Author: Heidi LaFleche

Heidi launched her writing career as a newspaper and magazine journalist—most notably as a Boston correspondent for People magazine. She transitioned into marketing communications for business, helping clients find the right words to engage their audiences. Heidi is a Senior Editor for Wordsmithie, and also runs her own freelance writing business on the side. She writes within a range of industries including technology, healthcare, financial services, legal services, education and nonprofits. Her slogan: “Every business has a story. Let’s tell yours together.”

4 Ways to Avoid Embarrassing (and Potentially Costly) Typos

Typographical errors — a/k/a typos — are annoying little gremlins that like to sneak into what we thought was final, polished copy. Typos are everywhere. They’re fodder for comical memes (e.g., on a store sign that reads “Shoplifters will be prostituted” or a tattoo whose owner lives by the creed “Regert nothing”). They’re a newspaper […]

5 Tips to Improve Your Writing

Whether you’re a professional wordsmith, an occasional writer or a businessperson whose job demands writing (whether you like it or not), these five tips can help improve your writing and make self-editing less painful. Organize your ideas. If you were a carpenter, you wouldn’t build a bookcase without a plan, right? Same thing goes for […]

Why SEO and Content Marketing Go Hand in Hand

So you pumped a good portion of your marketing dollars into search engine optimization (SEO) for your website. Your SEO tactics employed proven tech wizardry designed to help your website rank higher in organic search results. Good page titles? Check. Meta tag descriptions? Check. Keyword-rich content? Check. And GADZOOKS! For a week or two, your […]

Writing for the Education and Nonprofit Industries

From a marketing communications perspective, writing for “education” encompasses many types of organizations and businesses. These include K–12 schools, institutions of higher education and other learning organizations; academic, research and development organizations; curriculum developers and publishers; developers of e-learning tools and solutions; as well as nonprofits. Businesses that support charities or engage in community-involvement work […]

Wordsmithie Writes for Industry Specific Audiences

We’ve built the Wordsmithie blog around sharing our ideas for creating effective content that engages audiences and sparks brands. This includes the nuts ‘n’ bolts of good, customer-centric writing and storytelling; how to make the editing, design and production process go smoothly; as well as do’s and don’ts for working with an agency. We’ve reported […]

Copywriting v. Content Marketing : What’s the difference?

Back in 1998, when the Internet was all shiny and new (and referred to with awe as “the information superhighway”), I was hired by a search engine company to write web copy. Our department of brave new online writers was known as “Editorial,” based on the newspaper model. The word “content” hadn’t crept into our […]

5 Must Have Resources for Writers

Wordsmithing is both an art and a craft. Copy that engages audiences is built on the nuts ‘n’ bolts basics of good writing: correct grammar, spelling and punctuation; proper word usage; and consistent style. In our digital age of LOL text-speak and 140-character microblogging, precise writing still matters. Most seasoned writers have at least a […]

How to Write a Tighter First Draft

Writing for a living may sound romantic to those who’ve chosen a different career path. Non-writers think we spend our days drinking coffee (true), banging out quirky prose (maybe), contemplating brilliant ideas (…), all while working in bunny slippers and waiting for magic writing fairies to flitter down and kiss the page (we wish!). But […]