If a company has only one employee, why does its website say "we"? Should I use the royal "we" for my website? It just seems wrong..

[hattyyellow]

Any advice welcomed. I've been trying to create a website for my freelance business. I am the only employee in my consultancy.

Reading through the websites of my rivals, they all seem to use "our team", "we can" and "contact us" throughout. Yet when you look at the "about us" section - it's just one person.

Is this correct? I've tried using "I can" and "contact me" but it now seems unprofessional when everyone else is using "we"!

I'd really appreciate any thoughts!

What does it read like if you put it in the 3rd person e.g. "hattyyellow has x years experience of yellow hats and always welcomes the chance to provide more yellow hats, or to consult on hat related matters, however jaundiced they may be"

Use we. It makes you look like you employ people and are therefore successful. You're not actually lying though, it's just good presentation

Yes, I think it's the corporate "we"
No experience but it sounds right - after all you might hire a temp to answer the phones one day, whereas if you say "contact me" it sounds very much like you are asking them to contact you, an individual, rather than the company.

Exceptions IMO would apply where you are an individual and it's important that people contact you - hairdresser, childminder, singet, possibly caterer...

Depends on your job, doesn't it. For example, here's a barrister's website

i am not sure about this... i am considering going freelance and have been having discussions with potential allies and clients. i am realising that i am very much selling my own personal skill-set and me personally.

i don't want to imply that if you call up you might get anybody, i want it to be clear (at this stage) that you get me. personally.

but that's just my own situation.

Love the hat-related matters consultancy!

I guess I should opt for we, but it does feel slightly like I'm lying and might get caught out if someone tries to hire more than one consultant!

I work with arts organisations helping with marketing and strategy. Thinking about it, there are a number of bigger consultancies with a lot more staff.

However, what I offer is like an extra pair of hands on the team, it's a lot more personal than a big agency. Perhaps as that's one of my key strengths I should use "I" rather than the corporate "we"? The other freelancers offering the same kind of service as me use "we", but maybe "I" would stand out in this instance..

Cross posts fluffie! Interesting that you are going towards "I'..

I guess it's also managing the expectations of clients and looking at what they are used to.

They might want a personal service from a freelancer, but be so used to the "corporate we" that they judge you unfairly as being unprofessional for using "I"?

i think it might change as you go along.. i'm going to be upfront to start and play off my CV and recent projects i've worked on as staff.. as time goes on and i get a portfolio of freelance work then i might change to be more of a 'business' but right now i'm definately a person who you can buy by the day.

i recently did a training with this person www.naomikorn.com/index.htm she gets round it by using the third person and talking about naomi korn consultancy as an entity.. she never says we but doesn't say I either.

Nerdy pedantry follows. You've been warned.

That URL should be www.naomikorn.com/

Never include the named index page in the link.

You go to google.com/ and not to www.google.co.uk/index.html for example.

cattj - While I'd agree that one does not need to include a named index page, I know of no hard and fast rule, and it would only be 'wrong' if it caused a 404 (page not found) error.

You may prefer to type google.com but there are times when one can have completely different content while using what is nominally the same domain. I could create one set of pages under www.example.com and a completely different set under example.com

Equally, I can create different content for
example.com/index.shtml* example.com/index.php* and example.com/index.htm

You can see that it would therefore make sense in that situation to include the document name, as the result then be predictable, and it hardly needs me to tell you that when you specify no index.html file, the browser has to do a further lookup before it requests the correct file.

Perhaps you can point to some authoritative document suggesting that the use of index.html in a web link is deprecated ?

Have to say, I use "we" - for the main reason that it looks like i'm not a one-man band.
even though I am.

It looks more porfessional is it looks like there are lots of you there.