by Elle Ray | Sep 18, 2017 | Announcement
Ray Access Grows Beyond Asheville & the U.S.
Dateline: September 14, 2017. Ray Access, a local online writing and editing company run by partners Linda Ray and Mark Bloom, just landed its first international client: IPPWORLD (ippworld.com). Based out of Singapore, the transcreation and translation firm is looking to rebrand — to reconnect with their multilingual client base. They’ve chosen Ray Access to help create its new message.
When a small business gains international clientele, it doesn’t happen by accident. This connection came through the professional social platform LinkedIn.com. Ray Access, who walks the talk by blogging on their own website every week, promotes their blog through posts on Facebook and LinkedIn. The LinkedIn connection has been especially fruitful at driving traffic to its website.
A Truly International Concern
IPPWORLD is a translation and transcreation company with offices in Singapore, Shanghai and Mauritius. It primarily serves the hospitality, tourism and leisure industries. Their clients need to reach an international market with varying cultural and language differences. The process called transcreation integrates creative writing with translation to incorporate cultural nuances and important designations that simple translation often misses.
They’ve turned to Ray Access to help them solidify their international presence in the marketplace through a complete rebranding process — which, in this era, must now include clear, direct website copy and blogs. In addition to rewriting their website, Ray Access will provide marketing copy and regular blog posts for IPPWORLD.
Ray Access, a local Asheville, NC small business, gains international clientele by delivering the type of quality content clients look for. “We like the style [you used], the confidence that was felt … and how you managed to tell the story,” says Joanne Chan, IPPWORLD owner, of a recent assignment. “Cheers to this new partnership!”
A History of Excellence
“Since 2014, we’ve been building our reputation as an internet content provider by supplying clear, consistent, quality copy to businesses at an affordable rate,” says Ray. “We’re proud of our progress and our great team of writers. They allow us to give a voice to every one of our client businesses — with words that empower them to connect with their specific audiences.”
Ray and Bloom built up a business that started out writing blog posts for mostly local companies. Although they continue to offer their services to local businesses and agencies, their biggest clients are now outside the state, in New York City and Charleston, S.C. That growth prepared the company for growth beyond the East Coast, and now, as their small business gains international clientele, they’re preparing for more growth in the coming year.
Evolving Services
“We started out marketing to small business owners who couldn’t afford the big content mills, but still wanted quality website pages and blogs,” recalls Bloom. “Now we primarily target website designers and marketing agencies because their clients all demand quality content at affordable prices too. Through those agencies, we’ve made many businesses more successful. It’s just win-win-win all the way around.”
After blog posts for businesses came a service providing website content for businesses, which has evolved as search engine optimization (SEO) has evolved. Now Ray Access uses keywords and inserts cross-links, all while producing share-worthy content for their clients — or their clients’ clients. Today, the company also provides:
When you need excellent online content for a specific purpose, remember that when a small business gains international clientele, it means they really produce the goods. Hire the best.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Elle Ray | Sep 12, 2017 | Small Business Advice
In the Swirling Marketplace, Remain Committed
As wordsmiths and purveyors of articles, stories and descriptions, we enjoy both the way you can play with words and the sometimes varied meanings that can be attributed to a single word. For this purpose, because it’s the word on everyone’s mind these days — from the fires in the West to the floods in the East — we’ve chosen the word “storm” to play with.
While so many batten down their hatches to ride out the various storms that may be hitting home — or close to it, we know just as many people who are enduring stormy relationships, riding out emotional storms and braving the storms that usually follow a small business as it matures and grows.
Setbacks and Storm Surges
Most small business owners don’t head into their chosen fields thinking that they’ll have to weather big hurricane-force winds of change. Others, on the other hand, go in with eyes wide open and — just like those sea-loving creatures (aka beach bums) who like to make their homes on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean — they prepare for the storms they know come with the territory.
It takes a truly optimistic and positive-thinking entrepreneur to quit a day job. You forgo a steady paycheck and eschew paid benefits to start a small business. But those of us who do wouldn’t have it any other way. We’re prepared for some of the storms that hit, while others blindside us, but just like the city of Houston, hit unawares by Hurricane Harvey, we find a way to keep on going.
