Fix-It Friday (No. 1): Dulas

Fix-It Friday is a new series of posts where I show how a website page can be improved by applying a few web copywriting principles. My primary aim is make visitors’ lives easier.

Within just an hour, it’s possible make a page more readable, accessible and search friendly. I also explain what else I’d do if I had more time. Look at the difference a web copywriter can make!

Dulas provides professional renewable energy services from its base in the heart of Wales. I like its website; the design’s fresh, modern and uncluttered, with clear navigation.

I’ve decided to look at the ‘About Dulas’ page from a web copywriting perspective.

• Web page before (image)
• Good points
• Could do better
• Web page after (image)
• Fixes made in one hour
• If I had more than an hour, I’d…

Web page before

(Click on the image for a larger version.)

Good points

• Individual <title> and <description> tags for each page
• Use of H1 tag for page heading
• Well written, interesting information
• Sub titles used to break the text up

Could do better

• There’s too much information: the page is very long
• The text is wordy in places and there are a couple of errors
• Copy needs better formatting
• The sub titles are in <strong> tags; they’d be better in H2 headers
• Text contains no links to other pages within the website or externally
• The page URL is not descriptive
• The <description> tag needs a bit of tweaking

Web page after

(Click on the image for a larger version.)

Fixes made in one hour

• Lightly edited the copy to simplify wording and ‘front load’ the text
• Removed some information that could sit better elsewhere
• Placed current sub titles into H2 header tags
• Added additional sub titles to break up text further
• Added links from key phrases to relevant pages both within the website and externally
• Highlighted other key words and phrases in <strong> tags
• Placed listed information into proper lists

If I had more than an hour, I’d…

• Edit or rewrite the text to simplify it, focus the information and reduce page length considerably…
• …and/or add in-page links at the top of the page to jump to relevant sections (visitors can see straight away the page content without scrolling, plus the usual benefits)
• Rewrite the <description> tag
• Add more links from the text to help users navigate throughout the website
• Consider the page and its section as a whole, and as an integral part of the complete website

Do you want me to make over a page on your website? If you’d like to suggest a site for me to consider, get in touch!

The sad decline of languages in UK schools

I mean the decline of taught, modern foreign languages, not sweary bad language (I’m sure that’s probably still learnt and applied with enthusiasm).

This article in the Guardian, Who still wants to learn languages?, raises a few key points from recent studies, as well as interesting observations. In summary:

• Funding for languages has been cut and departments are closing across the education spectrum, from schools to universities.
• Since language learning was made optional after the age of 14 in 2004,  numbers have been dropping. (Just in state schools? The article’s not clear.)
• There’s a sharp distinction between provision at state schools and at independents (“38 per cent of 14-year-olds in the state sector were studying one modern language and 1.9 per cent were studying two; 99 per cent of 14-year-olds at independents studied at least one language”).
• As a result, “the experience of other cultures is now confined to an elite”.
• Languages are losing out in the (short-term) education market because they are a long-term choice in terms of competency and gratification.
• German is losing out the most because of its profile, difficulty and competition from non-traditional languages.
• “There is only one UK citizen working in continental Europe for every four EU citizens working in the UK.
• “Studies prove [that] learning a language makes [children] better at learning everything else.”

Learn a language to know your own

However, the end of the article includes two of the more interesting points. Firstly:

“Whoever is not acquainted with languages knows nothing of his own (Goethe).”

I was in school at a time when the state education system decided we didn’t need to learn English grammar. We studied English language, yes, but I remember mostly creative writing rather than covering verbs, nouns, modifiers, the subjunctive and so on.

However, because I also chose to study German and French, I learnt a little about those things. And it’s only now that I’ve taught myself Spanish and help my local friends with their English that I’m learning more about my own language.

(Because I grew up in Wales, it was also compulsory to learn Welsh between the ages of about 6 and 13. I would have chosen Welsh at GCSE too, but the selection process made that a difficult choice.)

Speak a language, understand a people

It’s the comment from a source at the end that resonates with me now; of course, it may well not have done when I was 15. And that’s why it’s so important for the choice not to be left to 15-year-olds (and younger).

“[This trend] is disastrous [because] it leads to people leading insular lives – intellectually, professionally, culturally.”

I’ve learnt so much about the culture I’m living in simply by hearing how they refer to ideas in their own language, and thereby understanding the emphasis of those things in their lives.