Best Practice Marketing

Description: Build credibility with the writing style. Use strong verbs that describe the actions clearly. Avoid passive tenses and superlatives that reduce credibility, accountability and trustworthiness to the web site.

Example: We give 3 years guaranty on all our products. We have service offices in all states in the U.S. and in all the countries of the EU. Find the contacts for your local office and for offices in other countries here. Read what other customers think about our products and/or add a review yourself.

Example on the opposite: Our products have been known to achieve the highest quality recognition and they are enjoyed all over the world by happy customers.

Explanation: When you use verbs that denote a clear and immediate action, the message of the sentences becomes obvious and precise to your readers, it leaves no room for different interpretations and therefore, it builds trust in your company and in your products or services.

Web sites don’t inspire trust or seriousness to their readers when they use too many passive tenses (like ex. Our products have been known to achieve…) or expressions like: could, may, should, must have, etc.

Expressions like these don’t clarify who is directly responsible for the statements made, they are ambiguous and people won’t trust these companies with their money or to link to their web sites.

The same counts for superlatives like: best, highest, fastest, all, etc. Instead of using these words write the facts that make you the best or the cheapest. Real facts and confirmable data inspire more trust than big words.

How to control yourself and others: Revise your web site text and see if you have used any unclear passive expressions or superlatives. Change those sentences using strong verbs in their present tense and give the facts that proof your point instead of superlatives.

Ex. Replace “We are the best!” With facts that prove why you are the best.

Re-read the text continuously and continue your corrections until you feel comfortable with the results. When you are finished, have someone else read the first version and the one with your corrections. Which one will they buy from? And, which one will you buy from?

How to practice: Go to your favorite web site or one from where you buy frequently. Notice the use of verbs and other expressions that denote responsibility, trustworthiness, etc. Try to use those findings in your own website, or in any other texts: presentations, press releases, advertising material, etc.

Do the same revisions on websites that don’t give you a good feeling, the kind that you’d browse on for 5 second and then leave. Revise some of their text and try to rewrite it using the same strategy used on your web site. Don’t stop until you have turned them into the kind of web site text that you would trust.

Search engines use advanced algorithms to detect what the text is about and the quality of it. If they can find a pattern by analyzing the text, to separate good from bad quality web pages, they will use it. Therefore, it isn’t only for the benefit of your users, but also to increase the traffic coming from the search engines to use strong verbs and other textual improvements.