Potential Dangers of Automatic Format Texting

There are plenty of potential dangers with auto-correct….

We have all done it – predictive text on a mobile phone that leads us to say things that we never intended! Now that Word and various other processing forms offer auto format punctuation you must be careful if you choose to use it!

The main problem with using the auto format punctuation program is that it doesn’t convert properly by the programs that are working in the search engines so some punctuation is changed when content is uploaded…

Here are a few of the top examples:

• When using ordinals they change from 1^st to 1^st; and or 2^nd to 2^nd; and
• All fractions that are written as 1/2 will change to ½
• All short hyphens are transformed into long hyphens
• Straight commas, apostrophes and quote marks are changed to curved one

The simplest way to avoid these problems is to strip out the formatting altogether before the content is typed in. This is easy to do simply by clicking on the Tools section and go into Auto Correct Options. From here, click the AutoFormat tab and uncheck the boxes that you don’t wish to apply. It should look similar to the following:

• Straight quotes with smart quotes
• Hyphens – with dash –
• Ordinals (1st) with superscript
• Fractions 1/2 with fraction character ½

It is then up to you to select and deselect as you wish…

If you want your website to read properly then you must take care when using automatic text formatting programs.

Avoid Over-Flashing

The full-on movie treatment with flash and all kinds of other fancy flashing images that put Fox News to shame is always tempting but should be avoided if at all possible. Less really is more when you are creating websites and overdoing the continual rolling text and sales messages can put your customer’s brains into overdrive shortly before they completely shut down! Lure them into your website with great content and a simple layout rather than a page that takes three hours to load up. The internet is often viewed as a resource and not a place to have fun by older people while the younger generations enjoy being bombarded with messages and changing images so always consider your target age group as well.

Each and every website should be thought of as a marketing tool and getting it right will entail a range of skills and techniques. Search engine optimization plays a vital role in the success of a website and keeping it simple really works!

How do you ensure that your website contains enough images to be interesting but not so many that your customers have to wait half a day to see what your home page actually says?