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TashWord

Tash is a professional writer who loves helping people communicate clearly and effectively.

Decluttering your blog

Published 18 June, 2011 | By TashWord

Last week I found a blog post I just have to share – Skelliewag gives 50 tips for decluttering your blog (yes he posted this list a while ago, but it still applies as far as I’m concerned!)

He raises some great points, such as not including stats (as you rather than your readers care about them) and irrelevant social media conversations in your side bar. And I love his suggestion of having a traditional links page if you really want to list a lot of blogs somewhere.

Why declutter a blog?

Having less stuff around your writing gives more white space and less visual distraction – maybe I’m biassed, but I think that is better for highlighting your content. I do think about where to put things on my blog and avoid having too many plugins, but I hadn’t thought of decluttering like this before reading Skelliewag’s post.

One interesting point was to have a categories/tags cloud OR a categories/tags list – not both. I think that both is excess information, especially if you want to declutter and have more clear space around your blog. Personally, I would choose the list because it takes less space and is visually less cluttered than the cloud. On top of that, the cloud is based on bigger text on most popular words/phrases meaning that those words will give you a long list of posts to search through if trying to find something specific. Have you ever clicked on one of those clouds to find anything anyway? I know I haven’t (in fact I actively ignore them, but that’s just me!)

And I like the logic of getting rid of any advertising that doesn’t really pay well – it is nicer for readers to see fewer ads and does make the remaining ones more effective. I find a lot of ads in a blog distracting and prefer to see a clean page focussed on the content, so it makes sense to me to use fewer ads.

Most of his points already apply to my blog, phew! I will review the rest of his list and make decisions on whether to keep or lose some details. So if you think my blog is too cluttered or want something removed, now is the time to tell me!

* Images courtesy of Dysprosia and WikimediaCommons

Posted in blogging, business info & tools | Tagged blog, clear, declutter, space | Leave a comment

Be professional with the little things…

Published 17 June, 2011 | By TashWord

It amazes me sometimes how people ignore some of the little details that are so easy to deal with.

I read recently that someone would never take advice from a financial planner who can’t afford a quality tie (bad taste is a different issue, of course!) My equivalent statement is that I would never hire someone for SEO help/advice or other digital services (social media marketing, web design, ecommerce, etc) if they can’t be bothered setting up a non-hotmail, non-yahoo email address – Gmail and IP provider emails are not really any better.

The blog I looked at yesterday came to my attention by the owner asking for guest blog posts. He provided a domain name and his Hotmail details. Why on earth doesn’t he have an email based at that domain name? Especially for someone claiming to know about SEO?

This is a pet peeve, but there are some valid reasons to use a domain-related email address:

it builds trust to use your domain name – you have taken the time to get a domain name and matching emails so expect to be in business for more than five minutes
it looks professional
Hotmail does not build credibility – many people use Hotmail as untraceable email addresses so it is not always seen as reputable. Have you noticed a number of places won’t accept a Hotmail address when you register?
every time someone receives your email, you can promote Hotmail/Gmail/your ip provider or you can use your domain name and promote your business. No brainer to me
it shows you pay attention to the little details in your business so probably care about your products/services
it gives consistency, especially when you list your contact details in one place like on a business card or the end of an email
you don’t have to change your email address if you change ip providers or the email service stops (or changes rules in a way you don’t like)

Posted in Business Communications, business info & tools | Tagged domain, email, professional, trust | 3 Comments

You are making an impression…

Published 16 June, 2011 | By TashWord

Sigh. That’s my immediate response to a blog post I just read – sigh.

Doesn’t give a good impression of that blog or writer does it? Every time you write something that goes public, it affects how people view you – yet some people just don’t seem to get that. What’s worse is that this was a guest post on another blog so I assume they didn’t review it before accepting it. Silly as I closed the site after this post, and the rest may be great for all I’ll ever know…

I started reading the post in good faith but the poor expression made me skim the second half rather than read it which is never a good sign. I honestly only kept reading because I hoped the content would improve and justify it’s existence on a site I was reviewing. It didn’t.

Although appearing to be an article giving information, it was a poorly disguised ad for why company X is a good choice for design work – namely because they are young designers. I commented back as I don’t believe all young designers are good, nor all experienced designers lack passion.

Had I been given that article to edit or at least comment on, my suggestions for this article would have been:

make sure it all flows and that each sentence make sense
give balanced information (eg “while an older designer has experience, remember that new designers are keen to impress and may be passionate about their work” or “new designers have a lot to offer and you may find they charge less to get experience”)
introduce any specifics in the article, not just the heading (in this case the heading mentions web design but the article starts with ‘designing is a creative field’ – designing is more than websites)
use good grammar and punctuation (“give you the brand image as promised because; they want to earn a good name” does not need any punctuation in the middle and certainly not a semi-colon)

Just as I was leaving the page, I noticed the writer’s bio and sighed again. Nearly every word started with a capital letter (which is so annoying and completely unnecessary) and he claimed to be a ‘professional content writer’. With that example of his writing skills, he is not making a good impression for himself or the web design company paying him to write this article.

