Pure Ink Creative - Specialists in Copywriting, Copyediting and Proofreading for Online Businesses

Getting to the point and fast is the key to successful website copywriting and getting rid of anything that slows you down is a good way to make sure your writing is concise and easy to read. Adverbs are a good place to start.

The most common way to form an adverb is to add the letters ‘-ly’ to the adjective to add information to a verb, an adjective or an adverb. Adverbs are generally used to add description and in the world of online copywriting there is no time for long descriptions as your visitors will soon lose interest if your website is overloaded with unnecessary words.

Although the odd well placed adverb here and there can be a good thing, if you stuff your website copy with them then the point will be very hard to find. Read through your website and for every quickly, expertly, honestly, carefully, lovingly, rapidly etc. think if there’s a better way to write the sentence which removes the description and gets right to the point.

If this doesn’t convince you of the dangers of too many adverbs then take note from bestselling author Stephen King in his book ‘On Writing’…

“With adverbs, the writer usually tells us he or she is afraid he/she isn’t expressing himself/herself clearly, that he or she is not getting the point or the picture across…I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs…”

You’re sitting on your sofa and you notice a crack in the wall opposite you. It starts just below the ceiling in the corner and can be no more than an inch long but now you’ve spotted it you’ll notice that crack every time you sit down. Why? Your house is unlikely to fall down because of such a tiny crack, water won’t get in and no one else is likely to see it.

But now you know it’s there you’ll notice it every time. (more…)

All over the internet and on leaflets, brochures, newspapers, posters – anywhere you can think of, the poor apostrophe is being abused. Doesn’t matter how big or small your company is – you are still capable of abusing an apostrophe. (more…)

Proofreading refers to the process of reading written work for ‘surface errors’. These are errors involving punctuation, spelling, grammar and word choice.

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