A few of the storms a small business should be prepared to meet might include:
- A push to diversify. Your one big passion may not be enough, or your lenders and colleagues may try to get you to add more lines. For example, at Ray Access, we try very hard to stick to what we do best — writing and editing. But we’re constantly being asked and pushed to do SEO or to create websites. So far, we’ve resisted, sticking to our core values, our core disciplines and our core strengths.
- Bad hires. While you’re growing, the last thing you need is to make bad hires that not only threaten your current business model, but waste enough of your time so you can’t put your effort into sustaining your growth. Been there, done that! Keep tabs on your new hires and look for the early-warning signs.
- Being broke. The perpetual optimist knows that when he’s broke, it’s only temporary. The optimistic entrepreneur puts a smile on his face and braves the next networking function with enthusiasm. But when you face the need for cash flow or shut down, that’s a storm you’ve got to weather. We’ve walked that line, for sure, but we’re still here, still determined and still confident in our product.
- Losing a big client. Any small business owner who’s survived past storms knows that you can’t put all your sandbags along one wall. As soon as you do, the water inevitably comes crashing over the opposite wall. Never rely on one customer. Fortunately, at Ray Access, we’ve known this one from the start. The search for new clients never ends.
- Needing more exposure. To advertise or not to advertise; that’s a big question — especially for internet-based companies like Ray Access. After two years, we finally started writing weekly blog posts, just like we were doing for clients. As we grew a little, we knew we were going to have to do more. It took us more than three years before we finally started spending money on advertising. It’s a gamble for a small business, but maybe the only way to gain exposure.
Survive and Grow
A hurricane or wildfire can take out the infrastructure that houses your small business. You may lose equipment and power for a short time. But the entrepreneurial spirit can’t be extinguished by a little — or even a big — storm surge. With the cloud safely away from land-based designs and with your mind and body intact, you can and will survive this and any other storm that comes your way.
Every defeat, the saying goes, is only a defeat if you don’t learn from it. What can you learn from the devastation of a hurricane that washes away clients like so many cars on a flooded highway? There are many lessons:
- Expand your customer base from just one area to national or even international.
- Stay true to your goals, and you will survive and prosper after the waters recede.
- Deliver a product or a service that people actually need and want, and they’ll keep coming back.
- Make the planet a better place, every day, in large and small ways.
- Look back to understand how you could have prepared better; then look ahead and implement your changes.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Mark Bloom | Sep 4, 2017 | Content Provider
Attract and Retain Your Newsletter Subscribers
Businesses, agencies and internet marketers are turning to email newsletters to stay top-of-mind with their customers and potential customers. A successful newsletter for business effectively keeps your customers:
- Up-to-date with changes in your industry
- Educated about the products and services you provide
- Aware of your brand’s unique value proposition
A newsletter is a cross between a press release and a blog post: it either announces news or offers informational content your customers can’t get anywhere else. But blog posts are often weekly articles published on your website, and press releases go out to the media only when you have important news to share with your community. A newsletter, on the other hand, is a monthly or quarterly update sent directly to your list.
To Make Your Newsletter Successful
First of all, never waste your customers’ time. Don’t send out a newsletter unless you have something to say — something that’s not: “Here’s what’s on sale this week!!!” You’re sending an email directly to people who already like you. Make sure what you have to say interests them, or they’ll unsubscribe faster than you can say “SEO.”
A successful newsletter appeals to your subscribers right away — so it begins with the subject line. Find a topic your customers want to know more about and entice them with it. Instead of “Our Monthly Newsletter,” get right to the heart of your content:
- Learn How to Write a Successful Newsletter!
- 3 Steps for Adding Value to Your Customers’ Lives
- You Can Sell More with These 5 Easy Steps
Content Is Still King for Successful Newsletters
If you get the topic and the subject line right, your subscribers will at least open your email. Then you must deliver on your promise. Spend time connecting with your audience — which is why you really need to know who they are and what they want. A successful newsletter, delivered consistently, can help you establish trust. To be read, though, your newsletter content has to deliver:
- Useful information — tips or practices that your customers can use right away
- Entertaining stories — impactful tales from your business or industry
- Relevant news — whatever’s happening that your audience may find interesting
Keep your content to a reasonable length. If you send out a newsletter more frequently than once a month, it needs to be very short and to the point. Your subscribers don’t have time for much more than a few paragraphs. If your newsletter is monthly or quarterly, it can be longer, 300 to 500 words. In these cases, though, help readers by placing a list of contents at the top so readers know what to expect.
