast pace of her business. This was the key to the writing choice that I made for her project. I decided that the style I would use for this project was very specifically concise. Since her readers don’t have a lot of time on their hands, it is probably best that I break things down into the bulleted list and easy to read text.

Knowing where my clients stand in regard to style is crucial to my business, and if I didn’t ask these questions, it would limit my flexibility and ultimately I would face confusing and circular conversations regarding the content that I had produced for my client. By taking care of these style questions before I begin, I handle lots of problems ahead of time.

Freelance Writing

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