Three Tips For Creating A Professional Image
By Jennifer Stewart
Posted Friday, August 27, 2004
Doing business on the Web is totally unlike any other form of business because no-one knows how big or small you are just by looking at your 'shop front.' The term "equal playing field" has been done to death in connection with the Internet, but only because it's true.
The first view of your business home page is exactly the same size as the first view of Microsoft's home page, or Amazon.com or the Federal Government's home page. What makes these three different from many other home pages is the quality of the content they offer AND the way it's
presented.
If you've had an offline business, you relied on offering excellent service, good value products and had one or more friendly staff to help you. Your customers could come into your office, shop or workshop and see that it was clean and well organised; they could talk to you and they knew you were honest; they did business with you over a period of time and knew that you were reliable. It didn't matter all that much if your signs read something like, "Staff only passed this point" or "Your always welcome here," because people had so many other ways to assess the standard of your business.
However, on the Internet, your website is the only part of your business that's visible; it's the only way potential customers and clients can judge how professional you are and you only get one chance to make a good first impression with it. Here are three little tips that can help create a professional - or amateurish - impression of your business, and they're all very easy to get right - once you know how.
Have a look at the following sentence:
'Its the little things that count.'
What's wrong with it? That's right - there should be an apostrophe in It's because it's a contraction of two separate words:
It and is. Grammar and punctuation are a bit like riding a bike - once you know how to do it, it's easy, and you never forget. The trouble is that many people went through the education system when the trend was to let children learn to write by "doing". The theory was that they'd pick up the rules later.
Hmmm - another fine theory from the experts. (I recently came across one of those little comments that express how we feel about some of these experts: "The Ark was built by amateurs; experts built the Titanic.")
So the first tip concerns the apostrophe. It only has TWO functions to perform and they're both very straightforward:
1. We've already looked at the first function - to show the omission of letters in a contraction:
'What's a nice kid like me doing in place like this?' (What is a nice kid ...)
'You're going to be sorry that you forgot your credit card.' (You are going to be sorry ...)
Note: you're is the contraction of you and are; your is the possessive pronoun - it shows ownership. 'Is that your horse?' So, in future whenever you see an apostrophe, ask yourself if a letter has been left out and make a conscious effort to work out what the original word was before the letter was omitted.
(Sometimes - as in the case of could've ['could HAVE', not 'could of'] more than one letter has been omitted.) This will establish good habits and alert you to the role of the apostrophe.
2. The second function of the apostrophe is to show POSSESSION.
'We went to Marmaduke's site to download that new program.'
(Marmaduke owns the site; it is the 'site of Marmaduke'.)
'At the zoo site, the children were most interested in seeing the lions' den.'
More than one lion owns the den, so the apostrophe comes after the 's' (it's the den of the lions).
So, the general rule is: if there's ONE owner - add an apostrophe and an 's' if there are TWO OR MORE owners, add 's' then an apostrophe. However, there are exceptions to this general rule ... why aren't you surprised?
For words which form their plural by changing internal letters (instead of by adding 's'), the apostrophe comes before the 's'.
'It was the children's turn to wash up.'
'Children' is already a plural word, so you don't need to make it doubly plural by adding 's' apostrophe; however, you do need to indicate the idea of ownership, so use apostrophe 's'. BUT you do NOT use the apostrophe with possessive pronouns:
'After dinner at Marmaduke's restaurant, we went back to his place for coffee.'
(No apostrophe in his.) 'The bird's feathers were ruffled.' (The bird owns the feathers.)
'The bird ruffled its feathers.' (The bird owns the feathers, but the pronoun is being used instead of the noun, so there is NO apostrophe.)
You will see its and it's used incorrectly nearly everyday and in places where it should never happen. An easy way to make sure you NEVER confuse the two is to ask yourself if the words 'it is' can be substituted in the sentence - if the answer is 'yes', then whack in the old apostrophe. If
the answer is 'no', then sit on your hands so that you won't be tempted!
'The bird ruffled its (it is) feathers.' NO!
'It's (it is) a lovely day.' YES!
The second tip involves a word that just doesn't exist in the English language - 'alot' - ain't no such animal, folks. You wouldn't think of writing something like this:
'My site has alittle information,'
would you? So it makes you wonder just why so many people write sentences like this,
'There is alot of information on this site.'
They're two separate words:
'a lot' or 'a little.'
The third tip covers another common error: less and fewer How many times have you been to a website that announces it will sell you more gizmos for 'less bucks'?
Hmm ... 'Less' refers to quantity (a mass of something):
'There is LESS water in the dam now.'
'Fewer' refers to number (something that can be counted).
'There are FEWER apples on the tree this year.'
(Because you can count them) OR ... yes, you guessed it ... 'More gizmos for fewer bucks.'
If it's been some time since you worried about the standard of your grammar, punctuation or spelling, now might be a good time to do something about it. Every day, more and more businesses come on line but many also close down - the competition is fierce.
You can take steps to improve your writing skills so you can create a good impression with your website - by contacting your local technical college or night school, or by enrolling in a one of the many high quality home study courses on the Internet.
Act now and you'll reap the rewards for years to come. If the spelling of words like "organised" in this article worried you, please read this:
(http://www.write101.com/aus.htm)
About the Author
Jennifer Stewart (a High School English teacher for twenty years) has written a series of home study tutorials to help those who want to improve their writing. She also offers professional writing and editing services for web pages, press releases, advertising material, business reports, content for autoresponders, technical booklets and articles for newsletters, from her website: (http://www.write101.com) You can subscribe to free, weekly Writing Tips now mailto:WritingTips-subscribe@onelist.com?subject=Tips
