web content | - Part 2

Archive for the ‘web content’ Category

Basic webpages

Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011

So now you have a domain name and some hosting, your initial web copy is live and you have a web designer working on the look of your site. But what do you say when the designer asks how many pages you need or what is to go into the menu?

Planning the content of a site is only part of the story – you also need to decide how to divide it into page-sized chunks that people will find useful. You could write all the web content in one block and then divide it up, but I have found it more effective to decide what needs to be covered and how to to group the information before actually putting the information together.

So the absolute basic pages you’ll find on most wbsites are:

‘home page’ is the first page seen under your main URL so it needs to welcome and captivate people
‘about us’ – gives some information abut the business itself and the people behind it
‘contact us’ – gives a form and/or contact details so people can get in touch with you. This really is a necessity for building trust and having people act on your content
‘services’ or ‘products’ – a one page list of items is the absolute minimum to let people know what is on offer. This can be expanded to various pages about types of services through to a complete shopping cart for products.

Beyond these basics, you can choose to add any of the following as well:

testimonials
faqs (which stands for frequently asked questions and form s a good resource for site visitors)
links
blog
articles or fact sheets
useful downloads (e.g. forms, instructions, diagrams)
discussion forums
helpdesk or ticket system for support
various tools such as calculators and apps
surveys, polls and quizzes to offer fun and interest or provide information

This post is part of Word Constructions’ Setting up a website series
1. having a website helps more than you
2. what’s involved in setting up a website?
3. Learn about web hosting
4. Preparing your initial website content
5. Managing website design 101
6. Choosing a web designer

Posted in business info, web content | 2 Comments »

Managing website design 101

Tuesday, August 16th, 2011

Unless you are a web designer, I strongly recommend you do not design your own website.

Yes, software is fairly easily available to make it possible, but don’t let that fool you into thinking anyone can design a decent (let alone good) website. Website design is more than choosing colours and putting the content on a page with a few links to a shopping cart or a blog. Even a good eye for design may not be enough as websites have specific requirements as well as coding issues.

And doing it yourself isn’t likely to be cheaper either. It may not cost you in terms of paying an invoice, but it will take a lot hours that you can’t invoice for and a low quality result can cost you in customers.

Enough of the negatives, and on to how to manage your design (or redesign)…

know your brand and make the design suit it. Have a sedate and professional brand? Don’t get a young and funky web design as it will clash.
think about what you want on the site in the longer term. You may be happy with five basic pages now with the expectation of adding a blog and forum in six months or so – include those expectations in the design brief so they are easy to add later without needing a new design.
choose your designer carefully – there is a huge array of designers from those who overcharge and under deliver to those who give great results at a value price. We’ll look at this in my next ‘getting your business online’ post, or look at my tips on choosing suppliers
while standing out by being different can be an effective marketing strategy, remember that some differences are a hindrance. For example, putting a menu in a strange place, not underlining hyperlinks and cute or clever alternatives to ‘submit’ and ‘buy’ buttons may confuse people and push them away form your site – colour backgrounds may look nice, too, but if people find the text hard to read the nice colour is hurting your site
put humans first and search engines second – search engine optimisation (SEO) is an important part of attracting people to your site but no one will stay if you haven’t also considered a human’s needs on a website.
keep important information visible and easy to find. For example, if you want people to call you, don’t just have your phone number in the footer – make it prominent high on the page
plan the navigation carefully – this can be the hardest and most time consuming step for you but it is important enough to warrant being done thoroughly. Discuss your plan with your designer, content writer and anyone else involved in the project as their expertise may spot weaknesses
make sure your design complements your other business materials. If I was given your business card or flyer and am interested enough to follow through by typing in a URL, I expect to see something similar when I reach your site. If your site is heading in a new direction, update the supporting materials ASAP
increasingly, people are accessing websites via mobile devices. Sites can be designed to suit mobile devices now so incorporate that into any new site – if you’re going online, you may as well be online for everyone!
be wary of using templates, especially free templates. If the finished product looks like some text placed into a template people have seen 50 times before, your website is not communicating much of benefit (it says cheap, unprofessional, lazy, boring and uninspiring - is that what you want your site to say about your business?) On the other hand, a template adapted to your needs can be effective and cheaper than a custom design – it’s a matter of balance. Make sure you get a template that allows you to change background and font colours, images, header height and the like and, most importantly, lets you decide on the number of menu items showing.
communicate with your designer frequently and honestly. Insist on seeing drafts and giving feedback on what you do and don’t like, and ask questions about why something is done in certain ways – if the designer has a good reason you may be best to leave it alone, but things based on designer preferences can change to your customers’ tastes.
test the site before you approve it – search for relevant information and be sure someone could find it, look at it on different browsers and screens, click on links to be sure they work, and make sure any tools work properly (shopping carts, search boxes, subscription forms, etc)

