I interviewed the MD of NET2S before Christmas. They are a fine company doing very sophisticated technology work and the interview was clear and concise.

Which is just as well, because when I went to their website to prepare for interview, it was the exact opposite.

Let’s take an prominent example from the home page:

Discover our service offerings: GOOL : GL open object library, Market connectivity, GL enterprise manager.

Absolutely no clue there (and remember I’m a technology journalist so pity the poor customer). So I clicked on the button marked “Our Solutions” and read the following:

NET2S solutions spring from our experience in diverse technology practices and from our capacity to identify and analyze trends in our clients’ vertical markets. We deliver substantial, complex projects on time and within budget — comprehensive solutions providing clients unique business services, well beyond discreet technologies addressing enterprise data, application or infrastructure domains.

Here are the problems with this text:

1. Readers don’t like marketing hype words like “substantial,” “comprehensive,” “unique.”
2. It’s full of business bingo words, but doesn’t actually say WHAT THEY DO. If it’s too complicated to express in a sentence, give a couple of examples.
3. I hate the word “solutions.” It’s such a cliché it has its own section in Private Eye.
4. This bit of text is the most important thing on the page but it appears half way down, sandwiched in between lots of links and other stuff. Put the key message front and centre.
5. The text is utterly generic, like many company mission statements. Apart from the last five words it could also describe what a fishmonger, an actress or a writer does as well.
6. I’m pretty sure they mean ‘discrete’ technologies, not “discreet” ones.

So ploughing on to the second paragraph…

The NET2S engagement delivery methodology guarantees a dual commitment to quality of service and technical expertise. Entirely business-driven, this methodology is delivered through a highly accomplished Net2S team led by the Technical Practice Manager and Business Focus Manager. The client benefits further through our Client Knowledge Management programs.

1. A bad case of Capitalisation of Random Words. These terms may have a special meaning to the company but they don’t to the read and they just make it harder to parse.
2. Blocks of text like this are very hard to read. In fact very few people actually read every word on a website - they tend to scan for keywords.
3. A methodology is a method or a process with a PhD. Why use a long word when a short one will do better?

At this point, I stopped reading the site, made a cup of tea and got on with the interview. I’d like to know how much NET2S spent on their website and what proportion of that went on the copywriting. It’s a question lots of companies should ask themselves.