Your Web site may look "mahvelous," but does it read well?

Would you slip someone your business card if it had a coffee stain on it? Would you show up at an important meeting wearing a wrinkled suit? You wouldn't dream of delivering a critical sales presentation without polishing it until it was perfect, would you?

My guess is that you answered, "No," "No" and "Heck no!" or something like that to the above questions. After all, appearances and effective communication count in business, you might add. I agree. That's why I'm stumped that so many businesses and organizations spend thousands of dollars on Web sites that are flashy and easily navigable, yet are marred by errors in grammar, usage, punctuation and even spelling. Flaws in syntax and sentence structure abound as well. Rarely do I find a site without some of these problems.

"You look mahvelous!" Billy Crystal liked to say in his old SNL act. Your Web site may look marvelous, too. But having it read poorly is akin to having a showy storefront that masks a cock-roach infested interior. The exterior may draw customers in, but what they find inside will send them fleeing.

Typically, what many companies do is hire folks with the technical savvy to construct a slick-looking site. Many meetings, demonstrations and tweaks later, all the bells and whistles are in place. As for writing the copy, that job is typically shoved off onto whoever has time to do it. Unfortunately, that may be someone who can write a decent business letter but who finds him or herself overwhelmed by a much more complex and demanding writing task. Maybe the assigned person simply doesn't have the time to devote to the project. Either way, errors slip in and are seen by the thousands of people who try to read the site and come away thinking, "If these people can't put up a readable Web site, how can I trust them with my important project?"

My advice: Put the same effort into ensuring the written content of your Web site is solid as you put into making the visual content shine. If you don't have someone on staff who's a writing expert, find someone who is (like me) and have that professional write the copy. That way, not only will your site look marvelous, it will read that way as well.