Formatting Matters
Yes, text size is important so that your newsletter is readable, but make it easy and fun to read. Add photos, graphics, charts and tables whenever possible. They impart information, and they can be fun to scan. Also, make liberal use of bulleted lists and numbered lists. Lists help break up blocks of text and are also easily scannable.
Perhaps the biggest piece of advice, though, is to be sure, beyond any doubt, that your email newsletter template is mobile friendly. More and more, people are checking their email on a mobile device. If your newsletter doesn’t translate well to a smart phone, look for another template. Otherwise, only the minority of readers on a desktop or tablet will read your words.
Wrapping It Up
As Ray Access has reminded you before, your newsletter shouldn’t be a sales pitch. But it’s perfectly acceptable, after you’ve provided something of value, to offer an incentive or special deal. Prove that you value your newsletter readers with a special offer not available anywhere else.
Finally, provide a single call-to-action button or link. If your newsletter is about successful newsletters, for example, offer them a reduced price (say 25 percent off) for one. Get readers to take an action, such as contacting you for the deal. In fact, if you contact us, we’ll make that offer right now! Good luck with your newsletter; remember Ray Access is always here to help.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Elle Ray | Aug 29, 2017 | Content Marketing
Marketing Trends & Fashion Go Through Cycles
I never threw away my suede fringe jacket or my bellbottoms because I love them and they bring back so many good memories. And then, behold, just last year, I wore them again and no one batted an eye. It was time; it was their time to re-emerge. What’s old is new again. It works for clothing, music, furniture and most everything you can think of — including marketing.
High-tech online marketing trends have dominated the conversation for so long now that they’ve become mainstream. And usually when a concept, product or any marketable item becomes ubiquitous, someone’s going to go retro until the next big breakthrough appears.
Hello? Anybody Home?
Most surveys and number-crunchers estimate that about 85 percent of American adults use email. They may not all use it every day, but they’ve got an account and access to the internet. That makes email pretty much ubiquitous — and like the meaning of ubiquitous: it’s everywhere, it’s everywhere!
Let’s keep it on the low side and say that most people with an email account receive an average of 25 messages a day (the actual average was approaching 90 in 2015). So 25 a day is certainly on the low, low side. But consider that number for the sake of argument — that’s still a lot of messages to sludge through on a daily basis.
If you’re like most people, you can’t go a day without checking your email. Miss a day, and your inbox gets so clogged up that it takes an entire day just to trudge through it all. Meanwhile, email has been one of the top marketing trends for so long now that even older, staid brands (think AARP) rely on it. After a while, the Delete button becomes your best asset.
For the Price of a Stamp
Never mind the cost of actually using email for marketing purposes. You can pay hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars for email lists, only to experience many unsubscribes and wasted effort. You can pay a marketing trends company hundreds or thousands of dollars a month to generate ads in social media — the long arm of the inbox that has replaced email for younger adults and teens.
But for just 49 cents, the price of a stamp, you can reach a very special place in the home, business, office or private box of your target market. And odds are that your mailbox competition is pretty low these days. If you think it’s just not cool to use “snail mail” for marketing, check out the music industry blog music 3.0. They refer to hot new snail mail campaigns by the likes of Taylor Swift and lesser-knowns like King Krule and Animal Collective, who are returning to stamped mail for exposure.
Novel, Yet Not a Bad Read
All your customers have a home and an address. Getting mail delivered in a hard copy is just novel enough to stand out from the avalanche of marketing trends people get everywhere else, from their TVs to their email inboxes. The U.S. Postal Service can get pricey if you don’t have a targeted mailing list, but then again, so can random Facebook ads.
With so many barriers to break to actually reach an inbox — think spam filters, ad blockers, algorithms and unsubscribe boxes — it may be time to tap into the old, tried-and-true turf of snail mail. Stand out while you still can, before the post office undergoes a retro resurgence. Jump on this marketing trends bandwagon early. And just as newsletters are making a huge comeback, pull out your headbands and leggings — or your fringe and bellbottoms — and join the march from yesterday to tomorrow.
