Enthusiasm is wonderful, if it’s sincere. Faking it — on or off the Web — comes across loud and clear.

In decades past, sales teams started off each week with pep meetings to stir up excitement. The overly-inspired salesman then jumped from door to door, entertaining his prospects as he pushed his goods.

Under the influence of artificial enthusiasm, he was a fast talker and wouldn’t take no for an answer. Prospects eventually resented the high-pressure pitches.

Today, those tactics aren’t tolerated for even a second. And that’s about how long it takes for an online visitor to click the back button.

People are sick of spam, and “We’re the best in the business!!!!!” reeks of rubbish. You’re stating: “We’ve got nothing to say, so we’re going to compensate our shortcoming with hype.”

Genuine enthusiasm is powerful. It’s contagious. But if you fake it, you will be called on it. And fast.

The Web can be a cold place. Web types dissect a myriad of stats: visits, page views, bounce rates. These are important and valuable tools, but one must not forget a customer is not a cold statistic.

People have feelings and emotions, which will sway them toward your business – or away from it.

Every online visitor brings you his wants. If you take the time to know him and understand his needs, you can provide web content that will engage him, alleviate his concerns and doubts, and entice him to do business with you.

Treating people like stats, on or off the Web, is an attitude that inflicts insult and may not be forgiven. Treat each prospect as a VIP. Show them respect.

Does your web content truly focus on your clients, or is it ‘all about you’?

Webcopyplus recently consulted a couple of IT firms. Business owners who are tech-savvy tend to feel most comfortable explaining the solutions they sell in a rational, linear and feature-centric manner.

IT businesses, or any businesses for that matter, need to take a step back and view their web content from their customers’ perspective.

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Using the right words in your web content can make a powerful first and lasting impression.

Making a mark is especially important on the Internet, where your website is up against more than 100 million other eager competitors.

These few fundamentals can help grab your visitors and persuade them to take a desired action.

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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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