Part 2: You're the Editor

If your site contains sloppy grammar, punctuation, or spelling, you may appear uneducated and unintelligent. Site visitors may infer that this carelessness or lack of ability extends to your service. Poor word choice and content organization also create obstacles for readers. You've reduced the chances of their arriving at the point of sale.

While writing mechanics have rules (see Part 3 ), effective content organization and style choices are based on web writing principles covered in Part 1 . In this part of the article, we apply these web writing principles.

On this page:

• Can you edit this?
  
• Content rewritten
  
• Content and style choices in the rewritten version
  
• Content and style problems in the first version

Can you edit this?

The draft Home page below includes writing styles and errors found in a survey of over 40 web host sites. To edit it, see if you can find the following:

Organization and content

• Parts that could be deleted, shortened, or moved
  
• Content that would be easier to read in list format
  
• Places where the details are incomplete
  
• Overused expressions that are repetitive or have little meaning

Grammar, punctuation, and spelling mistakes

• Grammar: agreement, clauses, word forms, and word choice
  
• Punctuation: apostrophes, commas, and hyphens
  
• Spelling: incorrect spelling and words incorrectly written as one word or two words
  
• Errors with capitalization and abbreviations

The numbers at the beginning of each paragraph are for reference where the style choices and errors are identified below and in Part 3 . Underlining is where links would be.

Welcome to Something Hosting

1 Started 2 years ago, Something Hosting is truly the best one-stop solution web hosting company. We are honest and straight forward people, however our competitor's are not very good.

2 Our servers are located in the worlds best high secuirty datacenter in NumberOne Datacenter in Dallas, TX. Our lightening-fast state of the art servers are maintained by skilled tech's from the ground-up with shared hosting and reseller hosting on seperate servers.

3 Are you looking far and wide for a cheap web hosting solution thats suitable for beginners? Look no fruther than Something Hosting! Your account comes with free feature packed ready to install top of the line software, that's installed with one click installs via the easy to use control panel, making site management simple! This Packages have shared hosting, reseller hosting, toll free support, Site Builder, VPS, Windows servers, cPanel, multidomain accounts and domain name registration. We only have a limited amount of reseller packages, we reccomend you click here to buy now, otherwise you may be too late!!

4 Setup fees of $20 per acct applies if you pay monthly where as starting august 2004 when clients pay annually we setup accounts for no charge!! We provide a 30 day money back guarantee on all of our hosting plans.

5 Does your website need it's own server? In the next 3 to 4 months, we are going to add alot of dedicated Servers to provide a full-line of services. To signup to recieve our news letter, click here .

6 Something Hosting continuously strives to provide low prices for each and every one of its costumers. You can rest-assured that any and all questions are answered in a prompt and timely manner with open arms. We believe that our mission, is not just providing cheaper prices, but a good support aswell. Click here for our customers testimonials and our FAQ's.

7 We provide many different ways to get quick support like our Tech forums, help desk, and knowledge base, which covers a wide-range of many different topics.Providing superior support, is a passion, we are more than please to help you. We're committed to keeping our customers satisfy in anyway we can time and time again. You won't be dissapointed with us.

Content rewritten

Something Hosting

Affordable pricing and fast, helpful support form the foundation for our web hosting services. We offer Windows hosting packages featuring cPanel control panels and other user-friendly features . Are you new to web hosting? An experienced webmaster? We help you get started at Something Hosting, and we help your site grow.

Our services

• Shared hosting
  
• Multidomain accounts
  
• Reseller hosting
  
• VPS hosting
  
• Domain name registration

Coming in July 2005: dedicated servers .

Why host with us?

• Our support is fast and accessible. At our helpdesk , we aim for a maximum 30-minute response time for urgent questions and a maximum 24-hour response time for non-urgent questions. We also offer toll-free support . In addition, you can find many answers to questions in our knowledge base and forum .
  
• Our pricing is competitively low for the features and support we offer.
  
• Our company has been in business since 2003. We've earned our clients' trust with our straightforward approach.
  
• Our servers are professionally maintained in the high-security NumberOne Datacenter in Dallas, Texas, US. Our downtime is rare.
  
• Our clients recommend us. Read our client testimonials to see what they say.

Content and style choices in the rewritten version

The first paragraph uses details to show the focus of this company's services. Helpdesk response times are added to support the claim of fast support. Company information is moved down the page.

The list of company services comes next (still "above the fold," or before readers have to scroll). Each item is hyperlinked to a page with details about that service; the details don't need to be on the Home page. A useful addition would be the main features of each service listed somewhere on the page, also with links to pages with more information.

The remaining details are grouped in a bulleted "Why host with us?" list, with bolded subjects and with informational words in link anchor text.

Content and style problems in the first version

Format

Places where the information would be more readable in list format:

• Plan features in (3)
  
• Company services in (3) and (5)
  
• Reasons to choose this company (throughout)

Expressions

Overused expressions become clichés. They take up space while adding little information, and they portray the writer as unoriginal.

Repetitive expressions:

• far and wide (3)
  
• each and every one (6)
  
• any and all questions (6)
  
• a prompt and timely manner (6)
  
• time and time again (7)

More clichés:

• one-stop solution (1)
  
• state of the art (2)
  
• look no further (3)
  
• rest assured (6)
  
• with open arms (6)

Incomplete details

What year is two years ago from when the page was written? When will we know when the next three to four months have passed? Where is "TX" to people who aren't in North America?

• 2 years ago (1)
  
• TX (2)
  
• in the next 3 to 4 months (5)

With web writing, specific points in time such as "since 2003" and "in July 2005" provide clarity. "TX" is adequate if you're targeting only people in the US. If you want to attract clients from other countries, however, don't make them have to guess your country.