Need help writing your newsletter or promo material that you’re going to put in a letter or on the back of a postcard? Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Mark Bloom | Aug 22, 2017 | Content Provider
Newsletter Writing Tips You Can Use Right Now
As more and more companies send out newsletters to their customers and potential customers, it becomes increasingly more difficult to stand out from the clutter. Newsletters arrive by email, where they run the risk of:
- Being taken for SPAM
- Being deleted right away
- Never being opened or read
- Being unsubscribed
You need to put care and effort into every newsletter you send out to prevent those negative responses. A sloppy, “Here’s this week’s sale” announcement won’t cut it. Subscribers catch on quickly when month after month, you try to pass off a sale as news. Newsletter writing tips help you engage your audience and hold their attention. Newsletters provide a direct way to connect with your audience — but only if they read them.
The Newsletter Writing Tips You Need
Follow these newsletter writing tips, and you’ll get positive feedback instead of unsubscribe messages. Check these tips against every issue of your newsletter:
- Know your audience. This information is at the core of every successful piece of writing, from a Stephen King novel to your newsletter. You know who your customers are so you can sell your products or services to them; use that same demographic information to write to them.
- Discover what they want. Do your research. Find out who’s subscribed to your newsletter and what they’d like to learn about. Find out what questions they have about your business or industry. Ask them. Poll them. Send surveys. Look at your competitors. Get creative.
- Give your readers something valuable. In other words, don’t try to sell your wares from the get-go. If you’re not providing value to your readers, your readers aren’t going to buy anything, including your free newsletter. Give them something they want, and they’ll pay attention.
- Use intriguing titles. Say what you want to convey, but say it in a way that elicits an emotional reaction. Instead of “Newsletter Writing Tips,” use “15 Newsletter Writing Tips to Make Your Next Newsletter Better!” Make it personal. Make it immediate. Make it relatable.
- Deliver on your promises. Don’t become clickbait; if you promise newsletter writing tips, deliver them. Add value to your readers’ lives, and they’ll become loyal readers who look forward to your next newsletter. Drone on and on about an unrelated topic, and they’ll drop you faster than last week’s gossip column.
- Write like a journalist. This doesn’t mean writing in a dry tone with just the facts. It means use the inverted pyramid style of writing, in which you put the important points of information at the very top of the article. Not everyone will read to the bottom.
- Write with personality. People buy from people and companies they like. Present your likeable self in your newsletters. Yes, be informative, but do it with style. Use the language of your audience, but write it in your own voice.
- Stay on topic. Each newsletter should have a single theme or focus. Write about that and cover it completely. At the same time, keep your newsletters short — as short as 350 words, or the size of a short article. Never exceed 750 words. It’s not a newspaper; it’s a newsletter.
- Always include images. Newsletter writing tips aren’t just about writing. No matter how engaging your writing is, it looks lifeless without images. Photos, graphics, charts and tables can brighten up your newsletter, making it easier on the eye and even more informative, as pictures convey non-verbal meaning.
- Use images that stand out. Be careful of using stock images that everyone’s seen 100 times. Look for images that are different. Maybe develop a standard (such as a tint, crop or shading) that identifies your brand.
- Employ statistics and quotes as needed. Did you know that 60 percent of marketers use newsletters to reach out to their clients? Statistics and quotes lend authority to your subject. Sprinkle them in to strengthen your own points.
- Include links back to your website. Newsletters help you keep in touch with your customers and potential customers, but your website is the online hub of your business. Direct your readers to your website and blog, where they can learn more about your company, your products and your services.
- Don’t link to other websites. Your newsletter is not the place to corroborate your statistics or source your quotes. You don’t want to send your readers to someone else’s website. Keep readers engaged in your newsletter and just link to your own website.
- Include one, and only one, call to action. Like your website, your newsletter shouldn’t be all about you and your company. It should be about your audience — your customers and potential customers. Provide content readers look for and trust, and they’ll turn to you when they’re ready to buy.
- Be sure to spell check. Actually, using spell check isn’t enough. Reread your newsletter, both before and after you’ve formatted it. Double-check everything. Have someone else read it too. Put it aside overnight, and then read it again in the morning. You can’t afford mistakes.
