Seven Lethal Mistakes Know-It-Alls Make to Screw Up Their WebSites

by Tom "Bald Dog" Varjan

Do you know that David "Screaming Lord" Sutch, as leader of the Monster Raving Loony Party, was Britain's longest serving party leader until he hung himself in June 1999? This fact may seem to be as irrelevant to our topic as the sleeping patterns of pregnant skunks to the phase of the moon, but it can be important for you if you consider that so many web site owners are actually hanging themselves on an instalment plan by having sloppy copy on their web sites and repelling visitors by the truckloads.

What's the single most important thing that could improve your web site? It's not broadband. It's not more graphics. It's not a new webmaster.

It's... better writing.

In general, the quality of writing on the Internet ranges somewhere between poor and awful. One reason for this is that some people write like anal retentive English professors, while others who write web copy know no more about writing than a demented bee.

The way you write makes a huge difference in how people perceive you and the stuff you offer on your site.

Lethal Mistake Number 1: Thinking Someone Cares About You, Your Company or Your Products and Services

You cannot sell your merchandise by selling your company. Face the facts. People are looking for benefits for themselves.

"We're celebrating our 10th anniversary!" - A Canadian IT firm is bragging on the opening page of its web site. That is great but in the real world nobody really cares about their celebration. And what was the result? After ten years in business, they are still cold calling to get new business and try to make more money by pushing more billable hours to existing clients.

Then they hired me to fine-tune their marketing copy. So I did. And then the president complained that I hardly mentioned in my copy how hard he had worked over the years to build up his company. When I tried to explain to him that the copy was not about him but about prospects, he ended the project and fired me. Hey, it was presidential ego at stake, and a dirty little consultant told the "almighty" president that he had done something wrong.

Today the company's web site is back to the old copy, and they keep struggling to get new business. Happy 10th anniversary! It may be the last one.

Lethal Mistake Number 2: Just Dribbling On And On

Now there is an argument between long copy and short copy.

Some people say nobody reads long copy however good it is. My contention is that even fewer people read short crap copy.

As a result of learning from such copywriting geniuses as Gary Halbert, Dan Kennedy, David Garfinkel and some others, I have learnt the power of long copy. The longest sales letter I have ever written is 31 pages, and created 17% response rate, in the direct mail world in which the typical response rate is less than 1%, and 2% is called outstanding.

The fact is that when you send out living-breathing salespeople to appointments, would you tell them to start packing after they have uttered 500 words? That is about three minutes?

Have you got even the roughest idea of how many words it takes to close a deal? Maybe you should try recording yourself and then transcribing the sales call. Your copy is your FREE salesperson. Why would you limit the message it can present?

The magic is not in the number of words, but what actually those words say. You will learn in this booklet the sequence of how to write. Make sure you give yourself enough space to build your case.

Lethal Mistake Number 3: You Cannot Spell And Have Crappy Grammar

This is an interesting puppy. If you are smart enough to recognise that spelling is not your strong point and you have substandard grammar, then do not even worry about writing your web copy yourself.

What you can do is create a draft for your pages (any copywriter worth his/her salt must be able to give you a rough template and some basic guidelines for good writing), put in your most important words and then sit down with a copywriter and beautify the copy together. During your collaboration, any good copywriter will also teach you his/her teachable secrets. Well, I certainly include teaching in all of my engagements.

But a large part of copywriting is intuition and imagination, thus cannot be taught. Teaching copywriting that way would be the same as teaching lovemaking in a classroom set-up.

Good web copywriting is pretty difficult. That is, the easier something to read, the harder it was to write. Good writing requires lots of skill and experience. Since, due to my Cambridge education, I speak "Queen's English", (for me recognize is recognise, color is colour, a washroom is a toilet, a loo or even a bog, a program is a programme, the hood of a car is the bonnet and a cigarette is a fag, naturally I write in British English. That is for myself. For clients I write the way they want me to write.

So, from a North American perspective my writing is riddled with typos and grammatical errors, but through my Queen's English perspective, it is just fine.

This is one of the reasons why I do all of my work in close collaboration with the client's people. Also, they know the "allowable" jargon of the industry. Together we create a mastermind group and work as a team. Do you know that two people working together can be as much as 28 times more creative then either of them separately? This is why I choose the team approach. My objective is not to collect glory for my writing (I get my glory through skydiving), but to help my clients to get the maximum return on their investment.

Lethal Mistake Number 4: Writing For Printed Copy

There is a huge earth-shattering difference here. Printed copy is written with the intent to sell. You cannot do that with web copy. Nobody wakes up in the morning saying, "Holy sausage, let's spend a few hundred dollars on the web today."

The web is a research and information-gathering area. People visit web sites with the intention to research something. Also, people are used to the idea that everything is free on the web.

On the web you also have two readers who read drastically differently: One is the search engines and the other is the humans who read your site. In a way you have to create a message that satisfies two totally different audiences.

Imagine you are the speaker at a health-related event. You have a mixed audience. In the same speech, you are talking about breast cancer for the women, and about prostate cancer for the men. Do you think you can pull it off, so both audiences can enjoy your presentation? Maybe you can, but you will sweat bullets in the process. Remember, printed copy is a brochure. Web copy is an information source.

Lethal Mistake Number 5: Not Knowing How to Write Headlines

Then find someone who can. The headline alone can make as much as 2,100% difference to your response rate, so it is a pretty good idea to invest in a good headline. Keep it as short, clear and descriptive as possible. Never mind about being clever or cute. Also make sure that your headlines contain your site's most important keywords.

Lethal Mistake Number 6: Ignoring Copy And Content Altogether

This is what so many, well most, websites suffer from. They regard copy (the words that sell) and content (the words that inform and educate) as some kind of filler material on fancy designs. Most so-called webdesigners have no more idea about the importance of copy and content than a brain-damaged Billy goat.

You have probably come across many one-page web sites, where the whole site is one single sales letter. No pictures, no JavaScript, no Flash stuff, just pure, unadulterated shit-hot sales copy. And guess what? Those sites sell like crazy. So, how come designers don't use it? Well, if all you have is a hammer, then everything looks like a nail.

Lethal Mistake Number 7: Doing It for Yourself

This is a biggie. According to the Outsourcing Institute, companies that do non-core activities lose 38 cents on every single dollar they earn. That is the price of doing things incompetently.

Can you imagine brain surgeons writing copy for their own websites to save some money? Over the years I have written copy for dozens of health and medical professionals, but I am yet to meet such bonehead surgeons.

They are busy doing what they are good at, and in the process they earn enough money to hire great designers and copywriters to design and write for them.

In Summary

Content matters. Great content makes your organisation look great. It sells more of your stuff, you will have happier clients and your brand will be enhanced.

Remember, just as bad business is worse than no business, crappy content is worse than no content at all. Amateur content will make your firm be perceived as a bunch of third-rate punks. Web sites should be managed by marketing people not by designers or programmers.

And remember! Don't sell harder. Market smarter. Both you, your employees, your clients and prospects will find it more enjoyable, profitable and attractive.

FREE Strategic Guide To Online Business Development...

Subscribe to my free B2B business development e-zine, and also receive a free copy of my...

Follow this link to request your copy of my FREE Executive's Guide to B2B Online Business Development.