What other tips do you have for managing the web design of a new site?

Tags: brand, designer, plan, seo, web design
Posted in business info, web content | 4 Comments »

Preparing your initial website content

Wednesday, August 10th, 2011

Filling an entire website with content can be a bit daunting, especially when you are also trying to get the design and navigation settled. So the third part of our series on getting your business online is about some initial website content.

Rule number one – don’t put up a message like “under construction”.

Search engines don’t like it – and nor do humans for that matter! To me, it looks lazy as it is not much harder to put a brief message on a temporary homepage than to write those two boring words there.

Obeying rule number one, many people therefore don’t have anything showing on their site during the development phase. This seems like a waste to me – the sooner your site is up, the sooner you can send people there (i.e. you don’t have to delay all marketing while waiting) and let search engines discover it.

So my suggestion is to have an interim homepage that can go live very quickly, giving you and your designer a bit of breathing space.

Here’s what to include on that interim page…

your business name! obvious but very important!
your logo if you have one – don’t use a makeshift logo though
some basic contact details. Top or bottom of the page or in text doesn’t matter as long as someone can find out how to get in touch with you. A message like “Our full website will be here soon but in the meantime please email us on xx@domain.com or call 1234 3456″ covers it nicely
your tagline, if you have one
your USP (and you need one if you haven’t already got one)
some basic information about your business and/or website so people can determine if you offer what they were after in the first place. Sure many won’t come back but some will if they think you will meet their need. A paragraph or two or a bullet list is all you need
if you have them and are using them for your business, add links (preferably via graphics than text) to social media profiles so you connect all your online presences

So with a domain name, a host and some initial content, you can have a simple web presence quite quickly. Does it feel a it easier to achieve now?

Although an interim page like this is not an ideal website, it is better than nothing so just taking this step will get you online.

If you still doubt the value or worth of getting online, get an interim site up (grab some monthly hosting and you can do it for under $50, too) and monitor your calls and sales for a couple of months. Let me know if the website makes a significant difference to your leads – or even if it gives you one more!

This post is part of Word Constructions’ Setting up a website series
1. having a website helps more than you
2. what’s involved in setting up a website?
3. Learn about web hosting

Tags: content, initial, website, writing
Posted in web content, writing | 2 Comments »

When a date doesn’t date…

Wednesday, August 10th, 2011

In the last week we have seen a lot about world and local financial markets – every dropped drastically but has already picked up some of that again. Have you tried researching information about this situation, either in general or for something specific?

I was looking at various superannuation sites yesterday to see what they were telling members about their investments and was amazed that not all listed a date for the news item they had published.

One in particular started their article with “Last week was a tumultuous one for world share markets” and finished with a footnote “*SR50 Balanced fund SuperRatings Crediting Rate Survey, June 2011″.

So was it about things that happened last week (i.e. early August 2011) or some other week since June 2011?

I’m fairly confident the article went live in the last 48 hours so presumably it is about recent developments. But what if I hadn’t looked at their site until next week – would the data still be relevant or useful?

Yes, putting dates on websites can date them fast (the ‘last updated’ reference on many pages is the prime example of that) but current news items are the exception.