A newsletter only works if you send it out. So, do your best and let it go. Keep refining your formula with every issue — whether that means better targeting, better headlines, better images or better content. The team at Ray Access hopes these newsletter writing tips help you improve your reach and satisfy your customers. If you need help with your newsletter, contact the writing pros at Ray Access.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Elle Ray | Aug 15, 2017 | Content Provider
Email Newsletters Still Deliver the Goods
Everyone wants to be cool, on the cutting edge. It’s in our techie DNA now — no one wants to be seen as old-fashioned, out-of-date or clueless. This is especially true of electronic messaging, whether you use blogs, website content, texts, tweets or shares. Whatever you do, you’ve got to stay one step ahead.
For a number of years in the recent past, the newsletter seemed about as old school as you could get. Newsletters were the big bang of the old school. Before the advent of newspapers, cultures relied on short news blasts to get their information. If you trace their history, you’ll find them all the way back in ancient Rome: Julius Caesar kept his literate loyals abreast of his doctrines through short, one-page newsletters.
From B2B to C2C
Throughout the history of the world, businesses, governments, families and even like-minded friends kept in touch through monthly, quarterly or annual newsletters. People used newsletters to send messages to businesses, employees and customers.
Maybe you haven’t heard much about the staid newsletter of late because of the overpowering presence of social media and its reach. Then again, maybe you’ve noticed your email inbox filling up lately with more and more newsletters. And you’re seeing them from old and new lines of business.
Steady and True
In fact, newsletters have never really gone away. They’ve just taken a back seat to the likes of Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. The company newsletter remains a consistent form of communication in large organizations. Newsletters to current clients continue to rank as a top way to keep in touch, as nearly 60 percent of marketers use them, according to one Mail Munch blog post.
There even are some who say that the social media trend may be seeing itself waning. In the February 2017 issue of digital current, writer Michael Brenner reports that, “the honeymoon with social media may be over.” And while your social media accounts may be bustling as usual, they may no longer offer the be-all, end-all for Internet marketing. That may be a good thing — unless you’re a business.
Overwhelming Algorithms
As giants like Facebook and Google continually tweak and alter their algorithms to provide better user experiences and to boost their own profits, it becomes increasingly more difficult for marketers to use the platforms as practical sales techniques without paying for top billing. There is no “beat the system” anymore with SEO, unless you’re willing to pay for it.
And all along, email has been quietly humming along as the truly primary mode of communicating information. When you’re on an email list, no algorithm is going to kick you out; only you can do that. And email is as accessible as your cell phone. A catchy newsletter that comes to you can be a welcomed diversion, while filling you in on recent deals or news that affects you. All you need to do is subscribe to:
- One of your main vendors
- A product you’re interested in
- A company or competitor you want to monitor
- A thought leader you admire
Newsletters Are Here to Stay
So if history is any kind of teacher — as it usually is — marketers and communicators of every ilk will turn back to what’s always worked: the newsletter. It doesn’t have to be long; in fact, shorter emails are better received. To work, newsletters should be between 350 and 750 words, broken up into sections, with headers, graphics, photos and videos embedded to improve their attractiveness.
So stick to your Facebook boosts for recognition and brand identity, but turn to the old-school, reliable newsletter to keep in touch with those important contacts you’ve made on LinkedIn and Snap. Just because it’s old school, doesn’t mean it has to be boring. Jump on the bandwagon — or dare we say retro bandwagon? Turn to newsletters as they make a big comeback in 2017 and beyond. And turn to Ray Access for the quality content you need to engage your audience.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Mark Bloom | Aug 8, 2017 | Agency Advice
Web Developers: Write the Content for Clients
If you own or work for an internet agency — such as a web development firm, an SEO marketing concern, a branding or design company or in-house marketing department — you provide services to your clients to:
- Develop an online presence or storefront
- Get them noticed online
- Generate traffic to their website
- Attract the “right” audience, those who already may be looking for their products or services
- Help them convert those visitors into paying customers
- In general, help them succeed
How well you succeed is measured by your clients’ return on investment and increase in brand awareness. In other words, the better your clients do, the better you look. If you want referrals, that gold mine of qualified leads, then you must deliver satisfaction.
Why Content Matters
You know the answer to this already. But remember that content can include words, pictures and videos. Content is anything visitors can consume — anything that answers their questions or engages their minds … or their funny bones. Content can take many forms; it depends on its purpose and its intended audience.
