The Importance of Good Website Copy
A professionally designed business website is a powerful and crucial marketing tool. It’s the first thing prospective customers will look at before they decide to contact you. If the copy on your website is not well written, it may be losing you business. It is not sufficient just to have amazing graphics and imagery, you need the right text to make it complete. Is the spelling correct? Are punctuation marks in place? Does the copy make sense? These are questions that website designers should be asking themselves before they publish a new website.
One of the greatest mistakes with website copy is inconsistency. A lack of consistency could deter a significant amount of would-be customers from using the services of a company that has not proofread their website
Poor spelling on a website is another costly but avoidable mistake. The majority of visitors will leave the site very quickly if they find too many spelling errors. This again will give them the impression that the site owners don’t really care. I am also convinced that copy that has been ‘padded out’ with insignificant trivia is also unattractive for visitors. Clear, concise and informative content is recommended.
Anything containing textual content should as a matter of course be proofread. It’s very important that not only are mistakes in spelling, punctuation and grammar found and corrected, but that the text flows smoothly for the reader. The copy on a website should not be treated as the ‘poor relation’ of the website design project. You can have the most cutting-edge, eye-catching graphics available but you will still need well-written copy to compliment them.
There are some web design companies around that will happily inform visitors how they can supply them with a state-of-the-art website but then insert second-rate copy, which totally negates any good work they have achieved. This will reduce the initial impact of the site, and more often than not will have an adverse effect on business. However, there are also website design companies that employ skilled writers so shop around. It pays to have the copy checked professionally, whether the web design company has written it themselves or had it supplied by the client. It may cost a lot less than you think to have a website proofread and it could cost you considerably more if you don’t!
Remember, if visitors to your website cannot find the information they are looking for because of poorly written copy then they will simply leave your site. The only people to benefit will be your competitors.
This entry was posted on Thursday, May 28th, 2009 at 5:00 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.