It’s time to start caring.

So, here we go.

A new website. A fresh start. And multitudes of lost blogs.

No matter. It’s time to start fresh. Time to turn the proverbial leaf. Time to start caring again. Caring about good writing. Readable writing. Writing that means more than baits, bucks and clicks.

Not that there’s anything wrong with having one’s writing make a few bucks. That’s what clients need. That’s what writers need, and the kids have to eat.

But now’s a good time to start caring again.

In another epoch, web marketing copy was all about keywords. Lots of ’em. There were even tools to scan the page to know how many were there.

Website copywriting went something like this:

Jim Mayfield is an Indianapolis-based marketing copywriter, living in Indianapolis who writes copy and provides marketing copywriting services for businesses that need copywriting in Indianapolis that want copywriting done really fast and really cheap. In Indianapolis, where copywriters live.

That sound you hear is the reader chambering a round into her Glock. Followed by a loud bang. Followed by the screams of her loved ones as they discover the mess.

Fortunately for all of us, the Algorithm King ruling our world caught on and started penalizing such travesty.

Then the Blackhatters figured out a way to stuff a gazillion keywords behind the scenes, coding them so at least we didn’t have to read the crap. The Algorithm King caught that, too, and now – kinda, sorta, we’re back to writing stuff people can actually read.

Kinda, sorta. (More on that in a subsequent post.)

But, alas, it seems people have stopped caring. And it’s pervasive.

There was time on a major news outlet or publication one could not – as in COULD NOT! – find any form of typo, misspelled word, run-on or other written error. Copy was clean, clear and concise.

However, with private equity firms and advertising jocks now ruling the roost, calling the shots, cutting costs and eliminating editors, writers and production folk – generally squeezing the nickel ’til the buffalo screams – errors appear like pepper on mashed potatoes. Some minor and insignificant, some so glaring one wonders if the scribe was a fourth-grader.

Everything is on the cheap and on the rush.

And that’s a problem. But it’s not the real problem. It’s not the problem that’s going bite us in the end, bringing down Western Civilization and the world as we know it.

The problem is we’re getting used to it. It’s becoming OK to see typos, the possessive form family’s when the context calls for the plural form families, and subjects and predicates that agree less than Congress.

Now before you consider the foregoing to be the ramblings of a madman who’s spent too much time with support techs trying to get this website up and running, or a jaded oldster who just will not bend with the times and wants to see a resurgence of bell bottom jeans, let me suggest an alternative theory.

We’re getting sloppy. Writers are getting sloppy (or trying to do too much with too little – or both), editors and publishers are getting sloppy and readers are getting sloppy.

A few days ago, one of our most famous Mad Men, Elon Musk, got sloppy on a major marketing campaign. He unveiled his new indestructible, bullet-proof truck to the world and then promptly smashed the windows out of it for all to see.

Did anyone think to test it first? Maybe do a dry run? Maybe he only had one truck.

Sloppy.

So rather than make a pitch as an Indianapolis-based copywriter that will make a mistake but won’t be sloppy (wasn’t that sublime?) let me ask for your help. Don’t encourage sloppy, tacky, unkempt writing. Write (and proofread) a letter to the editor pointing out errors with kindness. Help them help themselves.

Shine the light on a glaring omission in your website copy or that of a friend.

Take the time to care. So we can all put away our guns.

See ya next time.