When writing for the web every word counts. We scan pages, instructions, and emails, sometimes skipping reading completely. So it's key to make sure that every word is doing a job. Over the years I find there are words that I routinely trim from web copy to save space and keep focus while preserving intent. While context always matters and these can't be cut everywhere, here are a handy few that regularly get the cut from web copy:

Obviously, clearly, of course and the like — if it's obvious then don't write it, if it's not, then it's not relevant. If it's obvious to you and not to me then no need to make me feel stupid reading it

Note, please note, note that, notice — we're noting it by writing it so trim the noise by leaving out reminders for readers to note things. If you really want someone to notice you can use the extra space from removing it by making it bigger or bolder

That — can often be trimmed without changing the meaning of a sentence

Exact — very often makes no difference to a sentence

Famous — if it's famous then maybe I've heard of it. If I haven't, then perhaps it's not so famous

Current — if someone asks for my age or job then it's normal to assume they're not asking for what it used to be

Successfully — it's always nice to trim a long word that doesn't add a lot

Have — like 'that', it can often be removed without changing the meaning of a sentence

All, total — when I take these out I often find it's the default assumption anyway

Interestingly, surprisingly and the like — it may be interesting or surprising to you, but I think it's polite, and briefer, to let the reader decide if it's interesting or surprising for them

If you're writing for the web, try removing some and see if it still works.

Micro-editing redundant words

Lagging metrics are usually the ones we care about most. In business, they're things like revenue, sales, or profit. The trouble is, we can't act always act on those directly. By the time we assess our revenue everything we did to get there has already happened, so if we don't like it, it's too late.

Leading metrics are what we need to focus on to drive the lagging metrics. If we want to lose weight we might be better off focusing on eating less and eating healthier, working out more, and sticking to our workout schedule. To increase our revenue we may want to look at deal size, ease of sign-up, or our referral rate.

Paying attention to and improving the leading metrics gives us leverage over the lagging metrics we may really care about.

Leading and lagging metrics

There's a lot of wisdom in this thought from Joseph Campbell: The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.

After all, if it was the easy path, if it wasn't the place we hadn't yet looked because we were afraid, we would have already done it. Perhaps tackling what you're avoiding most is what you most need to do.