4. For question #2, what did you do differently from the original post? Please outline, explain and justify what you changed & why. Essentially, what did you learn from this new topic and what did you change and why. (8 Marks)
To take a look back at my original post, I am able to quickly notice what my older writing structure looked like and how I did not have a full understanding of how to properly apply the F Pattern and the use of plain language to successfully create a piece of writing that was optimal for readers on the web. Even though I do find that my original writing was able to very strongly communicate what my brand was, I have since learned about why the language that I used was overly descriptive and made the introductory content too long and inefficient for online reading. From my understanding, this work was not applying principles of the F Pattern of plain language because of this and therefore my target audience of readers are less likely to be able to scan through this work quickly to gather an understanding of what the information about my business is and how it can align with their purpose for seeking out the information in the first place. Within my revised version of my introduction of Ava’s Lil Bakeshoppe, I knew that I wanted to keep my writing effective and able to clearly communicate what my business is while prioritizing making my message more concise, scannable and easier to understand for readers. Therefore, all of the changes I made here were in regard to all of what I have mentioned here that I learned about both plain english writing and the F Pattern.
The first big change that I prioritised making within this writing was simplifying my wording/vocabulary usage. Within my original piece of introductory content I used a lot of very detailed and overly descriptive language such as “each and every dessert combines our passion for nostalgia with true sophistication”. Even though I feel like this does a great job of encapsulating what my business is all about, they made my writing unnecessarily long, descriptive and difficult to scan through quickly which makes it lack the application of F Pattern or plain language writing principles. In my revised version, with my better understanding of the F Pattern and plain language I was able to use much more direct and specific wording that could be quickly read or scanned so that my target audience of readers could easily understand what my brand was immediately after reading only once. For example here, instead of having multiple different sentences that described my brand in an overly descriptive and lengthy manner, I chose to clearly state what my business has to offer our customers in a structured way that used the F Pattern to contain short sentences featuring bullet points, alongside words that are easy to understand but still convey what I am trying to introduce about my bakery. This change is effective as I applied my knowledge in regard to having learned that plain English writing should place emphasis onto clarity and being concise over using overly descriptive (and rather decorative) phrasing for my introduction.
The other big change I determined I should make after expanding my knowledge, learning and overall understanding of what the F Pattern is and why it is important was the way in which I organized and structured my content. In my original version of my introduction, I did understand that the F Pattern was used to divide content into different sections however my paragraphs and sentences within these sections were still way too long and difficult for readers to scan for information. What this did negatively was it made my written content feel dense and academic as opposed to optimising for the experience and understanding of my readers. In my newly revised introduction I made the switch to using much shorter sentences/bodies of text and bullet point style lists, alongside clearer headings that were concise but encapsulated what the content was going to be about. For example, in my original work I had the header “Desserts YOU Love! But Elevated” which did not describe what the content was going to be about as it lacked plain language writing principles such as not using jargon or overly descriptive language. My revised version of “What We Have To Offer You”, is much more concise and does not feature any unnecessary words that do not convey what the content will be about to readers who are scanning through my writing. Therefore, this considers what I learned in regard to how audiences often times will not read through every word i put from top to bottom, but rather they have the tendency to scan for the key details and information that the writing has and therefore, I need to make sure that my writing is structured in a manner that is supporting this so that my writing is actually effective and not a waste of time or resources. I also made sure that I changed the order in which I chose to place my information to ensure that I was prioritising front loading the most important information. This applied F Pattern principles to ensure the information that I wanted to get across from my content was actually going to be read by my target audience as opposed to just being skipped over as they might only be reading the first portions of my work. Another change that I made was adding imagery to my post this time. After having learned in class all about the importance of imagery and what purpose it can serve in content, I knew it would be beneficial to add relevant images to my work. This point was very clearly emphasised by the statistics that were shown in class regarding how “Articles with images get 94% more views than those without”. I was able to take this and apply it by adding in two relevant images, the first being one which features a pink themed cake in a pink themed bakery which aligns with my bakery business’s branding and brand identity alongside the products which my written content discussed would be sold. In addition to this I added an image of someone easily ordering online from my bakery right on their laptop which showcases just how simple it is for my readers to follow my call to action and convert to customers.
The final change that I made was strengthening my CTA, as in my feedback I was informed that my call to action was not strong enough and now that I have learned more about effective content, I can definitely agree. The original post was mostly just focused heavily on my brand values, ingredient choices and how I view my business which did help to communicate my brand identity but at the expense of the reader’s experience in regard to readability. When it came to writing my revised introductory content, I was able to take what I learned about plain language and the F Pattern principles and keep my brand’s message strong while making sure that I made my content more audience forward and action powered. I did this by emphasising what I understand my audience would want to know such as what my business has to offer, why it matters and what steps they should take next. I also made sure that the ending call to action of telling readers to reach out by clicking to visit my website to request an order was clear and guiding them in the right direction to fulfill the overall goals of my business even having a website with a blog attached to it in the first place. Overall, this made my content more effective as I was able to everything that i have managed to learn in regard to making my writing more focused on the readers user behaviour and content priorities in order to optimize my content’s ability to be understood quickly and easily by all readers including those who generally scan through writing before actually reading it in full. Therefore in order to apply all of what I have learned regarding the F Pattern and plain language writing the, I reduced overly descriptive wording in my writing, I shortened my bodies of text to short sentences and bullet points, I made my headings clearer to better convey what the content was going to be about, I moved my most important content to the top of my page to increase the likelihood of it being read and ending off with a much stronger call to action that guides my readers in the direction of converting into loyal bakery customers of mine.
RESOURCES:
- Briscoe, The Power of Visual Content (W26).pdf, Slide 3
- Briscoe, F Pattern Refresher (W26).pdf, Slide 3
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