Going Global

Written by Roberta Beach Jacobson


Continued from page 1

Another thing that urks me at many sites is when you see a button where you can click on your weather. Most of these programs turn out to offer weather for North America and North America only. What if your reader in Tokyo or Paris wants to knowrepparttar weather, too?

Dittorepparttar 132059 news. For sites offeringrepparttar 132060 top news reports, I‘ll bet half offer only American news. What about visitors living in Asia or Europe, don‘t we also want news? In a news story, I find it bothersome that every reference to “government“ has to refer to Washington. Or that every stock quote must be fromrepparttar 132061 U.S.

Folks, there‘s a whole world out here ready to visit your Website and maybe buy your products. Why shut us out?

Do you suppose I‘ll be going back to a Website that offers only weather for North America or claims my address is incorrect because I did not select a state from their listing? No, I‘ve hadrepparttar 132062 door slammed in my face and once is enough. They won‘t get my business because they‘ve more or less made it clear to me at first visit that I am unimportant to them.

I‘m not suggesting we go out and hire sociologists instead of Webmasters, but let‘s not go out of our way to turn off a potential customer base from all overrepparttar 132063 planet either. Examine your own site and see what positive changes you might make in this regard.

Once we all start thinking globally, we‘ll act it. As we attract new customers, our success rates are bound to go up. After all, I can‘t think of a better place to go global than cyberspace.



Roberta Beach Jacobson is an American freelance writer who has lived in Europe since 1974. She is the editor of Kafenio (http://www.kafeniocom.com). She can be reached at editor@kafeniocom.com.


Fix My Website: Copy is Copy is Copy?

Written by Stefene Russell


Continued from page 1

4. Technicalities. I've said it before, but you're shooting yourself inrepparttar foot if you allow spelling and punctuation errors to float around on your site. If you're not sure if you have any, find someone-anyone-with an English degree, and have them do a light edit. It's a good idea to get another pair of eyeballs onrepparttar 132057 site anyway, because if you've been looking atrepparttar 132058 copy for days and days, chances are you won't always spot your errors, no matter how sharp your editorial eye.

Well, that'srepparttar 132059 short version of perking up your copy, no matter whatrepparttar 132060 length. Of course, once you've infused it with some sparkle, try to make it as economical as possible.

If you're interested in further resources to help you improve your copy, I suggest contentious.com. Editor Amy Gahran has a great eye for spotting "fluff," and does a great job keeping tabs on current content trends. http://www.contentious.com/

Contentious' sister site, Content Exchange, is also excellent. If you're getting a little woozy thinking about this writing stuff, Content Exchange features a classified ad system to match up content producers with folks in need of copy. If you're doingrepparttar 132061 copy yourself, I highly recommend their online writing content discussion list: http://www.content-exchange.com/cx/html/owl.htm

Anyone who undertakes writing for any professional purpose should pick up a copy of Strunk and White's Elements of Style, as well as one ofrepparttar 132062 other excellent writing guides onrepparttar 132063 market. One ofrepparttar 132064 best is Stephen Wilbers' "Keys to Great Writing." Wilbers guide includesrepparttar 132065 five keys to effective writing (economy, precision, action, music, and personality),repparttar 132066 five elements of composition (purpose, point of view, organization, support, and coherence), grammatical terms, a checklist for writing with style, a checklist for proofreading, and a list of writing resources.

Stefene Russell is a freelance writer living in Salt Lake City, Utah. She has worked as a print journalist and as Senior Content Producer for citysearch.com. For a free website analysis, email her at stefene@drnunley.com or for a detailed analysis, visit http://www.fixmywebsite.com/analysis.htm




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