First impressions last a long time. Your customers get their first impression of you from your company Web site. What kind of impression will you make?

It amazes me how some companies spend tens of thousands on brochures that wind up in the trash can, but slap together a Web site almost as an afterthought, even though it will be seen again and again by–

Existing customers (”I’m buying from these guys?”)

Potential customers (”This company looks old-fashioned.”)

Suppliers (”We better run another credit check…”)

Strategic partners (”Who else could we work with?”)

Competitors (”They’re clueless. Let’s go after them.”)

Employees (”XYZ’s site is way cooler than ours. Maybe I should interview.”)

Prospective employees (”I think I’ll take the offer from XYZ.”)

Friends and family (”My wife works there?“)

Potential business referrers (”Do I really want to send Bill there?“)

Yes, sharp design and easy navigation are a must. But most important, your Web site must have clear, meaningful, and persuasive content. Without it, people won’t know who you are, or why you are. Furthermore, they won’t care. Here’s why most Web content gets a thumbs-down.

1. Too wordy. Lots of words are often a tipoff to fuzzy or lazy thinking. Sharpening ideas and expressing them briefly takes WORK. But your site visitors will be intimidated by lots of words (they don’t want to work, either), and quickly click away to your competitor’s site. Home pages and “about us” pages should not require scrolling. More words–well written, of course–are OK for landing pages that promise detailed information.

2. Too dense. Reading on a computer screen is hard. Break up long paragraphs with bullets, subtitles, indents, bold text, etc. White space good. Small, weird fonts bad. Reverse print (e.g., white font against black background)–very, very bad.

3. Too complex. Use short sentences. Keep it to one idea per sentence. Avoid semicolons. And by all means, put away the thesaurus!

4. Too fluffy. Some sites try to hit the marketing home run. But the Web is an informal, personal communication medium. Ad-speak doesn’t go over. Visitors want facts and benefits. They want genuine, honest information. If your site reads like a direct mail piece, readers will sour, and quickly.

5. Too corporate. Some sites just play it safe. If every department has to sign off on content, you’ll wind up with watered-down text less exciting than a mop. Think about it. Who wants to pore over text that reads like an annual report or a policy manual?

6. Too self-centered. I hate to break the news, but people don’t care about you. They care about what you can do for them. Some sites ramble on and on about features–who cares? The best sites stress benefits, benefits, benefits. If a reader is skeptical or curious about a benefit, that’s the time to link to a landing page with detailed feature information.

In the same way, execs sometimes insist that the company name be top keywords in text, titles, and tags. Mistake. In most cases, keyword phrases should be anything but, because keywords are for searchers who don’t know who you are! Keyword phrases should answer the question, what are searchers looking for that we can provide?

7. Too old. Most folks really don’t like to write, so there’s a tendency to throw up some Web content and leave it there. Forever. How many times have you looked at a site with stuff like–

Customer testamonials from 1998.
A News Flash! press release from 2002.
Bio data on an exec you know left the firm six months ago.
Product specs detailing conformance to a Federal regulation that no longer exists.
External links that no longer work.
A company history page that ends in 1992.

The Web is a NOW medium. Without fresh content, savvy surfers will drop you like a cold potato. Besides, adding fresh content is a crucial search engine optimization technique–but that’s another story.

I hope these suggestions help. There’s lots we can do to get your site up to speed!

Resource recommendations:

AP Stylebook for punctuation, usage, and all that fun stuff.

A Grammar Book for You and I for detailed grammar advice.

Hot Text: Web Writing that Works is an A-Z manual for Web site composition.

Copyblogger is a great blog for in-depth copywriting information.