About Angus

Angus Gordon of Usable Words loves helping businesses find the right words. Words to give potential customers the reassuring feeling they've come to the right place. Words to help customers and stakeholders get the answers they need. Words to build trust and build relationships.

I started Usable Words because I wanted to experience the excitement and fulfillment of running my own business. My clients get access to a pretty impressive and diverse range of skills, and I get to have a lot of fun. Sounds like a good deal to me.

My first proper job was in the academic world. I have a PhD in English (it's all right, you don't have to call me "Dr Gordon" unless you really want to) and I taught for several years at the University of Melbourne.

After that, I worked in a number of different management roles in sales and customer relations. At one point I found myself in charge of customer feedback for one of Melbourne's most hated companies. This part of my career gave me a good and at times painful grounding in what drives businesses, and more importantly, what drives their customers.

Finally, I've been an avid blogger for several years, and a member of online communities for more than a decade, so communicating on the web is second nature to me.

Put all this together and you get a copywriter with a deep understanding of language and communication, a finely-honed instinct for how to solve communication problems between businesses and their customers, and long-term experience in writing for the web.

Where and how I work

Usable Words works out of a studio in one of inner Melbourne's liveliest streets - Sydney Road, Brunswick. But my clients come from everywhere - I'm happy to communicate in person, by phone or Skype, or by email.

Me space is shared with two likeminded businesses that I regularly collaborate with: Acorn Web Studio and Weave Web Communication. You can work with Usable Words no matter who's designing your website, but many of my clients love being able to get copywriting, web development, web design and web communication strategy all under one roof.

Get in touch and we'll be happy to have a chat or give you a free quotation.

See how I've delivered on recent work

Contact me to discuss your needs

Read the Usable Words blog

Follow @usablewords on Twitter

How does something like this become good web writing?

Cut out the fat.

Break it up.

Plug in the keywords.

Add the links.

The call to action.

play next next next next again

Download this as a pdf

Writing content for the world wide web web content is different from writing for brochures, magazines, or other print media. Good web copywriters know what web users need (the reasons they use the web, what they are looking for, and their habits), and how to help them get it. Here's what they do. There are five main elements of effective web writing.

1: Keep it web content short and relevant

First, Most web users don't have a lot of time and are doing several things at once - checking their email, updating their Facebook status, browsing newspaper sites, and maybe even working. Your target audience needs to know you're exactly what they're looking for...right away.

So the best thing to do is to write web content in short, punchy sentences. Write directly to the customer, as if you're talking to one person. And cut out anything that's extraneous, any words or phrases you don't need.

2: Lay it out for people who skim

Second, On the web people tend to skim, and they get intimidated by big, uninterrupted blocks of text. Use signposting methods such as

short paragraphs,
subheadings and
bulleted lists

to break up the page and also to make your readers focus on your main points so that they are unmissable.

3: Use keywords strategically

Third, Although you're mainly writing for people, you have another audience: that audience is search engines. To make search engines such as Google love you, it's necessary to use keywords strategically, in web content but preferably without making your text read awkwardly.

4: Use links in web content to help people navigate

Fourth, well-written Web content should make it easier for people to find their way around a website. Use hyper links liberally, and make sure you always think about what's useful to readers when you decide on a label for them.

Finally, you should always try to 5: Include a call to action

Tell readers what you want them to do next. You'll be quite surprised how often they go ahead and do it.

Usable Words

How to write for the web