A professionally designed business website is a strong and essential marketing tool. It’s the first thing potential customers will look at before they decide to contact you. If the copy on your website is not written to an acceptable standard, it may be costing 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 flaws with website copy is inconsistency. A lack of consistency could put off a significant amount of would-be clients 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 see too many spelling errors. This again will give them the impression that the site owners don’t really care. I am also certain that copy that has been ‘padded out’ with insignificant trivia is also a big turn-off for visitors. Clear, concise and informative content is the way to go.
Anything containing textual content must always be proofread. It’s important that not only are errors 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 contemporary, eye-catching graphics available but you will still require well-written copy to compliment them.
There are some web design firms around that will happily tell 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 realise to have a website proofread and it could cost you much more if you don’t!
Remember, if people visiting your website cannot find the information they are looking for because of badly written copy then they will quickly leave your site. The only people to benefit will be your competitors.
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