How do you respond to such poor examples of work?

Posted in bad writing examples, blogging, writing | Tagged flow, impression., information, post | 1 Comment

Why read a guest blogger?

Published 15 June, 2011 | By TashWord

Many blogs use a guest blogger from time to time, some use guest bloggers all the time; in fact, Matt Coddington suggest that just about every blog will include a guest blogger at some point in its lifetime.

A guest blogger simply means someone else writes a post or series of posts that are published on another blog. For example, I have done some guest blog posts at The Study Gurus. Sometimes it is one or two posts, sometimes there are many posts in quick succession and sometimes a number of guest posts are added over a longer period.

As a reader of a blog, why would you read a guest blogger in a favourite blog? Or would you actively not read it at all?

Posted in blogging | Tagged blogger, guest, post, read, series | 2 Comments

Spending on your content made easier

Published 14 June, 2011 | By TashWord

Believe it or not, we’re almost half way through 2011 and the Australian (and others) financial year is about to end.

As you may be reviewing budgets now or planning ahead for a great 2012, I am offering everyone who reads my blog a 5% discount for any business writing project booked between now and 30 June (for completion by 1 August 2011).

This could be for a series of blog posts, updating your ‘about us’ page or ghost writing your eBook through to project managing your annual report. Simply email me with details of your project and mention you read this offer on my blog. Or leave a comment and I’ll email you from that.

Consider this my end of year sale and my gift to your business planning for 2012.

Posted in About Word Constructions, business info & tools | Tagged discount, planning, writing | Leave a comment

A manual by any other name…

Published 14 June, 2011 | By TashWord

It’s an officious sounding word for many people, and certainly a daunting prospect if you have to write or update the manual for your business. So much so, that people often avoid having a procedures or operations manual or just call it something less intimidating.

Which raises the first question – what is a manual?

Really it is just a collection of ideas and instructions to help operate something efficiently. It may be boring to read the manual that came with your new iPod, phone or TV but it is very handy when you can’t figure out how to set it up or use the advanced features.

Manuals range from a few pages long to hundreds and even thousands of pages long, depending on the purpose of the manual. Obviously the manual to run a multi-million dollar business will be longer than the manual for your home printer, but the concept is the same.

Here are a few tips to make the concept of a manual less intimidating in your business:

call it something other than a manual if the name has negative associations for you – options include guidelines, procedures, rules, ‘helpful information’, policies and the ‘how to book’
make sure to write it (or get it written) in simple terms so it’s easy to understand
present it in an accessible way – a heavy folder stored on a high shelf will be ignored but a shared computer file on your intranet is much easier to use
divide the manual into usable chunks – much better to have a long index than instructions that go for pages and cover many tasks

If you are starting a new manual from scratch, you have the advantage of making it friendly from the start, and preparing procedures and style guides doesn’t have to be frightening either!

Thinking about manuals you’ve had to use in the past, what were some of the big issues with them?

Posted in Business Communications, business info & tools, writing | Tagged instructions, manual, name, procedures | 2 Comments

Searching people are important

Published 13 June, 2011 | By TashWord

For me, once you take out emails and website admin tasks (including writing blog content), then my key activity online would be using a search engine to find something. Apparently I’m not alone – this is the most common activity after emailing.

Which of course means that people searching are an important part of your online presence – if your site doesn’t get in search results and doesn’t help people landing on the site from a search engine then you are risking a potentially large market.

What’s more, if someone is searching the odds are they are willing to buy – I know I wouldn’t bother searching for a local dentist unless I want a new dentist or search for ‘computer mouse retailer’ for fun. So it seems logical to me that someone reaching your site from a relevant search engine search is likely to want your product/service. Especially in comparison to someone who is just curious about their friend’s latest social media like or follow.

Given the potential importance of people visiting your site from a relevant search, why would anyone waste their time getting people to visit from an irrelevant search? For instance, I am happy if you found my site (and blog) through a search for ‘business writer’, ‘blog content’ or ‘writing eBooks’ but see no point enticing you with ‘childcare provider’ or ‘dress maker’. It costs me time and possibly money to get found via a search engine so I don’t want to waste it on people who are not interested in my services – and I don’t want to waste their time and put them off side either.

So how can we help get the right search engine results? Here are my suggestions, and I’d love to hear everyone else’s ideas, too, as I won’t say no to more targetted traffic, either!

use appropriate keywords in your writing (ie repeat those words you think people may use to find you)
minimise the repetition of words that are not relevant to your message – for example, you may be a designer writing about your latest website project but avoid writing ‘medical business’ too often as you discuss the work
build up some links to your site – quality content is the key here but it does take a bit more than that
if looking for backlinks (ie links form other sites to yours), ask them to use appropriate text for the link and aim for related sites. Use the same strategy if someone offers to link to you, or even ask anyone who has added a link without contacting you
add page-relevant keywords to your blog tags or page metadata as this helps direct a search engine to the right topics. Note I wrote page-relevant so don’t just use the same words on every page – for example, my tags for this post will be ‘search’, ‘keywords’ and ‘relevant’ which would not work on many of my other pages

Of course, it is crucial to write contact of interest to real people and tweak it for search engines rather thna write for search engines and hope people find the hidden meaning.

