How important is "good english" on site tours?
 

I have seen a lot of great tours lately that seem marred by poor grammar....and I've wondered how much of an affect that has on conversions.

I'm not talking about the odd typo or run-on sentence, but really bad english on tours.

I see tours that I'm worried about sending to due to this problem.

It's become really prevalent on girlfriend sites. I won't name names, but there is one sponsors I dropped because I have a feeling the poor english on the tour was hurting conversions.

I realize not all internet surfers speak only english, but wondering if anyone else has thoughts, ideas, input, etc. on this subject...

If the text is good, and I mean good... then people read it and pay attention. Otherwise it makes no difference, 99% aren't reading shit anyway but it makes a great filler.

It depends on only one thing:

Are you trying to convince your viewers that you're actually illiterate, or possibly you're just so "street" and that's how you & your peeps roll?

If not, fix it. :2 cents:

I think it does make a difference and sales text with poor grammar will sell worse. The font, size and color of the text also matters.

This isn't even street, but rather really bad broken english...

Personally, I think proper English makes the site/company look more professional. Would you buy something from someone that said like "I sale pron horny cheeks fuck you free" or some other crap like that? So yes, I think good English makes a huge difference unless the traffic you are getting doesn't speak or read English. In that case, it would be pointless.

To me it's all about looking professional. We may be selling porn, but that doesn't mean that we have to come off as idiots. No big deal when there's the odd typo, but full blown paragraphs that make no sense will not be a good selling point. No one will want to give their credit card # to people they think are morons. Of course, this is just my personal opinion, but seems pretty logical.

I have noticed this too...alot. It's amazing how some of the larger companies don't hire someone to clean up their text? Sometimes it's so bad I find myself laughing out loud, but this is not a good thing where the potential customer is concerned...i don't think.

As someone who has been pretty well versed in the English language his entire life I have noticed something that is really disappointing.

People usually don't notice or appreciate when everything is written properly - when English is used correctly. It's just expected.

On the other hand, however, people also don't notice most typographical errors or grammatical clusterfucks even when they are basically screaming in your face.

It is really hard to say if the average consumer really even notices if something is poorly written, or what is incorrect most of the time. Some of the ways the English language has been molested recently (and especially by my generation) is depressing.

I was a TA for a couple years in High School for the IB and AP English IV classes. Even then it was pretty pathetic what some people would do wrong.

No big difference at all... Having lots of text on your site is not intended for humans nowadays.. If your english level is 6/10, you are more than fine. As long as it's not 1/10... :)

"effect" ;)

I don't know why there are so many mistakes on tours. Whether it affects conversions or not is irrelevant really. To either not notice or not care about the mistake shows either stupidity or apathy on the part of the owner.

It's important for some people while others don't really care...

I think that the sales text is very important for creating the fantasy in the mind of the potential customer. Even short blurbs should be written in such a way that it smoothly meshes with the sites content to help give that little extra nudge to close the sale.

That does not mean 'proper English' but smooth English even using the vernacular to increase the message you are trying to send to the eyes, cock and wallet of the customer

bad English gives me the impression that the rest of the site will be shitty too :2 cents:

If you are investing serious money into a nice design and high quality content, it's only logical that you pay someone to write text that is not only well written and grammatically correct, but also attractive and easy to read for the casual surfer.

Proper language can affect SEO ranks.
Can improve conversions.
Can improve retention.
Can make a site more appealing to affiliates.
Can affect review site scores.
etc...

The cost of having your tour professionally written by someone who knows what they are doing is often less than the cost of a single exclusive scene.

www.EngineFood.com
Contact me any time if you want more information or real world examples proving what I am saying is true... not just a guess or opinion.

it doesnt matter for shit if the content is super good.. but it might matter a little with crap content

What you're saying is correct, in my experience. This is the #1 problem I have with designers, actually. there's almost always misspellings, or bad english, and, as a former journalist, it drives ME cuckoo. And I'm payin for it, so....

Favorite Latest Example: "loose" when people mean "lose".
People, PLEASE: Your PUSSY is LOOSE; you LOSE at bowling, or you LOSE your mind. Like LOSE-r, not LOOSER.

Whatever. UGH! LOL

nobody jacks off to the writing of an english major. 'cept me.

It really depends on what you mean by "good English." If we are just talking grammar and spelling it can help and some pay attention to it, but many don't. If you are talking about what is actually written on the site, it can make a big difference. I have had clients tell me the have seen increases in sales after I have rewritten their tours or changes some text on their tours to make it more explicit and inviting.

