The content you post on your website delivers certain messages to consumers — both consciously and subconsciously.

The difference between “inexpensive” and “cheap,” or “pre-owned” and “used” is massive.

Along the same lines, consider a restaurant menu that has a burger for $10.99 or $11. You’ll find the $10.99 at a greasy spoon that’s positioning itself on giving a “steal of a deal.”

Up it a penny, as you might find at a quaint bar in a trendy part of town, and that business is striving to convey value through a more refined, upper-class experience. Status comes into play.

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Your web copywriting doesn’t describe reality, it creates it.

In fact, every word you feature on your website has the ability to build — or damage — how prospects perceive you. What you say and how you write it directly impacts whether an online visitor:

• Sees value in your product or service
• Trusts your business
• Decides to invest in your offerings

Untapped Opportunities on the Web

While many business owners are beginning to understand information is the currency of the Internet, few act on it. This is despite the fact that the Web allows smaller businesses to go toe-to-toe with larger, more established companies.

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How you present yourself on your website can make, maim or kill your business. But before you can even consider placing a word on your website, you need to establish a brand strategy.

Good to Great’s best-selling author Jim Collins calls this the Hedgehog concept (based on the philosophy great companies know one big thing). He insists you need to grasp three intersecting elements:

1. What you can be the best in the world at

2. What drives your economic engine

3. What you are deeply passionate about

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Have you ventured ‘outside the box’ today?

Many businesses claim they’re innovative when it comes to the Internet, but few seem to demonstrate it.

Most stay on the cushy path, eagerly following cyber herds with the tried-and-true. “Why take a chance?” After all, going outside the box can be downright scary.

One group that relentlessly ventures into the unknown is “an ideas studio” named Burnkit, which is made up of 14 “thinkers” in Vancouver, BC.

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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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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.

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.

Robert Kiyosaki’s ‘Before you quit your job’ takes you up several hundred feet to get an unobstructed perspective on what separates employees (who seek security) and entrepreneurs (who seek freedom). Moreover, the Rich Dad book reveals everything from how to deal with mental roadblocks to how to position yourself in your chosen industry.

Regardless where you’re at with your entrepreneurial endeavors, this book is worth picking up. While it sometimes overlaps Kiyosaki’s original ‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’ book, it contains several valuable gems.

During a coffee break at a Small Business BC web writing course I was delivering this week, an entrepreneur approached me for some advice specific to his business. After discussing a couple of solutions, he sighed and said, “things take forever to set up on the Internet.”

I grinned. Just a few short decades ago, business ventures required products to be built by hand, marketing opportunities were limited and distribution could involve railroads and steamships. Such vast operations would call for huge sums of manpower and money.

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