Online content for clients — whether for their website, blog or social media — must fulfill its purpose:
- Attract those people or businesses who may be interested in your clients’ products or services
- Answer their questions about your clients’ business or industry
- Generate trust in your clients’ business
- Persuade visitors or readers to contact your clients
Why Your Clients Shouldn’t Write Their Own Content
Obviously, creating videos, photos and graphics takes specific skills — skills your clients may not possess. But anyone with a computer can write. Your clients may insist on creating their own written content. Here’s why you should stop them and deliver content for clients as part of your services:
- Content delay. The number one reason to avoid letting your clients write their own content is that they may never actually do it. They may have good intentions. They may think your deadline is far enough out to make the project feasible, but crises are a part of business, and website content often gets pushed down to the bottom of the priority list. When the deadline comes and goes, it becomes content delay, and suddenly, it’s your problem.
- It’s marketing. Unless your clients have a full marketing department, they may assign the task of writing the content to the wrong person. A website, blog or social media isn’t necessarily a platform for advertising or customer service. Sure, those things matter, but not as much as marketing: building their brand awareness, nurturing their potential customers and generating an online presence that can stand out. Online content has to connect with its intended audience.
- Quality suffers. Your clients may know their business inside and out. They may know their customers top to bottom. But they may not know how to approach online content writing. When you produce the content for clients, you provide what they need, instead of what they want. You know what it takes for your clients to succeed in the online environment. And if you don’t, you know you can find a third-party subcontractor like Ray Access who does understand the online world and can deliver content for clients of every industry.
- Differences abound. Your clients understand the difference between video and photos, but they may not understand the difference between website content and blog posts. These two platforms serve different functions. If your clients write blog posts as web pages or web pages for blog posts, they won’t succeed. You need to step in to create the kind of content for clients that works for its intended purpose.
To truly stand out, your clients need good, effective content. If you can deliver that for them, your firm can also rise above the crowd in a competitive market. You can only do that by taking charge of the project. Don’t let your clients write their own content.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Elle Ray | Aug 1, 2017 | Agency Advice
Website Developers Who Do It All Are History
The field of website development has evolved dramatically over the last 20 years. Most businesses now require their website developer to wear many hats — and often, a cape as well. They want their developer to be everything from a problem solver to a poet, from a graphic designer to a guru. Your web developer has to know not only how to build your website, but also where everything should go, what your website should do, who it’s for and why visitors will be drawn to the site.
Now add therapist, marketing expert, artist, photographer, structural designer, information architect and project manager into the mix, and you’ve got a recipe for a superhuman — someone more at home in a Marvel comic book than in the real world. That’s what website developers are up against, when really, they’re just human beings who are most comfortable working at a computer all day.
The Origin Story
It used to be — in the long-forgotten stone age of the internet, the 1990s — that all you needed was a nerd with a knack for writing code to become your website developer. There was little more to a website than lines of text created from Hypertext Markup Language (aka HTML). Just being able to share this text with other web users around the globe was amazing enough.
When Mosaic hit the scene in the late 1990s, the web developer world went crazy. Everyone realized they were sitting on the cutting edge of, well, everything. Graphics, movies, games, online shopping: as fast as web developers could dream up new ideas for what was then called the “world wide web,” they could quickly make it become a reality. Creative website developers were creating their own obsolescence in a way, everyday.
Until… Kaboom!
Bigger bandwidth, broader networks and multimedia gave website developers more toys — and challenges — than ever before. To stand out among a growing crowd, they had to use every trick in the book. And when mobile devices hit the scene hard after the tech bubble crash in 2001, all bets were off.
Web developers were starting to get savvy; no longer was it cool just to be a nerd with an idea to code. Nerds had to learn to talk to corporate types, sell their ideas and get funding for their new apps if they were going to survive. Video streaming, ecommerce applications and a slew of new multimedia options exploded online. Only the smartest, nimblest and sometimes luckiest nerds could keep up.
But the few who made it — and you know their names — made a big splash; now they count their assets by the million. They set a shiny bar really high, and with so much promise, so much potential in the internet still to come, no developer worth his weight in sim cards wants to quit, especially in the age of IoT — the Internet of Things era — when everything from your TV to your toilet is getting connected and upgraded.
