I provided editorial assistance while colleagues at Thirdperson conjured up the excellent design.

It’s always fascinating learning about the world of law and education in law with this particular customer and it’s pleasing to be working with one of the world’s top law schools.

Go to www.college-of-law.co.uk and www.thirdperson.co.uk to find out  more about both the college and the outstanding full service marketing communications agency that is Thirdperson.

The articles will all be about the legal side of buying a house and are to be published in the glossy magazine, First Time Buyer (firsttimebuyeronline.co.uk).

I’ve bought and sold a couple of houses myself, so the subject is fascinating. The first article is a general introduction to the legal matters involved in buying property and why you need the help of a lawyer. The follow-up articles will go into more step-by-step details.

My customer wanted to show itself as a good law firm for potential homebuyers to use by offering some free useful tips, but without the tone of the article being too ‘hard sell’. They’re delighted with the result!

The 1,200-word, four-page article was published in the trade magazine, Building Projects, which is aimed at individuals and companies in the construction industry.

I had the kind cooperation of the East and North Herts NHS Trust, plus the architects and main building contractor involved with the work.

Find out more about the magazine at www.building-projects.co.uk

As John says, the whole point of language is that you “communicate without ambiguity”. While I admit that the bookstore’s name change is no earth-shaking move, doing away with the apostrophe in English generally WILL harm effective, clear communication.

Killing the apostrophe will leave the reader having to guess from context what’s meant – its or it is, were or we are. We’ll have the same confusion social media fans have with LOL – laugh out loud or lots of love?

Go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16535661

I’d first like to say thanks to everyone I worked with and for – particularly all at Thirdperson, Miratech, Alison at Harmer Editorial Services, Ray at Firstwave and James Pringle. All the best in 2012 to them and everyone else.

What a year! I’ve helped relaunch a website for a laser tag company (laser tag is a bit like paintball but without the paint and using infra red rays instead); there’s been a lot of work with the College of Law (promoting a new, first-of-its-kind law degree among other things); and some fascinating writing for the Olympic Park Legacy Company, delving into the history of the site that will host the Games next year.

My partnership with the National Childbirth Trust has continued in designing for them the quarterly magazine (now 92 pages!) that the local NCT branch puts out to its members; and there’s been lots of genuinely fascinating research/writing for various business-orientated publications – covering subjects from the emerging economies of eastern Europe to what cash incentives are out there for people to invest in making new British movies.

I’ve travelled the world (through the magic of the internet) to research and promote a multi-national company’s many office sites across the world; helped a north London law firm find the right words for its new website; written features on a new rugby clubhouse, a new maternity unit and the Olympic Basketball Arena; and learned all about the merits of Amtico vinyl flooring by writing web and blog copy for the company.

There’s been lots more. Variety is the spice of life, as they say – and I’ve had plenty of it!

My target is for more of the same in 2012. I’m already hoping to develop my relationship – in partnership with Firstwave – with Age UK. And an early goal is to consult on the design and writing of a health food company’s website launch.

And of course, finally, 2011 was the year QPR won promotion back to the Premier League. Unforgettable, exciting times down at Loftus Road!

Here’s to 2012!

This year, I’ve already had to get my head round the history of the land near Stratford that is now the Olympic Park – a journey in time that stretched back centuries and included tales of marauding Vikings travelling up the Lea river.

And I’ve also had to understand the various tax breaks that are out there for people who want to invest in the UK’s film industry – in particular the film Resistance, starring Michael Sheen.

My latest challenge is to appreciate the qualities and issues around flooring – vinyl, laminate, stone and wood, to mention just the main materials used to put something between our feet and the soil.

I’m doing some web writing for a major UK manufacturer of flooring and I have to say it’s another case of being unexpectedly fascinated by the subject about which I am writing.

It’s what I love about my job…

The answer’s simple – another freelancer. I work with a network of individuals and companies to deliver various print and online products, so why not help out other freelancers by stepping in to serve their customers while their taking a well-earned break.

I’ve done just that recently, helping to take one colleague’s publication for Age UK over the ‘finishing line’ (see picture) and helping another colleague produce online content for a global player in office space solutions.

Given my experience as a writer, sub-editor, designer and people and project manager, I can pretty much be trusted as a safe pair of hands!

My customer was totally frustrated that he had to rely on a website design company to make any content changes to his site, which they rarely did promptly! Eventually, he ran out of patience with them.

So, in alliance with Miratech, I acted as a design consultant and project-manager in the rebuilding of his site using a content management system. This now offers him the opportunity of editing words and pictures using a internet browser interface.

Before relaunch, much of the text needed rewriting – cutting content that’s now irrelevant and adding new detail. There was also the challenge of phasing out militaristic language like guns, bullets and so on. As laser tag is popular with children for birthday parties, parents had expressed concern about military language.

Go and see it for yourself at www.arush.co.uk

But is it something about nothing? No, there’s definitely something in it – from a writing point of view it’s essentially about using key words and phrases that will bring your website higher up the list of results when you search for something in Google or one of the other search engines.

It’s not rocket science, but it’s also not a panacea. I suspect many organisations feel they must have it without really understanding it.

An example. A web user wanting a summer sporting holiday in France might type ‘sporting holidays in France’ into Google. So if you have a page on the subject then you would want to ensure that this and related phrases are present in the text.

But beware! Don’t overload a page with words that make it dull to read. Always remember that, ultimately, you’re writing for a human – not a search engine! If articles are shallow and uninteresting, visitors are unlikely to remain on your site. 

Worse, if you succumb to what’s called ‘keyword stuffing’, search engines may lower the ranking of the page and push the link to your website further down the listings page. This would result in fewer visitors.

It’s a balance getting SEO right. But if you are writing clearly and carefully, all the important words and phrases will likely be present anyway.

Try this:

• Once you’ve finished writing, check the key phrase(s) are present in the intro and ideally in the headline. Also include it in the web page title.

• Now see if you can include extra keywords and phrases in the article, plus in sub-headings, x-heads, captions, image ‘alt attributes’ and links.

• For most websites one keyword or phrase every second or third paragraph is enough. Marketing people would prefer one keyword per sentence, but so this will be pretty obvious to the reader. Much higher and you may be penalised by the search engines.

• Create good page titles and well worded headings

• Ask other people/organisations to add links to your web pages on their websites.

• Check the popularity of your key pages. In other words, how many ‘back links’ are there from other websites? A tool to do this is at www.rankingtoday.com.

• Look at your web analytics to steer your SEO. Where are visitors coming from? What are they doing on your website? Try www.statcounter.com. Also, take a look at what the competition is doing.

These tools will help identify the all important keywords and phrases:

• Google Keywords tool This may be all you need.

• Wordtracker is one of the leading SEO web services www.wordtracker.com.

If I say so myself, it’s still worth a read.

(Inevitably, there are a couple of little errors in it, which the IoIC’s sub-editor didn’t spot. A prize of my choosing goes to anyone who discovers them and writes to tell me what they are).

Click on the link to see it writing_pyramid_IoIC