Do you read the copy on your own website?
Unless YOU posted it and reviewed it carefully after it was live, you really should take time to read it.
This week I've been doing "rehab" work on a real estate website. It's obvious from the tone that several different writers have contributed to it - and that some of them didn't go back to read what they wrote.
Along with rambling paragraphs and FAQ answers that don't relate to the questions, I'm finding the same kind of goofy things that happen when we're in a hurry to write a blog post or comment. You know - missing words, run-together words, words with spaces in the middle of them, or thing slike this.
I've also found whole sentences and paragraphs repeated - must have been errors in cutting and pasting.
And I'm at fault here too. I wrote some of those pages a year or so ago, but didn't go see what happened to them after I turned them in to the site owner.
I have to assume that after his "web guys" posted the copy, they didn't look at it.
It really looks dumb when a headline or sub-head gets tacked on to the beginning of a paragraph without even a period to separate it from the first sentence. It pretty much messes up the message, too.
It's also interesting that a few pages he hired me to write many, many months ago are simply not there. I guess those web guys didn't quite get around to it.
Something similar happened last summer. One day I decided to go to his site and check out the blog - and I found that more than a dozen blog articles he had paid me to write had never been posted. Luckily, we still had them and could correct that.
We all want to trust the people we hire, but we need to follow Ronald Reagan's advice: "Trust, but verify."
The site owner didn't know that his pages were riddled with errors or that some of the copy was missing because he trusted that the people handling his website would do the job they were hired to do. He didn't check to see that it was done, or that it was done correctly.
This time - because I twisted his arm - I'm doing the re-posting for him as each page is corrected. So if the copy is garbled or if the links don't work or they go to the wrong pages, I'll be the one to blame. (I'd better be careful!)
It's SO easy to make mistakes. Just today I accidentally entered a link that said: "http://www..." Funny thing how that link didn't quite go anywhere!
"Should" is a good word, but...
It's fine to say that we all should have enough pride in ourselves and our work to see that it's done right. But the fact is, not everyone does. And when it's your site and it's wrong, it's you that looks bad.
Proofread. Then proofread again.
Whether you write your own copy or hire a copywriter, and whether you post the copy yourself or hire someone to do it for you, always proofread one more time after it's live. Things happen, and its best to catch and correct mistakes before your site visitors see them.
Know how to correct your own website.
A lot of people simply aren't "techie." I'm one of them. But some things are pretty simple to learn, and everyone who owns a website should take the time and make the effort to learn how to upload changes and corrections to their own web pages. (If I can do it, anyone can do it.)
Otherwise, you can find yourself at the mercy of people who don't really care about the outcome - and who will do what you need done "when they get around to it."
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