Lyons Leadership

The purpose of grammar and punctuation is to facilitate communication. This is as true on the web as it is for the printed page. However, it’s harder to read from computer screens than printed material. So website copywriters should modify their punctuation to increase readability.

These three tips will help make sure online readers understand the meaning of your website copy:

1. Use Punctuation Sparingly: Punctuation marks serve to control the flow of sentences and to organise ideas. But because they’re small they easily get lost on-screen.

I recommend using punctuation sparingly online. Website copywriters need to maintain readability while they communicate their message. Use short sentences and short paragraphs. Arrange information into lists whenever possible.

2. Lose the Semi Colons: Don’t use semi colons when writing website content. They’re too easily mistaken for colons. (And most people don?t understand them anyway.)

According to the grammar books, the correct usage of a semi colon is to join two independent clauses into a compound sentence. E.g. “It’s nearly midnight; the restaurants will probably be closed.”

On the web you’re better off using an em-dash (long hyphen) or a period (full stop). E.g. “It’s nearly midnight ? the restaurants will probably be closed.” or “It’s nearly midnight. The restaurants will probably be closed.”

Also, it’s better to use em-dashes instead of hyphens in website copy. Hyphens are small. So they can more easily be overlooked than longer em-dashes.

3. Check the Content Offline: Your website copy must be free of grammatical and spelling errors. Otherwise you risk making a bad impression. Poor English and typos and will probably turn customers away.

So make sure you do a spell check of your copy in a word processor before you upload it to your website. It’s also a good idea to print it out and get a colleague to proof read it. Once the content is live, you should check it again on-screen.