Clever entrepreneur and author Seth Godin posted an interesting piece on editors today. His point: the easy route for editors is the safe route, which avoids trouble – but also eliminates success.

“Sometimes, a great editor will push the remarkable stuff,” stated Godin. “That’s his job.”

I wholeheartedly agree editors often take the trouble-free route, which can result in lame material. However, it’s often not the choice of editors, but rather the suffocating layers of policies and bureaucracy enforced by the poor soul’s boss, department or company. Editors are, frankly, politicized and homogenized into submission.

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Poorly structured web content is misleading and wastes millions of hours daily. For today’s 1.2 billion Internet users, that translates to frustration. For business, it means missed opportunities.

Is your website optimized for visitors? If your site contains complicated navigation, confusing classifications, self-centric web copy, outdated information and counter-intuitive designs, probably not.

It’s All About the Customer

What you want to say is not important; it’s all about what the customer wants to do. What is he or she striving to attain or achieve? That defines a task. It might be to find a real estate agent, book a hotel room or purchase software.

If the task is completed on your website, your visitor wins — and so do you.

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Webcopyplus recently conducted a web poll that asked 215 website owners: Who typically writes your web copy?

The results:

1. I do it myself 74.9% (161)
2. Web designer 12.1% (26)
3. Staff 7% (15)
4. Copywriter 6% (13)

These numbers reveal why the majority of web content is so hyped up, convoluted and difficult to digest.

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Many valuable writing resources are out there, including The Elements of Style by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White.

While revisiting this classic, which was originally published in 1918, I was amused by the manner in which writers are encouraged to revise and rewrite their prose:

“Quite often the writer will discover, on examining the completed work, that there are serious flaws in the arrangement of material, calling for transpositions. When this is the case, he can save himself much labor and time by using by using scissors on his manuscript, cutting it to pieces and fitting the pieces together in a better order.”

It makes one appreciate the convenient tools of today: ergonomic keyboards; large, adjustable monitors; fast and friendly document software; spell check; cut and paste features; and so much more.

The concept of a typewriter dates back to 1714, with the first practical one launched by Remington Arms in 1873. While some writers stick to their traditional equipment – such as novelist Danielle Steele, who devotedly uses a 1946 Olympian – fewer and fewer young adults in today’s workforce have come in contact with these trusty machines. May they rest in peace.

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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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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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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I enjoyed this worthy article by essayist and programmer Paul Graham: The 18 mistakes that kill start-ups. Anyone planning to launch or grow a business should read it, and then print a copy for reference.

My only comment would be to expand item #12 to read: Spending too much or too little. Business owners can often gain ground by focusing on what they’re good at, and delegating the rest.

Not too long ago, Webcopyplus interviewed business expert Mark Wardell to discuss this exact topic. In the article Delegate or die: 6 steps to business growth, Wardell explains many entrepreneurs don’t employ this vital tactic because they fail to place value on their time.

Site after site, poor web copywriting continues to obstruct user experience. The problem is most businesses and organizations tend to treat copywriting as an afterthought.

While reading a newsletter posted by Icograda, I was directed to a poll with the following copy:

Current Opinion

State your opinion. Share your views. Vote on the weekly Opinion poll. Then view the collective results. Just click the check box beside your selection, then click on the “Vote” button.

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