Tighten up

Sometimes when I’m reading my own stuff, it feels like it goes on and on (and on and on… and on). Like in Family Guy when they make a scene extra long as a joke, and then keep going, beyond the joke, and keep going still, until it’s so ridiculously long it’s a whole new joke. It works in Family Guy. It doesn’t work in my blogs.

People WILL read long copy. People will read long articles. People will read long books. Yes our attention spans are growing shorter and life’s distractions are growing more intrusive. But when we’re interested, we’ll keep reading. 

So there’s no objective “number of words” that will warn you it’s too much copy. 

Instead of watching your word count, look for these copy-killers instead: 

Rambling

“Write like you speak.” Yes please. You want your online content to sparkle with personality and leave your readers feeling like they’ve just enjoyed a nice chat with you over coffee, DO use contractions, habitual expressions, and phrasing that come to you naturally.

But don’t literally write like you speak.

Have you ever looked at a transcript of one of your conversations? You’ll see it’s filled with… well, filler words. It takes a few tries to get to the point, and it’s not that interesting to read. 

I grabbed this word-for-word transcript of a perfectly interesting podcast:

“I think that observation goes along with just that whole idea that Sue was talking about of stretching out this thing that we do into a career, and making it last for decades, and doing it by staying on top of the changes that come to the industry that you work in or the trends that you see going on in marketing. As Sue was talking about that, it just kind of got me thinking about how do we do that? Do we follow people like trendhunter.com in order to see trends that are just overall general? How we focus oftentimes in our niches, and I think even as category experts, when we get to know a niche or even a client really, really well, we start to see things sometimes before our clients see them coming. If we’re doing our jobs right, we can help prepare them for changes, we can help suggest things that might help them get ahead of the curve. So I think looking at this as I’m not just here for a little while, but I am really here to become a subject matter expert, really serves our clients well.”

Ay carumba! That’s hard to read. So obviously this is not what you’re going to put on your website. You’re going to write: 

“As a copywriter in this niche, I help clients spot new trends and ideas.”

Rambling — jumping around, getting off topic, putting everything down on paper as you work your way to finding your point — stands out when you read it. 

Sure, the above is an extreme example. I know you’re not going to “talk” through your sales page and post it as is. Keep the above example in mind, though, and delete filler words you say, but your copy doesn’t need, like: just, so, kind of, in order to, sometimes, I think that...  

Also, watch for sentence fragments (incomplete sentences, parts of ideas) which are very common when we talk but confusing to read. There are lots in the podcast transcription above. I’ve pulled one example and added ellipses to emphasize the way we naturally speak in partial sentences:

“How we focus oftentimes in our niches… and I think even as category experts… when we get to know a niche… or even a client really, really well… we start to see things… sometimes… before our clients see them coming.”

Good writing has personality, but also, one thought per sentence.

Redundancy

So many glorious words! So many wonderful choices! Language is like that giant tub of Lego I have in my basement filled with spaceship pieces and flat bits and all the minifigure hats. I could build a million different spaceships with the pieces we own. But when it’s time to launch 1980-Something Space Benny into orbit, I have to choose one.

There are many ways to express an idea, and most of them aren’t wrong. As a reader trying to glean information from your website, your sales page, or your LinkedIn profile, I really don’t want to read all the ways. 

Repetition — saying the same thing the same way — can be musical and powerful when it’s calculated and intentional. Repeating the same word. words or sentence structure can really drive a point home.

“Jokes have to be about something. Stories have to be about something. Our work has to be about something. And this is why I get so dismayed when I see yet another social media post re-telling a story found on Wikipedia or any number of popular blogs or shows… Why should I care about you, the storyteller? I could get that story anywhere. So why should I care? Help me care. That's what marketing is about. It's not about "getting in front of them." It's about ensuring they care. Help me care.” (from one of Jay Acunzo’s emails )
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Redundancy is not the same as repetition. Redundancy is saying the same thing in different ways, and that will get boring. And then we get distracted and our attention wanders away. If your writing feels like it’s too long, look for times you’ve said the same thing, in a different way. Each sentence has a job to do: present new information. Here’s an example of text heavy with redundancy. I’ve changed the text colour to show how the same concept turns up in different words:

“Honesty and reliability are essential to building trust with clients. Doing what you say you will do is one of the most important factors in achieving this. When a client relies on you for something, it’s crucial that they can count on you to deliver as promised. Fulfilling your obligations shows them that they can trust you, and that sets the foundation for future business interactions. Being reliable also helps maintain a respectful relationship with your clients and further enhances their trust in you. At the end of the day, doing what you say goes a long way toward strengthening professional relationships. Keeping your word builds credibility and creates mutual respect—the kind of bond a successful business partnership depends upon.”

(This dull, redundant text was generated by my Jasper AI app, by the way. The defense rests. )

Another form of redundancy are all those sneaky, attractive adjectives that don’t add value. They’re either synonyms of adjectives just used, or they’re not needed at all because the opposite could never be true. Saying something is “essential and fundamental” or “strong and powerful” or “understanding, compassionate and warm” is redundant. These word combinations mean the same thing. And if you’re not sure whether they mean exactly the same thing, imagine one word without the other. Can you imagine something that is strong but NOT powerful? Someone who is understanding but NOT compassionate? Or someone who is compassionate and also really cold? If that makes sense, then those additional modifying adjectives are necessary. If it doesn’t make sense… take them out.

If you feel like you’re writing too much, and your copy looks like it’s running too long, reviewing your piece for Rambling and Redundancies might help cut it down.

Enough said.