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I know I wrote about words earlier this month but words are important and I think we should revisit the subject of words.

Even though these days quite a large part of Steve's and my time is taken up with web design words still play a major role in our business. We still do write quite a few articles, stories and even e-books for various clients and so we're involved with words.

There are keywords ... and keyword phrases ... power words, words that sell and words that raise the emotions. There are words that mean things to different people in different countries, there are words that we should always use and then there are words that we should never use. There are words that get people interested and there are words that turn them off completely.

And all the while we're stressing about which words to use in different parts of a web page there are those who don't understand just how powerful words are and think that it's possible to sell the products we do without using many words at all.

It's an interesting challenge to convert those unbelievers and to show those who do use words that there are better words to use or perhaps better ways of writing and presenting the words they do use.

So how well do you use words? Do you even understand the power that words have? Do you understand that sometimes very positive words can have a very negative effect when used inappropriately? Even as I write this you can see the power that words have in advertising whether it's in newspapers or on the Web.

Just today Chrysler used some great words in entirely the wrong context with their ads thanking America for the Government bailout. Those words ... words that usually have a very positive effect ... are making lots of Americans very very angry right now. That's obviously not the effect Chrysler wanted their words to have but unfortunately that's what's happening.

Earlier I mentioned that there were words that should never be used so let's think about those for a few moments. Let's think about a scenario where you were advertising a product that had just undergone a price reduction.

In that situation many people would think that an appropriate word to use in advertising that product would be 'cheap' and there's no doubt that the word 'cheap' catches our eye and tells us something about the cost of the item. So you might use that word several times in a sales pitch to get across the fact that the item is not going to cost a lot to buy.

If you did use that word in your marketing you might be somewhat disappointed with the results because most people don't just associate the word 'cheap' with the price but also with the quality of the item and whether or not it will actually last beyond one or two uses.

In porn sites people might also associate the word 'cheap' with content that they've seen before, small images, poor quality video and poor presentation so that's not a word you would want to use regardless of what you were selling.

Perhaps instead of 'cheap' you might use the word 'discount' or 'budget'. Other value words you might try are 'affordable', 'inexpensive' or 'economical'. Now I know that some of you are thinking that those words just don't fit with porn but try them ... you may be surprised at the results.

In fact I would challenge you to start looking at words the way we do. They're tools ... very powerful tools ... that can add far more to your bottom line than you might think possible. Experiment with words ... look at how your surfers react to words, look at how you react to certain words and learn from what you're discovering about others and about yourself too.

Run some A/B testing on some of your sites and see which words boost your sales and which ones send them into a tailspin. Discover which words have the most power and in what situations they're the most powerful. Discover which words work in which niches and once you have the knowledge apply it to your websites and watch your sales increase.

And go on watching, testing and experimenting because, while the basic power words never lose their power to attract people, there are other words whose power rises and falls and you don't want to be working with tired words that have lost their ability to arouse anyone.

There's a lot more to words than meets the eye and once you've worked that out you're on your way to making words work for you.