I have often read blog posts and wondered when it was written; “new version of ABC will be released next month” and “our web visitors doubled in the past 12 months” carry more weight when I understand ‘next month’ and ‘past 12 months’. A small note after the post is fine (WordPress does it by default and that works for me!)

People need to have a context, a reference point for the information. Especially for things like financial markets which change so rapidly at times.

And just to be clear, this is being written on 10 August 2011!

Tags: current events, date, meaning
Posted in web content, writing | No Comments »

What’s involved in getting a website up?

Monday, August 1st, 2011

Welcome to the first in a series of posts about getting your business online. Even if you are not yet sure you will start a website, the aim is to give you the information to make an informed decision for your business.

So let’s start with the basics of what you need to do to get a website up – and let’s make it a decent website that your business doesn’t need to be ashamed of! (We could get a website up in about 10 minutes but it may do more harm than good!)

get a domain name – I suggest doing this even if you don’t add a website for some time. Keep the name for your use and you can use it as an email address even if there is no functioning website yet
get a web host – this means you are paying someone for some space on the internet. There are many hosting packages available, covering various features and a huge price range – it is feasible to get hosting for under $100 a year so look around. We’ll cover hosting options later in this series.
get some information online – you can start with a very simple one-page site that explains who you are and how you cane contacted. You may be happy with that in the medium term, too, but it certainly gets you online while a full site is being developed.
get your site designed – yes that means someone makes it all look nice but it may also mean getting the right programs in place to suit your business needs.
add content to your website – content is critical if you want to get the right message to the right people, and if you want to do well with building your website traffic. Look through my blog for numerous examples of websites let down by poor content – I suggest you plan your content (we’ll cover this during the week, too, but make sure you key pages have great content from the start)
let people know about your website – this is a big ‘task’ and will be ongoing for the life of your site, but there are some simple starting points to action straight away

Does a website seem a little less intimidating when there are only 6 steps? remember that you can (and probably should for many of the steps) get help with the actual implementation of each step.

As a website without a host is pretty hard to manage, the next in this series will be on hosting…

Tags: content, design, host, start, website
Posted in business info, web content | 3 Comments »

Having a website helps more than you

Friday, July 29th, 2011

A New Zealand study has just shown that businesses with a website are helping their economy – or more to the point, businesses without a website are missing an opportunity to help themselves and their local economy.

So do you have a website?

I’ve written before about the value of a website, and I think it’s importance has only increased with the growth of social media and mobile access and apps, but I hadn’t thought of it as a major factor for a national economy. Results showed businesses with an online presence had significantly more sales and profits – who’s going to argue with increased profits!

As great as it is to grow your business with a website, I found it staggering that 70% of those without a website have no intention of getting one. I understand that not everyone is comfortable with technology (but you can get people to set it up and mange it for you) and time is a big factor for small business (hey, I have four kids and a business!) but a basic online presence is just so important.

Over the next week or so, I will do some posts about how to get your business online to help business owners who are feeling a bit overwhelmed with it all – and to help the Australian economy!

If you have any questions about getting online, now is a great time to ask!

Tags: economy, get online, profits, website
Posted in business info, marketing, Uncategorized, web content | 4 Comments »

Missing out on comments

Wednesday, July 20th, 2011

I just came across a great blog post and wrote a comment in response. Part of the process was answering a security question to avoid spam which is fine.

The questions was “what is one plus three?” It wasn’t a challenge to find the answer but I did wonder if I should write ‘four’ or ‘4’. Given the question used words, I did too.

Unfortunately, the comment form just disappeared with the message “You got the spam message wrong” in its place. Not only was my beautifully crafted response gone forever, I wasn’t given the opportunity to write a replacement comment – and that blog misses out on another comment.

If there is any ambiguity about a compulsory question, there must be a second chance at answering it. Better yet would be clarity about the expected answer – for instance, it could have asked “what is one plus three? (answer in digits)” or “Give the number (in digits) equal to one plus three”.

