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8 Reasons to Clean Up Your Online Copy
By Paul Richlovsky | February 19, 2008
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The number 8 holds a special place in the Chinese mind because it is perceived to be the luckiest number in the world. In honor of Chinese New Year (02/07/08), I’ve chosen to be a linguistic Red Guard and publicly denounce a handful of writing trends. I do this to help you present your published writing—and by extension your business or brand—in the best possible light. As a writer (and former full-time English teacher) working for a leading Internet marketing firm, I understand how misused language can not only deter your site from ranking well, but how it also can just look bad. Having spent most of my time at Fathom editing the written word online, I feel I have a certain authority and knowledge of this messy state of the language. Protect your image by cleaning up these errors, or by avoiding them in the first place.
8. Hyphens in Phrasal Verbs
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Wrong! Please keep those hyphens in check. It’s great that people try to use hyphens,
Are you wearing that get-up to the Chinese New Year parade?
The same goes for set-up. When you IM your colleague for help, you should write
Comrade, could you help me set up the company pot luck?
7. Loose vs. Lose: What a Difference an “O” Makes
This one constantly makes me want to put my fist through my computer’s LCD monitor. First-grade phonics can guide us here. Loose rhymes with goose: the two o’s together should leave no doubt in our minds. By contrast, lose assimilates the “z” sound and rhymes with shoes. When we were 7, the vast majority of us had no problem with this. What happened? Did everyone get loosey-goosey with basic spelling?
6. An Atrocity of Apostrophes
It’s simple. Lose the apostrophe when you’re illustrating possession with the prounoun it. Use it for any other type of possession, like “Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood,” and keep it when you’re contracting noun-verb pairs like the one in this sentence and the previous two. If you’re not sure, ask the simple question: Is this phrase a contraction? If the answer is yes, using the apostrophe is permitted except when using it to show possession (skip ahead one sentence for example). That apostrophe can be one sneaky mark. Its misplaced identity turns it into the Jason Bourne of punctuation.
5. Capitalization Gone Wild
If you make every Important Word capitalized, you reduce the relative importance of words that should always be capitalized, like proper names of places and people. Too often in Sales Copy, I see people go Overboard by dropping Capitals like Fireworks on Chinese New Year. At best it makes you look like you’re trying too hard, and at worst it makes your writing look Ridiculous, just like rampant UPPERCASE and exclamation points!!!!! The easiest rule of thumb here is:
If it’s a common noun, don’t capitalize it unless you have a really, really good reason.
On that note, Internet is listed in dictionaries as a proper noun, and even I myself am guilty of not capitalizing it on occasion. But to quote Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson’s character) in Pulp Fiction, “I’m tryin’ real hard to be the shepherd.” Er, to remember to capitalize “Internet.”
4. Lonely Adjective Strings
Like Chinese red lanterns joined together on a rope, whenever there are two or more consecutive adjectives or nouns (or entire phrases) in front of a noun or noun phrase, usually a hyphen is required to connect the words that modify or describe the noun:
Our website provides a no-hassle way for you to pay by accepting all major credit cards as well as credit cards not yet in existence.
John’s super-extra-crispy rat tails were loved by all at the Year-of-the-Rat party.
3. Non-hyphenated Adjective Phrases
Thanks to my colleague and fellow writer Jen Callahan for recommending this one, the previous Internet and #2. In contrast to #4, a less common error is using hyphens with adjective phrases when there shouldn’t be any. Could this be overcompensating? When the adjective phrase starts with an “-ly” adverb, no hyphen should be used:
If Mao Zedong replaced The Little Red Book with a newly created website for today’s world, he would certainly proofread his copy with a fine-tooth comb.
2. Unchecked Regret
At least 50% of the errors I encounter on a daily basis are typos. Taking one extra minute to run a spell-check is worth the potential embarrassment you save by not putting out content littered with garbage. It’s been said so many times before, but it bears repeating: Check your work at least one time.
1. Image is Everything
While hawking Canon cameras, tennis great Andre Agassi once emphasized those three words in a famous commercial. Is your image being ruined by clumsy copy? That simple statement constitutes the #1 reason to clean up your content. Remember that some people’s first impression of your business will be what they see on the home page of your website. Join the revolution and clean up your copy today! Your image may depend on it.
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February 19th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Nicely-done Blog postt, sir!!!
February 19th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
I appreciate the humor.
February 19th, 2008 at 4:07 pm
Great tips. I’d also recommend paying attention to homonyms such as their, they’re and there. All three sound the same, but have very different meanings.
February 19th, 2008 at 5:50 pm
I would definitely agree that using proper English makes your site look more professional.
That being said, how do you feel about websites using common mis-spellings (is the hyphen unnecessary?) for their own SEO benefit?
It seems to me that if the majority of the public doesn’t notice correct grammar, using incorrect grammar might give you a competitive edge in SEO.
February 21st, 2008 at 10:21 am
Great post Paul! Art makes a great point about gaining a competitive advantage if the public searches for incorrect spellings. Also, for words that are commonly mis-spelled, it may be a good idea to optimize your site for both words, the correct and the incorrect version.
February 22nd, 2008 at 3:49 pm
To answer your first question, Art, the hyphen is not necessary, though it seems fashionable these days to use it for emphasis, as you might pronounce a negative prefix with extra force. On the second point brought up by Ian and yourself, I’m aware that traffic could be gained by alternate spellings or punctuation. I think optimization for errors needs to be looked at case-by-case, although as a writer and image-conscious individual, I generally frown upon adding obvious visible writing errors to your site. You’ve got to ask the question, is the extra traffic I’m getting worth whatever potentially embarrassing alterations I’m making?
February 23rd, 2008 at 11:00 am
One client spells a product two ways on two pages - swing sets and swingsets.
I think that’s a good strategy - separate pages for this approach. Poor grammar can be excused if it’s a rarity. If it’s reguarly sloppy, a visitor may question the integrity of the product or service - perhaps in subtle ways. You may never know the impact or the lost opportunity.
February 25th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Thanks, Paul for these great tips. I know I will try to fallow them.
February 25th, 2008 at 5:45 pm
You’re welcome, Colleen. And I hope you don’t leave your language unplanted after plowing it.
February 29th, 2008 at 10:12 am
I think using proper english on a site is one of the most importamt things to do. Using improper english will make the site look sloppy and like the person or company just doesn’t care.
July 9th, 2008 at 8:37 am
[...] Elementary school teachers of English everywhere should rejoice. Now if only something could be done about loose vs. lose and its vs. it’s. [...]