To be found, you need to say something

Here’s the reality: people search with words that make sense to them. For most people,

that means plain, short, common words, not the oblique marketing speak so prevalent on

the Web.

Too many corporate sites (and the technology sector is by far the most consistent

offender) feature marketing messages so pregnant with buzzwords, made-up phrases, and

convoluted clauses that it’s questionable whether the original writer has any clue what he

was trying to communicate.

The company that speaks in everyday vernacular will simply appeal to a wider customer

base. For instance, people will not type “integrated premises-based ECM solution” into a

search engine. So if your site says that, you are missing a disproportionately large segment

of your target audience. Someone might type in “content management for accounts

payable.” Maybe. More likely, that person will search for “software to organize invoices,”

and then find the company that solves this problem without talking about all of that ECM

mumbo jumbo.

Search is already playing a significant role in our online experience. As the Web becomes

more cumbersome and competition thickens, the increasing influence of search engines

will continue to define how content is organized, parsed, and delivered. In the end, plain

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language will be a decisive advantage. Not only because your website will appear more

often in search rankings, but also because readers can understand your message when

they visit your domain.

People will always recommend products and services they understand, never ones they

don’t. No world leader ever gained power by speaking above his followers, and no song-

writer ever hit stardom for not making sense (except Bob Dylan, but even he made sense

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some of the time). People will consume and pass along messages they grasp and relate

to—like a website their moms can use to buy environmentally friendly detergent.

Writing better copy for the Web

If there’s one axiom of global commerce, it’s that companies that cannot be understood

lose business. Ask any English-speaking businessperson traveling to France, Saudi Arabia,

or Japan; most figured out long ago that learning the native language was a significant