I hope you find my writing and business tips and observations useful. My business and blog are dedicated to helping businesses communicate clearly and reach their potential.
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Having a mock design can make it much easier to plan content and other elements of a project
Getting a designer to prepare a visual mock early in a communications project will cost money of course, but it can often be well worth the expense. I am lucky in working with a designer who quickly grasps my intentions so can produce lovely mocks relatively easily. The mocks then form a basis for developing the main project, which often does not even involve my designer. From recent projects, having a mock prepared early in the process has meant:
you can put various ideas in one place so details aren’t forgotten or overlooked
everyone involved can see what is being discussed. Otherwise, everyone assumes they are imagining the same thing but could actually have some very different ideas of what is being developed.
when giving the brief to a supplier, it is easy to ensure they understand how the final version should look and to specify key details. This obviously doesn’t apply to a design-based project but is very helpful for software or construction projects
for non-designer suppliers, you can get a much better result if you show them what it is to look like – they can copy the design and save time
you can be working on the content and other refinements while the underlying structure is being developed. For example, while the technical people are building the software, I can be working on the content of the user screens as I know where text will go (e.g. a heading and two short sections or one long section)
Before you start a new project and rely on written descriptions and your own rough sketches, think about the potential value of having a mock designed for your planning and briefing processes. Are you a visual person? If so, having a mock to work from is probably much easier for you. If you’re not quite so visual, don’t underestimate how powerful a visual can be for many people and how it can aid communication. Can you remember times when a mock made a project flow better than expected?
Whether you run your own business or the communications for a business, if you are involved in the annual report process, have you started work on it yet?
I have learned not to just leave preparing an annual report until July. It is so much easier and quicker to write if you have been keeping notes all year. I have an annual report document where I jot notes all year (for example ’10 November new product launched, 12 December legislation changed, 10 February started our blog’).
When you come to writing the annual report you then have a list of things from the past year to potentially include in your report. It is so easy to forget something that happened early in the year so having the list reminds you.
It has also saved me time many times because the date is listed and I don’t have to search it up. Knowing the date is useful for looking up related emails or news, assessing statistics (e.g. why did website traffic spike in March?) and just for reporting the date in the annual report (e.g. ‘We launched our blog in February and are pleased with it’).
Make preparing an annual report an all year project and you can save yourself a lot of stress and worry, and produce a comprehensive report as well.
P.S. The notes are sometimes useful for other tasks, not just for writing the annual report. Have you wasted time looking for dates or trying to remember what happened in a certain timeframe?
Others are not so careful. I just read an article with ‘easy ways to keep your child believing in Santa’ that spends the first few paragraphs destroying any beliefs before giving the five tips. Any doubting child reading it would no longer be influenced by those useful tips so the purpose would be lost – and don’t assume kids don’t read articles aimed for parents!
This makes a clear example of how the presentation of information through choice of words, headings and images can support or contradict the intent and content of the writing. Sure it is harder to write so that the entire message is consistent and acceptable for all potential readers, but it will serve the purpose much better and will be appreciated by those looking for the information.
What examples have you seen of a message not supporting itself? Or maybe you have a Santa story to share (although personal stories are best shared at Love Santa’s blog!)?
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 group the information before actually putting the information together.
So the absolute basic pages you’ll find on most websites 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 about 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:
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, but I strongly recommend my host, Digital Pacific.
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 your 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…
Occasionally I am asked what return on investment (ROI) people can expect from hiring a professional writer. And now I have your curiosity peaked, too, I can’t give you a straight answer – sorry!
I can’t give a dollar figure (or even a percentage) as there are too many variables to factor in – the type of business you run, what aspects you get professionally written (eg just an about us page or your entire website), your profit margins and how you utilise the words the writer scribes for you.
However, I can give you some ideas to assess how a writer can reward you and your business so you can decide on your own ROI…
at the worst, you gain time for selling and servicing customers. So if you hire me to do two hours writing for you, that’s two hours extra in your working week – in fact, if you don’t write as fast as me, you’ve saved more than two hours which you hopefully spend on making money!
for online content, remember that content is king. Fresh, quality content will result in more links and traffic which ultimately increases your chances of making sales
sending out a clear message and ensuring that your website answers all key questions competently will save you phone call and emails asking basic questions. In reality, that saves you frustration, time and the time it takes to get back on task after such interruptions
polished and professional content will build your image and reputation as much as your message does, and possibly more so. A stronger reputation builds your credibility which will have a long-term positive impact on your sales
a proposal that flows, is spelt correctly, etc is more likely to win you work
a well written website will have a higher conversion rate (ie will turn more visitors into buyers) than a site that is hard to understand or uses poor grammar and spelling – remember that doubling your conversion rate will double your turnover…
Have you experienced a good ROI from hiring a business writer?
Let me finish with a quote from Brad Sugars, entrepreneur and multi-millionaire, author and investor:
Communication is the lifeblood of business, and when it comes to sales, it’s vital. It has a direct relationship with sales. You see, the better you are at communicating, the better your sales results will be. You can almost measure the one with the other… Let me put it another way. True communication is the response you get. So if you’re not getting the response you want, you’re not communicating properly.
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)
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?
“if it aint broke, don’t fix it” is an expression that really makes sense to me. I see no reason to spend time on something that is working when other things need my attention.
Yes, everything in business should get reviewed periodically to check for possible improvements. But reinventing the wheel each time you do something is just a waste of time in my mind.
For example, if your current marketing plans keep you a steady stream of clients that meets your work and profit requirements, then stick to it! Keep an eye on new avenues but don’t drop the past efforts to grab the latest trends like twitter and Facebook – those new things may not work with your audience for one thing, and it will take time for you to learn the most effective ways to use new ideas in your business.
I came across a sales page recently which talked about repeating simple procedures – I thought it made good sense and reminded me of the above quotation. The writer made the point that a surgeon follows the same steps every time a certain operation is performed, a javelin thrower throws the same way every time and a bank uses the same forms and processes for every loan they approve.
Having a simple procedure makes it easier to complete a task, but more importantly, it ensures you get the best results in the most efficient way every time – even if different people carry out that same process.
For things that are working well in your business, do you have a simple procedure to follow? And that someone else could follow for you? Once you write out such procedures you can save time to work on the things that are broken – and prepare procedures in those areas to find an effective way to do those tasks.
It’s not quite the same as leave good things alone, but having a written procedure for things that work allows for almost-mindless repetition so things keep running along smoothly.
Doing some research this week, I’ve been to a large number of blogs but one in particular stood out and inspired a post from me 🙂 This blog has extremely long posts (even longer than those yellow-backed-sales letter-web pages!) which require a lot of scrolling – the home page is just one post! There is nothing else – no about us page, no list of previous posts or categories, not contact details.
I found it very frustrating (as I wanted to find some specific answers like what the blog was about without reading multiple essays!) It was also very strange to not see any of the common elements we’re used to for navigating a blog.
So it raises the question – what do you expect to find in the structure of a blog?
I found it very frustrating (as I wanted to find some specific answers like what the blog was about without reading multiple essays!) It was also very strange to not see any of the common elements we’re used to for navigating a blog.
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