Confession: This is my first attempt at writing a blog.

While conducting research on how to accomplish this, I read blogs from numerous websites. Many of the pieces were interesting and entertaining reads, but a few I didn’t enjoy.

What made me like some better than others?

Quality of writing.

The ones I didn’t like had interesting topics, which made me click on them, but when I began reading they were bogged down in unnecessary words and were too long.

Writing concisely is always a good idea, but it’s even more important when publishing pieces on the web where attention spans can be short.

A lot of people are out there writing content for websites to promote their business and to entice people to buy their products or use their services. And they should know how to do this well and effectively.

Velsoft’s Writing for the Web will help them avoid writing long-winded posts that bore the reader.

I’ve been tasked with refreshing Velsoft’s course offerings, updating them with new information. Writing for the Web is my first kick at the can.

It’s fitting that my first blog is about a web writing course. I was able to use what I learned from Writing for the Web when I was creating this blog.

New sections have been added to Writing for the Web that explore nuances in writing for various mediums, and how to share this content on different social media platforms.

For me, the most important new material is about proofreading and editing. As an editor — a newspaper reporter and editor for many years as well as a freelance journalist — this subject area is a passion for me.

Everyone who publishes any kind of writing anywhere should have someone read over their work before it’s distributed to check for typos and other mistakes. They’re easy to make – not even long-time, experienced writers are immune to them. (I hope I didn’t make any in this piece — production manager Kevin read it over and didn’t find any!)

When I see mistakes in a piece of writing, I stop reading it. And I assume people write for the web because they want others to read their stuff.

With the internet being an indispensable tool in business these days, it’s prudent for everyone to learn how to maximize their use of it. And writing good content that people want to read is at the heart of this.

So do yourself a favor before publishing anything — on the web or elsewhere — have a second set of eyes look it over. Readers will appreciate it.

And check out our updated Writing for the Web course for more great ways to make your own writing better, and to help your clients improve theirs as well.

Note: If you have read any of the posts on the Velsoft blogsite, you may notice that this isn’t the first blog post written by me, however when it was written, it was indeed my first blog. We just ended up posting it in a different order than originally planned.