"Get thee an editor," Emma Gibson, Wishlist's editor-in-chief, commanded attendees of the Netfest conference in Melbourne.
Although people are used to using specialist IT and design staff to create the "magic" behind a Web site, the importance of professional editors and writers is often overlooked because everyone can write, she explained.
"How strong is your voice going to be?" she asked. "Every word on your Web site is communicating with customers." Consequently, Wishlist's www.wishlist.com.au error messages are now written by editors, not programmers.
"The biggest problem with e-commerce is that people don't 100 percent trust it," and any grammar and punctuation errors make the organization look "shonky," Gibson said.
"You can build the cool stuff, the movies and so on, but get good writing behind it," she said. "Some simple, plain text is going to help your audience have a good experience."
Unlike a freelance writer, a full-time editor gains an understanding of the organisation, which makes for a stronger and more consistent corporate voice. An editor can also contribute more broadly to activities such as offline advertising and the preparation of presentation materials.
Despite the recent acquisition of The Lounge www.thelounge.com.au Gibson said the company is avoiding "contextual content" that's equivalent to a magazine advertorial.
People using the Internet are solution focussed, she said, so if they are reading about frizzy hair it might make sense to provide a link to a product for that type of hair, but in order to maintain customer trust "we're not going to bring on products that we don't rate [highly]," she said.
"Our site is about the easiest way to do things," Gibson added.
Launched in July 1999, Wishlist delivered gifts to 80,000 people last Christmas, and expects to do four times as much business this year.
The company operates sites for personal and corporate gift buying, one for wedding gift registers, and today (December 1) opened an e-tail site for Country Road, its first external client.
The company, which anticipates reaching profitability by the end of 2001, was the winner of the best e-commerce site and the most entrepreneurial achievement categories at this week's Australian Financial Review Australian Internet Awards.