It Takes a Village
Yes, that’s a cliché, but guess what — phrases like “it takes a village” become clichés when they’ve been true for so long and have been repeated so often that they’ve become kind of folk legends. But today, only a very few small-town website developers, those who service mainly the micro-business community consisting mainly of solopreneurs, can do it all. They’ve got to have a good eye for aesthetics, the knack for coding, an idea of what content to plug in and the customer service talent to manage clients who often expect excellent everything for as little as a couple hundred dollars.
That breed of superhuman is dying out, just as successful door-to-door encyclopedia salesmen before them. Today, the most proficient website developers work with a team. Any website professional who claims he can do it all likely can’t do any of it well. It’s too much to know and be really good at. Specialization makes website developers more efficient; they can focus on what they love to do: sit in front of a computer all day and code.
A Team Approach
Being part of a team allows for a greater depth and variety of projects. It makes life more interesting when you can bounce ideas and opinions off of other professionals whose expertise lies in other areas. Large website development firms employ more specialists, while smaller, more nimble development companies use third-party contractors — including Ray Access.
Every website development team relies heavily on project managers who keep it all together and keep the client happy. The other skills inherent in every website developer’s process include:
- Envisioning the total project
- Developing a navigational structure
- Writing compelling content
- Designing the look and feel
- Coding to build the website
- Drawing graphical elements
- Shooting professional photographs
- Making engaging videos
- Editing the content
- Marketing the website
The lone web developer — one who envisions, develops, writes, designs, codes, draws, shoots, makes, edits and markets his own website is one of those rare birds who soon will appear on Wikipedia as an endangered species. While everyone loves superheroes, being one takes a lot of dedication and diversification. If you need help with a certain specialty, find it.
Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.
by Elle Ray | Jul 25, 2017 | Writing
A Good Editor Can Help You Be a Better Writer
I’ve always wanted to be a better writer. I’ll never forget the first time I turned in a story as a full-time newspaper reporter on the city desk of a daily paper. I had labored over the opening line. I wanted it to “sing,” as my journalism professor used to say. And I found the perfect words in a line that was both clever and informative. I was thrilled.
I watched my editor read my article, excited and eager to hear the praise that was sure to follow. But I was stupefied when he took a red pen to that line I loved and said, “Start the story here.” To him, the second line was the best way to open the story. I felt crushed. “But I love those words,” I wailed.
“If you want to be a better writer,” he cautioned. “Don’t fall in love with your words. And learn how to let them go to tell the story better.” It’s a lesson I’ve never forgotten.
Write for the Reader, Not for Yourself
That valuable lesson has served me well over 30+ years of writing. And it taught me the ultimate value of editors. While many harsh words have been said about editors — by almost everyone who has ever communicated with written words — there are just as many manuscripts, stories, novels, webpages and screenplays that would not have been published were it not for exceptional editing.
Writers like to hear themselves speak. It’s editors who sit in as the listeners. Editors strive for:
- Clarity
- Polish
- Ease of reading
- Comprehension
- Conciseness
As we wrote last week in the 7 Secrets of Effective Editing, good editing streamlines the copy, tightens it up and ensures that the message you’re delivering is clear and targeted.
It’s Not Personal
Though it may feel like it sometimes, editing is not criticism. The only goal of a competent editor is to help you be a better writer. Making you a better writer also ensures that your readers are happy and informed. For example, when your editor has to read a sentence more than once to figure out its meaning, something needs to change.
The sentence either needs to be broken into more concise statements, rearranged for clarity or completely reconstructed. Extra words bog down meaning; editors cut them out. Grammar rules are in place for good reasons — not to punish or control writers, but to clarify sentences for your readers. Editors invoke the English rules of grammar and punctuation to make the reading experience delightful and easy.
Consider the Medium
When you write a script for a video, you can take liberties with clarity because you have the actors or graphics to explain your message. When you author a novel, critics and readers alike expect a certain amount of long, endearing, fantastic descriptions. When you write a letter or an email, though, you don’t need to explain personal references or phrases that you know your one reader understands.
When you write for the web, however, different rules apply:
- Sentences must be scannable.
- Paragraphs should be short with plenty of white space surrounding them.
