Professional Writing & Editing

Best Bet for On-line Business Success

by Phil Hanson

Perfect text on your Web pages shouldn't be an afterthought—it should be your only thought!

A grim statistic often quoted in popular e-newsletters and e-zines is that 90% (some say 95%) of new Internet businesses eventually fail. Perhaps it's only a coincidence that approximately this same percentage of Web sites lack professional editorial oversight.

Literate, comprehensible text on your Web pages makes you look like the professional you are. Your Web site's visitors—your potential customers—instantly recognize your high level of attention to accuracy and detail as the mark of a professional. In their minds, you have gained credibility and earned their respect—two important steps in gaining their trust. Until you have their trust, they won't buy from you.

Whether you're a newbie 'Netrepreneur in the process of building a Web site, or you've already got a commercial Web site which on-line success seems to elude, now is the time to put perfect text on your Web pages. Sure, you can delay taking this crucial step, but you can't escape, forever, the necessity of taking it. Sooner or later you must take it if you want your on-line business to survive. Every day you delay is that much more of an advantage for your competition.

What I'm saying, here, is not idle speculation or fantasy; I'm only stating the obvious. Throughout history, evolution has played a vital role in determining survival. This applies to every known form of human enterprise, too, as much as it does to the survival of species—what doesn't evolve or adapt becomes extinct.

Every area of human activity involves evolutionary processes that work in exactly the same way. Those processes progress through a succession of stages, beginning with an idea, which is then followed by a design, which becomes a prototype, which results in production. Post-production stages tend first toward improvement and refinement, then excellence and, finally, perfection, which is the ultimate (but often unattainable) goal.

Just two things drive evolution; demand (perceived need) and competition. It doesn't matter whether you're referring to a winning Formula One racing team, a championship basketball team, a best-selling automobile, the latest box-office smash or your on-line business Web site, evolutionary forces beget one of two things—improvement, or extinction.

Perhaps the best example I can give to on-line publishers (anyone who puts up a Web site, for whatever reason, is an on-line publisher) occurs in an industry that predates, but is closely related to, on-line publishing. I'm referring, of course, to the many newspaper publishers that proliferated all across the country in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Those who adopted strict publishing standards succeeded (or, at least, had the good fortune to be bought out by wealthier, more powerful interests), while those who didn't were simply driven out of business by their more enlightened competitors. It's notable that none of those publications succeeded or failed because of reader demand for poorly written articles and stories.

Where is the Internet, now, in terms of evolutionary progress? Clearly, it's evolved far beyond the prototype stage. It is, I think, nearing the end of the first half of the production stage. Internet growth, both vertically (new domains) and horizontally (new Web pages), will continue, unabated, for the foreseeable future.

What does this mean to 'Netrepreneurs? It means that there's still room for anyone who wants to get into the game of Internet commerce. However, just being in the game is no guarantee of financial rewards. Those are reserved for the people who play the game well.

How well prepared to succeed are you? Are you ready to play the game at the professional level? You've got to commit to hard work, pay attention to details, practice exemplary ethics, make sound business decisions and invest financial resources in order to gain every practical advantage. Success is never an accident; it happens for good reasons.

Always remember that your commercial Web site is a reflection of your business and, on a more personal level, a reflection of you. If your Web site's visitors find sloppily contrived, error-prone text on your Web pages, they automatically assume that the services or products you sell are of the same low quality.

Don't take chances with your on-line business success by ignoring the importance of displaying professionally written and edited text on your Web pages. If you only take halfway measures to market and promote your products and services, you only get halfway results.

Of the many factors involved in building a successful on-line business, Web page copy is the most important. Lots of text appeals to the search engines, and well-written text appeals to your Web site's visitors. When you're ready for on-line success, perfect text for your Web pages is a logical choice—and Perfect Text is an excellent place to start.

You can learn more about the writing and editing services that are available from the Perfect Text Web site by visiting the Services page, or, you can order services from the Order Desk.