A professionally designed business website is a strong and important marketing tool. It’s the first thing potential customers will look at before they decide to contact you. If the copy on your website is not well written, it may be losing you customers. It is not enough just to have amazing graphics and imagery, you need the right text to make it complete. Is the spelling correct? Are punctuation marks accurate? Does the copy make sense? These are questions that website designers should be asking themselves before they publish a new website.

One of the biggest flaws with website copy is inconsistency. A lack of consistency could put off a large proportion of potential customers from hiring the services of a company that has not proofread their website.

Poor spelling on a website is another costly but avoidable mistake. most visitors will leave the site very quickly if they discover too many spelling errors. This again will give them the impression that the site owners don’t really care. I am also certain that copy that has been ‘padded out’ with insignificant trivia is also unattractive for visitors. Lucid, concise and informative content is recommended.

Anything containing textual content must as a matter of course be proofread. It’s important that not only are mistakes in spelling, punctuation and grammar found and corrected, but that the text flows smoothly for the reader. The copy on a website should not be viewed as the ‘poor relation’ of the website design project. You can have the most cutting-edge, eye-catching graphics available but you will still need well-written copy to compliment them.

There are some web design businesses around that will happily tell visitors how they can supply them with a state-of-the-art website but then use second-rate copy, which totally negates any good work they have achieved. This will reduce the initial impact of the site, and more often than not will have an adverse effect on business. However, there are also website design companies that use skilled writers so shop around. It pays to have the copy checked professionally, whether the web design company has written it themselves or had it supplied by the client. It may cost much less than you realise to have a website proofread and it could cost you much more if you don’t!

Remember, if people visiting your website cannot find the information they are looking for because of poorly written copy then they will quickly leave your site. The only ones to benefit will be your competitors.

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