“Choose your words carefully, mister.”
Isn’t that what John Wayne, Gary Cooper and all those other cowboy stars used say as they were pointing their Peacemakers at the bad guys? Or is that backward? Maybe it was the villains who said “choose you words carefully” to the heroes they’d drawn down on.
Doesn’t much matter who said it, it’s still good advice — even if you’re not looking into the big, gaping eye of a Colt .45.
The words you choose and the phrases you use on your web pages are key factors in defining your site. They tell prospective customers what your products and services are, whether those products and services are relevant to their needs and, most important, if you are trustworthy and credible enough to deserve their business.
Quite an important function for tiny things no more than seven or eight letters long (generally speaking, nine or 29-letter words are a bit much for e-commerce.) Which raises a good question. What kind of words are best suited for the web?
Active words are almost always better than passive ones in sales situations whether they’re taking place on terra firma or out in cyberspace. There are, of course, numerous definitions of “active word” depending on situation. If you’re writing a dictionary you might define it one way, if you’re selling a car, you’d probably use a different definition.
For website usage, let’s assume we’re selling cars. For this purpose, your active words should embody a “call to immediate action” whenever possible.
“You should consider this model sometime because the $3000 rebate is ending soon” contains a passive call to action, there’s nothing motivating about “consider,” “sometime,” and “soon.”
“You should buy this model today because the $3000 rebate is ending tomorrow” is the same sentence with three active words replacing the passive words.
Power words, which should also be included on every website which is trying to sell something, are somewhat different than active words. For one thing, active words are motion words designed to get the reader to do something — go here, click there, buy now, order today — while power words are more likely to be descriptive — frequently, though not always — adjectives.
For example: Shure EC4 ear-canal headphones feature sound-isolation to block out irritating audio emissions from jet engines, subways, people screaming into cell phones, drunks vomiting, babies yelping and other sources of sound pollution.
An OK sentence, that, but it definitely wins no extra points for power words. Let’s try and fix it, shall we?
Shure’s next-generation EC4 ear-canal headphones feature 40db sound-isolation to kill virtually all irritating audio emissions from jet engines, subways, people screaming into cell phones, drunks vomiting, babies yelping and other sources of sound pollution.
Better. “Next-generation” is a power word which denotes something and new and previously unavailable. “40db” is a simple specification given power status by its placement in the sentence. “Kill virtually all” has power because it makes it clear that we’re talking about really eliminating noise, not just deterring it. Can we improve it even a bit more?
How about this?
Shure’s next-generation EC4 ear-canal headphones feature 40db sound-isolation to kill virtually all infuriating audio emissions from jet engines, subways, people screaming into cell phones, drunks vomiting, babies yelping and other sources of sound pollution.
A minor change, but it illustrates an important point. Power words can be used as negatives as well as positives.
“Shure headphones are good, low-cost imitations are not” has neither positive nor negative power words and, therefore, is a pretty lame sentence.
“Shure headphones are superb, low-cost imitations are trash” has both positive and negative power words and is fairly potent.
Too much of anything being a bad thing, it must be noted that it’s all-to-easy to overdo the use of power words.
Lard your website with multiple references to “awesome,” “super,” “fantastic” and similar words or, just as bad, pile a serious of over-the-top adjectives together (this fantastic, super-awesome CD will rock your world with its awesome power and super great songs) and no intelligent person is going to believe anything you say.
The reality of words on the web is this: They’re very important (super, fantastically, awesomely important to overdo it a bit) and should be deployed with skill. If you’re comfortable doing that, by all means go for it. If you’re not, consider hiring a professional like those at GetWebContent.com. The money you spend will be repaid many times in increased sales.
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