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How to Handle Jargon at Your Web Site - and Why

If you sell a technical product or service, you probablyknow you have jargon at your web site - specializedterminology that the average person doesn't understand. While jargon does help you communicate precisely withpeers, it seriously gets in the way if potential and actualcustomers aren't as conversant with it as you are.

If you sell a technical product or service, you probablyknow you have jargon at your

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web site - specializedterminology that the average person doesn't understand. While jargon does help you communicate precisely withpeers, it seriously gets in the way if potential and actualcustomers aren't as conversant with it as you are.

Plenty of heart patients, for instance, don't know what a"myocardial infarction" is (a heart attack). Many pregnantwomen have never heard of a "doula," a woman who coachesthem through labor. Movers and shakers thinking of buyinganother company don't necessarily know the term "assessmentof human capital." Hardly anyone would know what "globalreadiness solutions" are, since one company made up theterm. The same goes for abbreviations and acronyms usedwithout the spelled-out versions, like "W3C, 508compliant."

If you sell an ordinary product or service, you're also indanger of having jargon serve as a barrier at your website. You may be using common words in ways most peoplewouldn't understand. For example, the sentence "We partnerwith creative men and women so they reach their goals"doesn't contain any unusual words or expressions, but mostreaders wouldn't grasp that it means "Creative men andwomen hire us to help them reach their goals." At a realestate site, I once saw the headline "Not a drive-by!" anddidn't know whether a "drive-by" meant that you wouldn'twant to stop or that you wouldn't need to.

Nearly everyone in

A website (or Web site, according to Associated Press guidelines) is a collection of Web pages, typically common to a particular domain name or subdomain on the World Wide Web on the Internet.
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business overestimates - usually greatlyoverestimates - the extent to which customers understandtheir jargon.

In most instances, you don't need to eliminate jargon, butto include an explanation so that the context makes themeaning clear. You can do this explicitly, as in theseexamples:

Treatments for myocardial infarction (heart attack)

Greta spent five years as a doula, a trained labor coach,before studying to become a nurse-midwife.

All of our web sites comply with World Wide WebConsortium (W3C) standards as well as the latest U.S.government regulations on accessibility to the disabled(Section 508).

In other situations, you can add context so that when theunfamiliar term comes up, its meaning will be clear. Forinstance, see how the explanation precedes the term"assessment of human capital" in the following passage:

"Management's leadership abilities, operating abilities andpersonal motivations can profoundly influence what happensafter a change in ownership. In contrast to the financials,the true strengths and weaknesses of a company's executivesmay remain hidden, only to surface later with disastrousresults. To minimize risks, buyers need to take care ofdue diligence on company

In economics, business is the social science of managing people to organize and maintain collective productivity toward accomplishing particular creative and productive goals, usually to generate revenue.

The etymology of "business" refers to the state of being busy, in the context of the individual as well as the community or society. In other words, to be busy is to be doing commercially viable and profitable work.
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management. This assessment ofhuman capital is a specialty of New London ManagementAssociates."

By combining jargon with an explanation, you strengthenyour message for those who already know the technicalities.

Skillfully using ordinary

"Management" (from Old French ménagement "the art of conducting, directing", from Latin manu agere "to lead by the hand") characterises the process of leading and directing all or part of an organisation, often a business, through the deployment and manipulation of resources (human, financial, material, intellectual or intangible). Early twentieth-century management writer Mary Parker Follett defined management as "the art of getting things done through people."
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language along with jargondoesn't talk down to anyone or "dumb down" your web site.You also make the value of the services or products youprovide more understandable to someone who may need to signoff on a project but who is not technically sophisticated.Likewise, it becomes more likely that non-specialists whodiscover your site will refer other companies orindividuals to you. Your web site thus becomes a stronger

A language is a method of communication. Human spoken and written languages can be described as a system of symbols (sometimes known as lexemes) and the grammars (rules) by which the symbols are manipulated. The word "language" is also used to refer to common properties of languages.

Language learning is normal in human childhood. Most human languages use patterns of sound or gesture for symbols which enable communication with others around them. There are thousands of human languages, and these seem to share certain properties, even though many shared properties have exceptions.
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marketing vehicle.

Marcia Yudkin is the author of Web SiteMarketing Makeover and 10 other books. A four-time WebbyAwards judge and internationally famous marketingconsultant, she critiques web sites and performs web sitemakeovers for clients. Learn more about her detailedcritique sessions on five different kinds of web sites(including sites for consultants and multi-product salessites) at http://www.yudkin.com/websitequiz.htm .

Marketing, as suggested by the American Marketing Association, is "an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders".[1]

Another definition, perhaps simpler and more universal, is this: "Marketing is the ongoing process of moving people closer to making a decision to purchase, use, follow...or conform to someone else's products, services or values. Simply, if it doesn't facilitate a "sale" then it's not marketing.
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How to Handle Jargon at Your Web Site - and Why

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