You only get once chance to make a first impression. This is true
with all things in life, and it is true for an online business.
The reason why your first impression on the Internet is so very
important is because most visitors and potential customers will
only give your website a 15 second overview, before deciding
whether to stay or to move one. Your homepage is how you get your
foot in the door with surfers. If your homepage has a poor
appearance or is not user friendly, your visitor will likely move
on to one of your competitors.
You have seen poorly designed websites and homepages. They are
the ones with the annoying pop ups that you cannot get away from,
the ones that make it difficult to find vital information that
you are looking for, and the ones that are fraught with
grammatical and spelling errors. I recently saw a website that
had a side scroll window that I could not close. The worst thing
about it was that the window overlapped the text on the homepage
that I was trying to read. It cut off the first few letters of
each sentence. This may not have been so bad if I was able to
close the scrolling window, but I could not.
I have also seen websites that make it so difficult to find
prices, membership information, contact information, and so
forth, so much so that I simply gave up and went to a different
site. I left the poorly designed site and went to a competitor’s
website, even though I liked the first website’s product the
best.
Perhaps it is because of my line of work, but nothing stands out
to me more than poorly written content. Whether it is grammatical
errors or spelling errors, I cannot help but focus on them. When
I see a website where multiple words are misspelled, I usually
leave, because poor grammar and spelling gives me the impression
that the Webmaster does not care enough about his website to
proofread it. In my mind, I cannot help but think that if the
Webmaster doesn’t proofread the content, he or she will probably
not be very detail oriented when it comes to meeting my customer
needs. Remember that you only get one chance to make that first
impression with potential customers and to get those customers to
bookmark your website.
Now, before you start thinking that I am the spelling police of
the Internet, I completely understand how easy it is to make
minor errors. However, this is your business, and ultimately your
homepage is your best advertisement to potential customers. In
this regard, there is no room for errors. You need to make your
homepage as customer friendly and professional as possible. With
so many competitors on the Internet fighting for customers, you
need to exercise control over the areas that you can control.
Correct spelling and good grammar is perhaps one of the simplest
things that you can control, when you are trying to create a
professional image with your potential customers.
Not everyone feels comfortable with his or her writing skills.
Others simply do not have the time or desire to write their
website content or free reprint articles. Luckily, there are many
writers who are eager to write your content for you. Many of
these writers have years of experience and have written many
articles, sales pages, and other types of content.
Employing a writer who can provide you with quality, well-written
articles is especially important for those who use English as a
second language. I have read and edited articles written by
people whose first language was not English, and there have been
many spelling and grammatical errors. Even those who reside in
the United Kingdom or Australia may want to consider to whom they
are marketing. If you are marketing to an American audience, then
a U.K. Webmaster may want to seek out an American writer, since
there are many minor differences in the dialect. This is also
true for Australian webmasters.
The worst foreign language offenders are those who rely on
automated translation programs. If, for example, a Webmaster
writes an article or site content in German and uses automated
translation software, the words will be translated, but the
readability of the copy will be lost. I once edited articles for
a person, whose first language was not English, and he had used
one of these automated software translation programs. Even I had
a difficult time understanding what some of the sentences were
trying to say. If you need assistance translating business
documents, articles or sales copy from one language to another,
may we recommend: http://linkexchange.etranslate.com/
The bottom line is that you want to turn your website visitors
into customers. To do this, you need to make a good first
impression. It is difficult to know what exact marketing
technique will attract customers to your website. But, it is easy
to make sure that your website is easy-to-navigate, easy-to-read,
and most importantly, that it has a professional appearance. If
your text is misspelled and poorly written, many customers will
turn away from your site, and they will look for another website
whose webmaster took the time to ensure a professional appearance
for his or her website.
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