Posted on Wed, Mar 17, 2010
by Cathey Tarleton
"Over There," is a great patriotic song written by George 
M. Cohan in 1917 right after the U.S. declared war on Germany. He was riding on a train, perhaps with soldiers on their way to war over there in Europe. They're the inspiration for the song.
There, their, they're. I'm over "there." I mean I'm over trying to ignore it when there is supposed to be they're or their. From now on, I'm going over there to bust that otherwise insightful blogger or creative copywriter, and tell them they're not as smart as their fifth grader when it comes to writing right. Marketing communications are supposed to grab attention, engage readers, inspire confidence and curiosity, urge them to explore further and convert from a visitor to a lead and a customer. It's not supposed to annoy them. Or me. (Of course you can bust me too.)
Good "content," means good writing. And good writing means taking the time to re-read your posts before you "publish," whether they're 140 character Tweets, professional blogs, Facebook notes to your friends and their friends or a hundred other venues out there on the world wide web.
There, there. Am I being too critical?
There, they're, their. This is how it works:
THERE is a place. "Over There" is a song about a place, Germany. (Hint: "Here" is also a place, and it's right there.)
THEIR is a possessive pronoun. That's not a criticism; it's just how it is with possessive prounouns. None of them have apostrophes (my, mine, your, yours, his, hers, their, theirs, our, ours, whose). Why? Perhaps they were lost in the war. (Hint: An "heir" inherits somebody's possessions, and it's in their.)
THEY'RE has an apostrophe. It takes the place of a space and an "a"--no doubt over there with their comrades. They're means "they are."
Spellcheck may or may not help you with this. It's moody. You have to put your own eyeballs on the page and defend your territory against grammatical artillery. If you get confused, try to remember the song. "Over There" makes sense. "Over They Are" sounds like Yoda. "Over Their" begs the question, "over their what?"
Write right. And don't come back till it's over, over there.
Posted on Mon, Oct 12, 2009
by Claudia Hafner
Most of us these days have a website but it may just be collecting dust, and we know we should be dusting it off. We hear about search engines, optimization, blogs, social networking with Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, to name a few! And while we’ve heard all of these words, we’re not sure we know what they mean, or what WE are supposed to do with them.
In our state of overwhelm, we ignore all of it. Or maybe we make feeble attempts to muster some understanding of some of it. In the meantime our website continues only to collect dust, producing ineffective results — little traffic, no leads, and narry a customer. Generally we decide the website isn’t really doing anything towards bringing in business anyway, so why should we pay attention to it? We get to thinking it is just costing money and wasting time. Vicious cycle.
While I will attempt in succeeding posts in this blog to give ‘enlightenment’ to the various social networking opportunities as well as how you can integrate them into your marketing, right now I want to stress the importance of giving new life to your website — life that is really directed at your business.
Your website is the extension of your business. The face presented to the world. And the audience your website speaks to is a microcosm of the world.
With a plan and consistent action steps, the purpose for your website and the affect on your business will be realized.
So, dust off your website by asking yourself these questions:
- What do I want my website to do for my business?
- How do I want people to see my business?
- Who is my customer and what are they looking for?
In subsequent posts, I will cover some of the aspects of bringing your website back to life. So get the dust rag out and let’s get to work.
Start thinking about your website, and go ahead and leave comments or questions that you’d like to see answered.
Free website analysis to gain insight into the effectiveness of your website.