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Consistency – Like Mud

Consistency – Like Mud

Let’s talk writing consistency for a few minutes. One of the biggest problems that many people who write for the Web have is being consistent. Consistency means writing words and terms the same way each time. This is not to be confused with alternate phrases or synonyms. Consistency is important for the search engines, and, more importantly, for the humans who visit your site.

Let’s take a semi-real-life example. I recently examined a list of events that was written something like this:

  • Wed. Nov. 2 – Carburetor Tune-Up class – 9am
  • Thursday Nov 3 – Know Your Tires Workshop – 10:00AM
  • Friday November 4th – Basic Drive Train Mechanics: 1:00pm

This is an example of poor consistency. It is hard to read, it is more difficult to understand than necessary, search engines will not find it friendly, and it looks haphazard and unprofessional.

Abbreviations such as “Wed” and “Nov” are not your friend. They might have been helpful in a newspaper want-ad where advertisers are charge by the word or character, but the Web is, essentially, free. There is no usefulness to shortening words.

The various methods of writing the times, “9am”, “10:00AM”, and :”1:00pm” is just sloppiness as if the writer did not care. It is unprofessional. This list of events would be more effective if it was written like this:

 

  • Wednesday November 2 – Carburetor Tune-Up class – 9:00am
  • Thursday November 3 – Know Your Tires Workshop – 10:00am
  • Friday November 4 – Basic Drive Train Mechanics – 1:00pm

 

This new example is simple, easy to read by humans, SEO friendly, and definitely more professional looking.