Online Business with Style

Planning to launch a small-business Website? You'll need more than a Web host, a secure shopping cart and appealing products and services. You'll also need a Website with content that is well-written, interesting and attractive to your target audience.

In short, you'll need Website content with a clear, consistent style.

What is style? Well, think about the differences between, say, a healthy-eating brochure guide written for 10-year-olds and a nutritional guide prepared by the American Medical Association for its member physicians. There's going to be a huge difference between the two, even though the subject matter - and maybe even some of the basic content - is the same. One will be written with short, easy words and will probably be supplemented with kid-friendly illustrations and lots of real-life examples, while the other will use advanced medical terminology and will probably offer complex diagrams, charts and statistics to illustrate the material.

That's style.

While a major element of style is whom you're writing for, what you're writing for also matters. Think of the differences between a news story about an area bus crash written for a radio broadcast versus one written for the local newspaper.

Web style is different yet again … in many cases, not as formal as print publications or books, with content that's presented in shorter chunks (which makes reading easier and takes advantage of the Web's linking capabilities). As you prepare your own Website content, pay close attention to the sites you expect to compete with: How is their content written? How does it differ from the information you might use on, say, printed materials, advertisements and sales brochures? Keep in mind these key features as you develop your own content.

More than any other medium, the Web also demands more attention to the "where" of style. Not where your business is, or where your Website is, but where your potential audience is … which is everywhere.

The Web allows you to reach a global audience (as long as those visitors have Internet access and speak the same language you do), so take care to always keep a global perspective in mind. If you're an English-speaking American, for instance, don't assume that everyone else who visits your Website will be too … because that could drive away a big slice of your potential business.

Be careful in everything you write not to address visitors as, say, "fellow Americans," or to say things like, "We here in the United States know … " There are plenty of other English speakers around the world who might be interested in what you're selling - folks from Canada, the U.K., Australia, India, Hong Kong and many other parts of the globe - as long as you don't come across as an "ugly American" (or Canadian or Aussie or whatever you might be).

Pay the same attention to slang and regional turns of phrase, too. It's smart to avoid expressions of speech that you and your immediate neighbors, friends and co-workers might be familiar with, but that others around the world might not get (or, worse yet, be offended by).

Once you've prepared your Web content with these suggestions in mind, be sure to have some trusted friends and colleagues - maybe even a few of your loyal customers, if you're comfortable asking them - read over your material to make sure it creates the right impression. It's best to launch a Website with a sales-friendly and appealing style from the start, rather than having to figure out over time what's wrong and possibly losing business because of it.