Proofreading help and General Comments

We could use your help and thoughts. We have recently redone our website and are ready to send the information out to our customers. We would appreciate those of you with proofreading skills having a look. Any comments appreciated- we don't mind our errors being pointed out so we can fix them!!!

If you have a browse you might notice a few uk-yankee faces who have been kind enough to allow us to use their photos on our product images.

Thank you in advance for any help and a continued thanks to all uk-yankees who have supported us through being customers, sharing photos and generally helped out since we started the business 3 years ago.

www.smileygifts.co.uk

I just had a quick cruise through as it's late for me, but I noticed a couple of things:

On the labels for you page:

The 'w' and 'l' in "wine label" should be capitalized. And do you want it to be plural like the "Bottle Labels"?

And I'm not sure what a Doctor Fibbers' is but I don't think there needs to be an apostrophe after the 's' in Fibbers.

Hope this helps!

Hello!

On the Labels For You page: "The pictures you send and the choices you make will effect your labels look." Should be "affect" and "label's."

*With Doctor Fibbers, apostrophe use would depend on whether Doctor Fibbers is possessing something. "Doctor Fibbers brings you" - no. "Doctor Fibbers' case study notes" - yes.

On the Children's Books page: "Here is just a couple of feedbacks we have recieved about our Personalised Childrens books;" Should be "received" and "Children's".

*"Why not step out from the crowd and buy this lovingly created children's book." Should have a question mark at the end.

*"the helping santa book will also give mention to" Capitalize Santa.

*Even though you are using a customer's direct quote in green at the top of the page, I would proofread it and fix any spelling errors, since any mistakes will reflect on you.

That's as far as I got tonight. I'll look at the rest later.

Jen

Hi HG.

Your products look really good.

Now, my comments (constructive criticism).

Have a look at the text and fonts.

The full-justified text is hard on the eyes. Left-justified text would flow better and make it easier for the viewer to keep track of where they are on the page.

Also, the text/background contrast for some of your headers isn't very high. It might be hard for some people to read.

The letters in "Putting the Person into Personalised" are all squinched together.

I am looking at it on a netbook, so it might look differently on a larger screen. Netbook sometimes does funny things to the display. Also using Internet Explorer - may be different on differnet browsers.,

Also, where it says "All our products are created using information you provide in a simple email form", it would be good if the words "simple email form" link to the actual form. (To be honest, I'm a numpty and couldn't find the form. When I click on "Contact Us" I just get phone numbers.)

On the shop page, it would be good if you could click on each small image so that it brings up a larger image. And maybe with each image a brief description of what you do to make it personalised.

I can't figure out why the anwers to the faq questions are in different colours (brown and orange). It looks like you might be trying to divide them into two different categories, but I can't figure it out. If you do want to have answers in two different colours, they should be obviously different, like red and green. The brown and orange are really close to one another.

I realise that you have used a template site, but I suppose there is a way to jiggle aroud with the code a bit?

I hope you aren't bothered by my comments. I look at websites all day, so I can be a bit nitpicky.

Hello!

On the Labels For You page: "The pictures you send and the choices you make will effect your labels look." Should be "affect" and "label's."

I actually think "labels" doesn't need an apostrophe here.

I actually think "labels" doesn't need an apostrophe here.

As written, it's possessive so it does need an apostrophe.

If it were changed to read, "... will affect how your labels look," then you wouldn't need the apostrophe.

As written, it's possessive so it does need an apostrophe.

If it were changed to read, "... will affect how your labels look," then you wouldn't need the apostrophe.

Oh, I think I subconsciously slipped a how in there while I was reading it.  I have to say, I think saying "will affect how your labels look" would be less confusing here.

I have to say, I think saying "will affect how your labels look" would be less confusing here.

You may have a point there. Either that or, "will affect the look of your labels."

You may have a point there. Either that or, "will affect the look of your labels."

True, true.

Thank you all for your time to have a look and comments. It is always difficult when you know what you want to say to know if it is coming out right sometimes .

sweetpeach....don't worry at all- I asked for help and we really did mean it. Your comments were all very helpful and not nitpicky at all.

The comment about the email form is a very good one- that is a left over statement when we originally were trying to create an email form but realised in the end it is better to just email after they order with details- we will word to reflect that change.

Just checking- when you talk about the clicking on the photos- you can do that on all the ones in the individual shop pages (ie cards, labels etc)- just not the one on the first gateway page- is that the one you were referring to?

Nice to see the debate about the labels apostrophe or no apostroph - we will look at the wording for the sentence overall.


Thanks again everyone it really is very much appreciated!!!

There are at least 6 different fonts.  I find it hard to adjust my eyes to some many different fonts.

Here are a few things that I noticed or phrasing that I would change:

On the Contact Us page:

As it’s identified as the area where you can find contact information the phrase “contact info below” isn’t really necessary.  But if you want to keep it, capitalize Contact and put a colon after below.

Testimonials page:

Below is what our customers have to say about us.  Or alternatively:  Below are comments made by our customers.

We are proud to say that we have maintained an excellent standing on eBay after our Christmas sales.  See below: (colon, not semicolon)

Commissions page:

At Smiley Gifts we want to put smiles on the faces of our customers as well as the gift recipients.

….contact you as fast as we can to see if we can……


….charge you a penny (pence?) until (only 1 l in until)….

Personalised Children's Books page:

Here is some feedback we have received about our Personalised Children's Books: ( colon not semicolon)

Excellent is missing an l in the 3rd comment.


Do you have the ability to spellcheck because some of these things and there could be more, would have been caught by a spellcheck program.

Thanks-
Unfortunately there isn't a way to spell check in the program.

We have been torn about correcting customer's spellings in comments when using a direct quote. I think you are all right though- it does reflect and it is probably better that we go back and correct it.

I wondered if maybe that was exactly how the customer had written it, but as someone else did comment it ultimately looks like your error not theirs. 

Just a quick note to say thanks again. We have taken on board people's ideas and comments and fixed many of our mistakes (hopefully all of them).
Thanks for your help!

Just took a quick peak at the revised site, and it looks really good.

Just checking- when you talk about the clicking on the photos- you can do that on all the ones in the individual shop pages (ie cards, labels etc)- just not the one on the first gateway page- is that the one you were referring to?

Yes, I was referring to the gateway page.

Also, the more content you add, the more likely it is you will be found in searches, so it helps to write as much as you can about your products. It's also just helpful to the people who want to know more about them.

Unfortunately there isn't a way to spell check in the program.

Can you write your documents in MS Word, then spell check them there, then when they're  all perfect copy to Wordpad, and then copy the text document to the program?

And for the documents you've already written, can you copy and paste the text into MS Word and then spell check them there?