How else can you get good search engine traffic to your site/blog?

Posted in blogging, marketing, web content | Tagged content, keyword, relevant, search, writing | Leave a comment

Making your blog quality

Published 12 June, 2011 | By TashWord

Often, I read about the importance of quantity for blog posts – that is, there is a message to write frequently in your blog to make it successful. And I have to disagree with that message.

Oh, there is no argument that a certain number of posts and some regularity is necessary to get traffic to your blog and search engines ranking you. And for regular readers it does help to have a pattern to posting or at least multiple posts a week.

But having five or more posts a week that are boring or trashy is not going to get you a lot of repeat visitors either.

Good quality blog posts that engage people is what will bring people back to your blog. That can be done in many ways (informative, descriptive, entertaining and so on) as long as people are interested in what you are writing. Quality posts may or may not generate a lot of conversation (ie comments), but they will achieve the usual aims of a blog – sharing ideas, showing expertise and communicating with real people.

I would much rather read an informative blog post once a month than visit a blog every day to read some drivel churned out – how about you?

How does this affect your blogging time? Well in reality writing one good post shouldn’t take much longer than three or five short, nonsense posts so don’t assume quality means more of your precious time. Remember a quality post can also be short…

Posted in blogging, writing | Tagged blog, post, quality, quantity | 6 Comments

Finding quirky blog content ideas

Published 10 June, 2011 | By TashWord

Did I convince you that using quirky ideas (or quirky sources of ideas) can make some interesting blog posts?

Braille writing on a screen – quirky inspiration?

Keeping your blog fresh and interesting can take a lot of thought and effort so why not make it fun at least some of the time?

So where can you find quirky blog post ideas?

Well the real answer is anywhere and everywhere! Just look for what is happening around you and you may be surprised at how much silliness and quirkiness there really is!

However, for specific inspiration of a quirky nature, here are a few ideas to get you started:

find a favourite recipe site and visit it every few weeks. You can post about how delicious something sounds or how complicated a recipe is, the name of a dish may inspire laughter or memories, the layout of the site may spark a post on website navigation or colours, you could get philosophical about food and eating, or you may post about a different type of diet each month.
get yourself a collection of useful sites that you can share. For example, a site that converts metric into imperial, a blog directory, a recipe site that gives you meals to suit certain ingredients, a list of paper and envelope sizes, or a budget-helper like simple savings. You can post these as helpful tips or use them for inspiration – maybe the site is an example of something good or bad in your field, you can post about pricing of website information or you can ask for suggestions for a specific site you need
get a regular dose of a funny site – you can blog about specific stories/jokes/images or the site itself, or use it to get creative or maybe use the content to explain a concept (for instance, a joke about miscommunication is something I could use in a post about the importance of clear communications in a workplace). A couple of examples are damnyouautocorrect, thinkbeforeyousend and the Darwin Awards
really look at the signs you pass – it may be the sign looks great or doesn’t make sense, it may be hung in a silly place or be easily misinterpreted, it may make you laugh or grimace, but signs can give you ideas if you don’t take them for granted
grab an old reference book and note the differences with modern expectations. Think about a plane company posting about the world being flat or a surgeon posting about the latest hair styles for gentlemen, then see what changes could apply to your industry or humour
read some kids’ books, especially something like Dr Seuss or Roald Dahl, or something quirky like a Terry Pratchett novel. Even if you don’t get direct ideas for your blog, they are sure to get you thinking quirky and creative things!

What other quirky idea generators do you use?

Posted in blogging, writing | Tagged blog, fun, get ideas, quirky | 1 Comment

Add the little touches

Published 9 June, 2011 | By TashWord

This week I have come across two very different examples of customer service.

First, I went to a website and found a problem so wanted to contact them. Finding their contact page was easy enough but it had four compulsory field titles (name, email, subject and message) but only three text boxes so there was nowhere for me to actually type a message. Worse, there was no ‘submit’ button either so I couldn’t send a message to them.

Yes, their focus is on getting online sales rather than answering specific queries but the lack of care about letting me contact them left a sour taste in my mouth.

Separately, I have unsubscribed from two ezines this week (yes, my emails are mounting up so I’ve been sorting and unsubscribing this week) where I was pleasantly surprised by the final unsubscribe page. In different ways, both sites gave me the opportunity to report the people sending me the ezine as spam – in other words, they were asking if I was unsubscribing because I never asked for their ezine.

To me, that is honest and upfront. It gave me the impression that they care about doing the right thing and not wanting to spam people. Many people don’t care about someone who unsubscribes as they are gone, but by treating me nicely they have left me with a good feeling about them.

Have you tried using your contact form and unsubscribing from your own newsletter or blog subscription? If not, perhaps it’s time you give it a go…

Those little touches to your website and customer service leave a lasting impression on people. What sort of lasting impression does your website leave?

Posted in writing | Tagged contact form, little touches, unsubscribe, website | Leave a comment

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