A professionally presented business website is a powerful and essential marketing tool: it’s the initial thing potential customers will see before they decide if they will contact you. If the ad copy on your website is not written in a manner that is acceptable and professional, it might cause you to lose your potential customers. It’s not sufficient to only have amazing imagery and graphics: you need the words to make it complete. Are you using correct spelling? Are placing the punctuation marks in the right place? What about the ad copy? Does it make sense to the average reader? These are questions that website designers should ask themselves before they upload a new site.
Inconsistency is one of the biggest issues with website copy. For example, some sites spell the word ‘website’ as one work while others use two words. Even though both are widely accepted ways to spell website, both versions of the spelling should not occur on the same site. This shows a lack of consistency which has the potential to deter a significant number of potential customers from working with a company that hasn’t even taken the time to proofread their site.
Having poor spelling on a website is another costly but preventable error
Most of the site visitors are likely to leave quickly if they determine that there are too many spelling errors. This again will create the impression that the website owners don’t really care; and that assessment would be correct! It is also important to mention that concise, clear information is much more effective than ad copy that is padded with insignificant trivia which can be a major turnoff for website visitors.
Get into the habit of proofreading contextual content on a regular basis. You want to ensure that the text flows seamlessly for the reader by eliminating punctuation, spelling and grammatical errors. The copy on a website should not be treated as the ‘poor relation’ of the project. Even if you have the most updated, eye-catching graphics on your site, well-written ad copy is still required to compliment the graphics to achieve the best results from your website.
Some web design companies still have the misguided approach of promoting their state-of-the-art websites that is visually appealing but have subpar ad copy. This is in complete conflict with any good work that was achieved in terms of design. Not only does this minimize the visitors’ initial impressions of the site, but it has the tendency to have an adverse impact on business.
It is highly recommended for you to get the ad copy reviewed by a professional regardless of whether it was written by the client or the website design company. You might even be surprised to discover how inexpensive it is to have the website proofread. Remember, you have a lot more to lose if you don’t have a professionally presented business website!