- Headers must explain what follows.
- Punctuation must move the story forward, not bog it down.
- The inverted pyramid style used in news reporting is strongly preferred. In other words, tell the reader what to expect on the page right from the beginning.
Leave It to the Beaver
You can be a better writer and still enjoy your work, your play on words and your witty banter, even when you rely on an editor. Your editor may take out the superfluous, the non sequiturs and the errors. Your editor doesn’t want to change your writing style; only make it stronger. If you edit your own writing, you’re taking the chance that your assumptions about your readers weren’t wrong.
But the best writers allow an editor to chew away at their copy like busy beavers. The best writers wouldn’t dare publish a sentence without an editor first giving it a read. The best writers know that the best completed communiqués come from a heavy-handed editor with the best intentions. A good editor can make you a better writer.
As Truman Capote famously said:
I’m all for the scissors. I believe more in the scissors than I do in the pencil.”
The Ray Access team won’t publish anything until it gets at least one thorough, professional edit. Mark and Linda often give pages two or three edits to ensure their clients receive their best work. If you enjoy writing on a variety of topics and appreciate a good editor, contact us about a part-time writing gig.
by Mark Bloom | Jul 18, 2017 | Editing
Effective Editing Makes Writing Easier to Digest
Editing isn’t a magic wand; it’s a process that involves insight, intelligence and hard work. But before getting to the seven secrets of effective editing, it’s helpful to define the term, so you understand exactly what this article refers to as editing.
The Difference Between Revising and Editing
Effective editing can streamline and refine any piece of writing. Editing takes the author’s intent and sharpens it to better relate to its targeted audience. Revising, on the other hand, requires rewriting the article — which in this case includes blog posts and website content — to better reach its goal. Revising is usually, but not always, done by the author, and it can be an extensive process.
When an article is 90 percent there, editing tightens up the writing and smooths out the wrinkles. When an article is only 50 percent there, it may need more research, more content or even a different approach. In this instance, editing can’t help. It needs to be revised.
The Secrets of Effective Editing
Here are the seven secrets of great editing, as promised. When you work with editors, professional or otherwise, look to see if they deliver results in line with these practices:
- Create concise language. In general, writers hate to cut any words for fear they’ll lose the magic of their prose. Writers love the sound of their own words. Editors don’t suffer from that delusion. Readers’ feelings matter more than writers’ feelings. So — cut to fine-tune the message.
- Choose better words. The right word makes all the difference. Very often, one strong word works much better than a wordy phrase or group of less powerful words. The right word connects better with readers, delivers more of an emotional impact and creates a sense of action. Editing word choices also contributes to Secret #1. So — spend the time to find the right word.
- Develop strong openings. The introduction to any piece of writing should be the last section edited. It needs to feature strong writing that draws in its intended audience, and that can only be done when the editor knows what the article is about. As they say in the newspaper business, “Don’t bury the lede.” So — refine the opening until it sings.
- Let it flow. Every article needs to lead readers from point to point. The writing must flow effortlessly and logically. Sometimes, whole sections need to move up or down to facilitate that flow. Sometimes, sentences fit better elsewhere. So — make sure nothing gets in the way of a good read.
- Break it up. Make sure that the blog post or website page has sufficient subheadings. Almost everyone scans content online. Make it easy for readers with descriptive, short but clever headings that let readers know what’s coming. So — keep every section short, adding headings as needed.
- Double-check the heading text. The title and the headings in any article can spell success or failure. There are whole books written about creating effective titles. Just make sure it’s not clickbait. Instead, create titles and headings that add personality to the piece. And deliver on your promises. So — revise the title and headings as needed to engage readers.
- Read it through a second time. Most editors realize they are the last stop on the road to online publication. The edited article needs to be clear and concise. Effective editing requires a second read-through to catch any typos, omissions or other errors. So — read through the entire article once more before letting it go.
Nothing written is ready for publication until it’s been edited. Effective editing can make the difference between viral and valueless. If you follow all these editing tips in your writing process, you’ll deliver outstanding and effective content to your — or your client’s — website.
The team at Ray Access believes in editing as part of the writing process. Every blog post, website page, press release and newsletter we deliver to a client has been professionally edited. Now you can hire the pros on the Ray Access team to edit your business writing.
