Friday, June 5th, 2009

How to Build Website Credibility

boost-moralNovadays, when facts are certainly more important than promises, if you have an online business, one of the most important matters that you should give due consideration is online credibility: you have to persuade web visitors that there is truly something worth behind a good-looking, usable website.

You have to convince visitors that the image you try to promote is trustful and that you intend to keep your promises as you say in your web advertisements.

Want to completely KILL all of the credibility that you’ve worked so hard to develop with your website? 

Then we highly recommend putting up a site that’s FULL of grammar and spelling errors!

Seriously! A couple of spelling mistakes on your website may not seem like much of an issue in the overall scheme of things, but to a lot of your visitors, these small errors will be an absolute deal breaker.

That’s because many people assume that the quality of a website’s products is only as good as the quality of the site itself… 

This is doubly true if you’re promoting an ebook that you wrote yourself. Who will feel confident in your skills as an author if you can’t even produce a homepage that’s error-free? 

Now that’s not to say that you have to be a professional writer to write error-free copy. 

You can still create your own correct copy, regardless of your skill level. Just use your trusty spell checker, plus this quick guide to the most commonly misused and misspelled words we’ve found on other people’s websites. 

Commonly misspelled words:

Wrong Right
alot a lot
definately definitely
should of should have (would have, could have, etc.)
use to (past) used to
your’s yours

Words that are commonly mixed up:

anecdote A quick story of something that happened, often used as an illustration of a point.
antidote A drug that counteracts a poison.
  “He told an anecdote about how they discovered which antidote the patient needed.”

 

complimentary Free; or saying nice things.
complementary Related to going well with something else.
  “She was very complimentary about the main course and the complementary side dishes.”

 

everyday Commonplace, not remarkable.
every day Two words meaning… well… every 24-hour period.
  “I call it my everyday china, but I eat out so much I don’t use it every day.”

 

farther Describes physical distance.
further Anything other than physical distance.
  “The farther I traveled from home, the further I came to understand how others live.”

 

home in To get closer and closer to a target, as in radar.
hone To polish or perfect.
  “I’m honing my skills at homing in on a niche market.”

 

i.e., That is… in other words… what I really mean is…
e.g., For example…

 

X and I Use “I” when you’re performing an action.
X and me Use “me” when you’re the object of the action.
X and myself Wrong in all circumstances.
  Simple rule: if you eliminated the “X and” part of the sentence; which word would you use?  

“The tickets were given to [Jarrod and] me, but [Lisa and] I went to the show.”

 

 

its Belonging to it. Possessive, but there’s no apostrophe.
it’s It is. This a contraction, so the apostrophe takes the place of the missing letters and sticks the two words together.
  “It’s rumored that the company will lay off half its workforce.”

 

lay, laying, laid You lay something down, you were laying something down, you did or have laid something down.
lie, lying, lay, lain You lie down, you were lying down, you lay down in the past, you have lain down.
  “I always have to lie down after I lay tile.”
“He was just lying around when he was supposed to be laying down the rhythm tracks.”
“After the paramedics laid him on the stretcher, he lay there, terrified.”

 

peak The highest point, the ultimate.
peek A quick look at something. (So you want to invite people to take a sneak peek, not a sneak peak.)
pique Annoyance (noun); to provoke, invite, or arouse (verb)
  “She took the tram to the peak of the mountain, but due to her fear of heights, was afraid to even peek.”

 

their Belonging to them.
there Over there, there is.
  “There’s a spot over there where they keep their tools.”

 

whose Who owns it.
who’s Who is. That contraction thing again.
  Abbott and Costello are the act whose classic bit was “Who’s on First.”

 

your Belonging to you. But almost universally misused in Internet communications to mean…
you’re You are. Again, it’s a contraction so it gets an apostrophe.
  “You’re about to get a big credibility boost to your site if you fix this one mistake.”

A word about apostrophes:

  • You don’t need an apostrophe when you turn a singular noun into a plural.

It doesn’t matter what letter the word ends with; it doesn’t matter if it’s a proper noun; it doesn’t matter if it comes from another language; it doesn’t matter what part of speech it is when it’s not busy being a noun.

Videos have been replaced by DVDs.
The Cratchits had us over for Christmas dinner.
Petunias are easy to grow.
Fastenings gave way in the storm.
Porsches and Mercedes Benzes are in demand.
Opt-ins signed up in droves.
The ten-year-olds hated the clown.
Cafes are open for breakfast.

See? Not an apostrophe in the bunch.

Finally, a note about capitalization:

  • Avoid capitalizing random words for no particular reason. 

If it’s a proper name of a person, place, or thing, capitalize. If it’s just a regular run-of-the-mill word, don’t. If you’re in doubt, check the dictionary.

Thus, when doing business online your credibility will play an important role in how much business you can get and how successful you can be. Just like any brick and mortar store, losing credibility with your online business can be disastrous for business.

There you go! Just take just a few minutes to clean up these very common errors in your copy and you’ll put a professional polish on your site.

Check this is you want more 5-Minute credibility boosters for your sate »