Where having bad text really hurts is when your text is written in broken English and looks like someone who doesn't really speak English wrote it. I don't know about you, but when I go to a site if it is written in broken English and looks really amateur and sounds like it was pieced together by a guy who used a English translating website to write it, I am very wary about pulling out my credit card because I'm not so sure those people are reputable.

If you're talking about spelling/grammar, nothing past ruining your keyword density actually matters when it comes to SEO. Google doesn't look at grammar in sentences and I highly doubt it will for a very long time - it's just too hard to work out if a sentence actually makes sense and is structured correctly.

i dont have any experience on the matter but i would think it would matter....if the site has poor grammer whats to says its maintained very well in the members area...just my :2 cents:

Broken English is so funny to read. Especially adult sites. Maybe you will have an unique keywords that way but your text is meaningless. Any way bad English-bad sales. Sites with bad English are out of competition so............all the rest is just a story.

Depends on the site. Something trying to pass itself off as classy while all text looks written by a mong does bother me but then I read and write a lot so notice more.

However if the site is supposed to be amateurish then a bit of what looks like machine translated Russian=>English doesn't bother me at all.

Yeah, broken english is what I meant...

There are lots of fuckups that annoy the shit outta me.

1. Your LOOSE example
2. People who say "Real-i-tor". It's fucking "Realtor". They aren't selling "Real-i-ty".
3. People who say "Often" pronouncing the "t".

and many more.

A decade or two ago, when people could spell, it probably mattered. Now that we've devolved and so many people can't spell for shit, it probably doesn't matter. I see typos and misspellings all over the place on popular websites tons of people are going to daily. The grammar nazi in me wants to do a Holocaust...it's gotten ridiculous.

How's that a fuckup? Bloody foreigners mangling my language :thefinger

The "t" is silent. At least here it is. :winkwink:

"Irregardless" is another one.

It's a non-standard double negative, used only to add (improper) emphasis. Shouldn't even be a word. :2 cents:

Grammar and spelling matters for everything. It just doesn't come off as professional if you don't care.

we have had some pretty bad grammer mistakes slip by on our tours before and it really doesnt make a bit of difference - its all impulse

i think its very important

i rilly haf no idia

heh... I grew up saying that word and I got it from my mom (one of her favorite words I think) it took one of my sons when he was in grade school to correct me. Now I never use it :)

When I perceive that a site may be run by "furriners" I am not getting my credit card out. Too little accountability in the 3rd world.

Makes the product look shitty, bottom line.

While I can believe that the effects might be negligible for end users, I would be concerned about showing my ass in b2b relationships... this thread itself is a case in point!

Essentially the landing page/tour is _the_ product in the surfer's (and colleague's) mind, so why not invest in a decent editor's time to keep everything tight? You'll rarely see typos from Madison Avenue. We should hold ourselves to the same standard.

q f t

Check out Adult Copywriters. We write excellent high quality content for paysite tours that usually includes a an intro text, scene descriptions and promo text that you can place throughout the site.

That is exactly the attitude I was talking about. What else do you let "slip by" because YOU just don't care? There's no reason not to fix the errors.

I don't think he's saying "we let it slip by;" rather, "after we caught it and fixed it, the effect of the error seemed negligible." Fair enough?

i did not read the whole thread ... but my engrish is giving google more creative sentences so i think it is not bad ...

1. "I agree it's very hard to know if a sentence was written in perfect English..."

2. "It am vry exy to KNOW when webs arent' having any kindz of englishes"

I have seen (and rewritten) many tours that started off as badly as example number two above. Not for lack of effort by the owner, but at times because an owner who does not speak English fluently hired a cheap writer who also did not... and lacked the ability to know just how badly his own site had been written. I guarantee you, fixing 'broken' text definitely affects your SEO ranks considerably. Quantity of text also has a lot to do with some SEO parameters. 1 page or 10 pages wont change much... but try writing a site that has literally 50,000 pages of original well-written text on it.

It is now *starting* to change, but even today, SEO comes down to text and links. Social media and site use stats are being factored... but when you consider all the different things you can do to affect your SEO ranks - adding quality SEO text is just about the least expensive and most bang you can get for your buck. For a few hundred dollars you can substantially improve your sales pitch, SEO values, review scores, affiliate confidence, retention rates.... and yet people overlook it to their detriment time and again.

A site with 149 exclusive scenes and fantastic text often costs the same and will earn more than a site with 150 exclusive scenes and poorly written or broken text. :2 cents: