I just finished editing a media advisory for an IT firm, and had to strike out a few lines of hyped-up, unsubstantiated statements followed by exclamation marks.

The U.S.-based company is reputable and there was no intention to mislead. The in-house marketing team simply meant to create excitement within the industry.

The problem is when you overstate, online visitors instantly become wary of your web copy. That doesn’t do you any favours when you consider most people are already suspect about the Internet.

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Traditional media can’t simply emulate their products onscreen.

That reflects the message put forth by Times Online editor Anne Spackman at a Society of Editors conference in Manchester this month.

“Digital evolves extremely fast, it wasn’t that long ago that our websites represented our newspapers on the computer screen,” said Spackman, who was appointed to her position last year and has expedited Times Online’s integration of print and website operations.

In fact, she likened the current pace of change to the Wild West. Indeed, given the fact that newspapers compete with thousands of websites around the globe, they need to progress with the rapidly evolving digital world.

The pressure is intensified by the content-driven nature of Web 2.0, which creates armies of public reporters. To stay relevant, major media groups need to deliver quality news that’s accurate, objective and up to date — and fully embrace the power of the Web.

Otherwise this new wave of “citizen journalists” will make today’s media giants obsolete.

The Globe and Mail’s Small Business Report recently featured an article on Webcopyplus, which discusses how we take an active approach to networking and resource sharing.

One of the many benefits Webcopyplus provides clients is direct access to an extensive network of talented and dependable web types. Ironically, the article prompted several new potential partners to reach out, possibly expanding our already broad range of contacts.

That’s valuable for clients, plus it helps our business. As the article mentioned, it’s unrealistic to stay on top of every emerging Internet and software technology. Hence, we lean on various web experts when called for and they call on us when the issues surround web copy.

Special thanks to Business consultant Mark Wardell and the Globe.

When considering the best font for your website, look at the two most common options:

• Serif – they have cross-lines at the tips of each letter.
• Sans serif — no lines, they’re plain.

While studies show people read serif text faster in print, people actually read sans serif quicker onscreen.

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What you write is what you are, especially on the Web.

Yet many business owners only relate their online brands to logos and design, discounting the power of the written word.

Your business communicates its brand with every word you use on your website. Through language, we conceive a personality, set a tone and create expectations — for better or worse.

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Internet users who don’t speak languages that are written using the Roman alphabet can now test web addresses in their native language.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers — which is responsible for the global coordination of the Internet’s system of unique identifiers, such as domain names — has created a test that allows users to visit web pages with URLs in 11 additional languages.

“This is one of the most exciting times yet in the development of IDNs,” said Dr. Paul Twomey, ICANN’s President and CEO. “Internet users who speak the 11 languages of the test can play a key role in testing how IDNs operate, and help us move toward full implementation for all the languages of the world.”

Internet users around the globe can now access wiki pages with the domain name example.test in the 11 test languages — Arabic, Persian, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Russian, Hindi, Greek, Korean, Yiddish, Japanese and Tamil. The wikis will allow Internet users to establish their own subpages with their own names in their own language — one suggestion is: example.test/yourname.

The wiki pages can be accessed by typing example.test in the characters of one of the 11 languages, or by going to http://idn.icann.org.

“These wikipages are key to the test. We want to know how the URL displays in the Internet browser, if it works when you cut and paste it into the body of an email to a friend, and how all of this impacts the root zone,” Dr. Twomey added.

The 11 evaluation wikis will remain online until IDNs are fully implemented and the first top-level domain is introduced in the evaluation language.

The full introduction of IDNs will mean that people can write the whole of a domain name in the characters used to write their own language. Presently you can only use these characters before the dot, so .com, .net, .org and the like can only be written in characters from basic Latin. IDNs will change this so literally tens of thousands of characters will be available to the world.

Good business web writers write for the market, not for themselves.

That’s the point I tried to get across to a former colleague, who has a long history of reporting for various publications. He took exception to my most recent blog entry about ‘plain talk’, in which I stated, it’s important for web writers to put the flowery terms and egos away, and genuinely cater to websites’ audiences.

“Why dummy down my copywriting and limit my prose for others?” was the point he repeatedly made. To churn out his best work, he insisted, he must write for himself.

I respect his points, but speaking specifically about web writing for business, I don’t agree with his approach.

When you’re writing web copy for business, you are assembling the right words and messages to:

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Raising children helps hone your web writing skills.

They curiously ask questions and hang on your every word, forcing ‘plain talk’ in the simplest form.

While website content shouldn’t necessarily cater to toddlers, simple language does go a long way to promote readability and usability. In fact, when you’re writing for the Web, your language should generally hover within grade eight to 10 levels. But that can be difficult to achieve.

Kids naturally help refine communication skills. My son, who just turned three, asked me several questions today, including: what’s a hole? It took me a couple of tries to find the right words to give him clear answer. My initial response — “an opening” — just didn’t cut it as young children communicate in concrete or literal terms.

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For any business — online or not — the odds are stacked against success. In fact, sources indicate as many as nine out of 10 businesses fail within five years.

Having the fortune to work with a host of successful businesses — from independent designers to global service providers — you start to recognize winning characteristics.

But what are the treacherous traits that are responsible for the demise of most businesses? Based on an accumulation of notes over the years, following are answers by some of the most renowned business experts of our times.

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Entrepreneur.com has teamed up with Microsoft Office Live to publish the eBook “I Hate My Website!: 10 Easy Ways to Improve Your Website Plus 9 Disastrous Moves to Avoid.”

Here are the highlights:

• Have a basic plan. Before starting a Website, ask yourself these key questions: Who are my customers? What are they looking for? What are my competitors doing? What do I want to get out of this Web site?
• Keep it simple. Do not cram your Web site with features and information that may make it slow to load and difficult to read. If users cannot easily find what they are looking for, they will look elsewhere. Users will appreciate a fast-loading, informative and easy-to-use site.
• Pay attention to content. A Web site is one of the best ways for businesses to highlight themselves without any marketplace interference. While you can be creative with your Web site, make sure it includes some basic information such as About Us, Contact Us, Testimonials, News/Announcements and Media Coverage. These sections are your chance to promote your business’ strengths, core competencies and differentiating factors from the competition.
• Update frequently. Nobody likes going to a Website that has months-old information. If content is not updated, why would customers want to return? New content is easy to create through formats such as blogs, surveys and polls, and newsletters.
• Pay attention to the users. Tracking customers might seem difficult, but it is actually fairly easy. All Web-hosting companies should be able to provide free reports about site traffic. This data can show important trends, such as where site visitors are coming from, how long they stay on the site, and what your site’s most popular pages are. This information can then inform future revisions to your site.
• Attract users. Most search engines easily allow you to submit a Web site to their database so that the site will appear in search results. Look for the “Add URL” or “Submit your site” buttons. To make sure the site does not appear at the bottom of the results, focus on including as many relevant keywords and links as possible into the content of the site.