A simple error yes but the consequences are that they missed getting a comment – How many comments do they miss each week because of this spam question? – and they have lost credibility as a site that values clarity (sorry to say it was a content writing service site, too).

What sort of spam protection do you hate or love?

Tags: blog, clarity, comment, spam
Posted in blog content, business info, business tools, web content | 2 Comments »

Communications is more than marketing

Wednesday, July 13th, 2011

Although there is some overlap in the roles, there are distinct roles for a business or corporate writer, communications manager, marketing person, designer, web manager and social media manager or monitor.

Many people don’t realise there is such a range of roles behind the public presentation of a business, so here is my summary of the roles.

A communications manager oversees many of the processes involved in producing materials to promote a business. For example, a communications manager ensures an annual report is written, designed, printed and added to a website with all necessary people approving it. A communications manager may do some of the tasks themselves, manage a team of people to do the tasks or outsource specific tasks. Communications managers generally have a writing or marketing background.

A business or corporate writer actually puts the words together to effectively communicate a message in a style that suits the business and its customers. The writer also often edits material written by other people such as a letter from a sales manager or a marketer’s brochure. Sometimes a writer will also help implement the content such as posting to a blog or working with a print-based or online-based graphic designer to tweak the message to fit.

A web manager obviously manages the website, which can include tasks such as making changes, optimising the site for search engine results, updating the design or navigation, and maintaining data.

A designer makes the message as visually appealing as possible, whether that is a simple letterhead, a website design, branding or preparing some advertising banners and posters.

A marketing officer or manager is a little harder to define. It is a creative role of trying to get the business/message to as many appropriate people as possible. Marketing includes deciding where to promote the business as well as the key messages to promote, such as a tag line, campaign theme and suitable formats.

A social media manager or monitor is obviously a newer role but no less important for that. Social media is becoming more important as a means of promoting and building your business, but it can be time consuming and has some elements that (like most things) require specific skills and knowledge. You can get someone to monitor your social media appearances (ie they check various platforms each day to see what people are saying about you) or someone can manage your social media overall (such as making posts for you, planning a strategy and replying to mentions).

If you are employing someone, you may want to think through exactly what tasks you need done before choosing the role to fill, and someone who can do more than one set of tasks may be valuable (for example a writer who can update your website or post tweets for you).

However, if you are outsourcing, remember the roles are different and choosing the appropriate person will probably give you better results than expecting too much from one person (for instance assuming that your designer will proof read your writing or write some tweets to promote your new eBook could lead to disappointment).

Some projects will obviously take more than one role to fulfill, which may seem hard to manage in itself. In this case, outsource to someone who is willing to manage those other tasks for you rather than someone who claims to do it all themselves. I would never outsource design work to me for example, but I have relationships with some great designers so can manage a project by sub contracting to them – the difference in results is huge but the effort for a client is minimised.

Tags: communications manager, marketing, message, roles, writer
Posted in business info, marketing, social media, web content, writing | No Comments »

Archive for the ‘web content’ Category

Basic webpages

Managing website design 101

Preparing your initial website content

This post is part of Word Constructions’ Setting up a website series
1. having a website helps more than you
2. what’s involved in setting up a website?
3. Learn about web hosting

When a date doesn’t date…

What’s involved in getting a website up?

Having a website helps more than you

Missing out on comments

Welcome!

Email updates

Pages of note

eBooks to read

Recent Posts

Categories

Refer back to older posts…

Blogroll

Recent Comments

Meta

Like us on Facebook

Archive for the ‘web content’ Category

This post is part of Word Constructions’ Setting up a website series 1. having a website helps more than you 2. what’s involved in setting up a website? 3. Learn about web hosting

Welcome!

Email updates

Pages of note

eBooks to read

Recent Posts

Categories

Refer back to older posts…

Blogroll

Recent Comments

Meta

Like us on Facebook

This post is part of Word Constructions’ Setting up a website series
1. having a website helps more than you
2. what’s involved in setting up a website?
3. Learn about web hosting