website

Refer to older posts…

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

Influencing search engine results

Published 3 May, 2011 | By TashWord

Having a website is of little business value unless it is getting seen by people, and preferably the type of people will buy your goods or service.

The March survey of small businesses showed that about two-thirds believe search engines is the key means of finding new customers. Now that may be more or less applicable in your industry or in Australia vs the USA (the survey was in the USA only), but search engines do account for a reasonable amount of website traffic.

Which means that making your website as attractive as possible to search engines is important. You can pay SEO (search engine optimisation is the term for making your site perform better in search engine formulae) or marketing companies to improve your site rankings, but there are also things you can do quite simply. In fact, I’d say some of the simple tasks should be done even if you are paying someone else to help you with SEO.

Here is a quick list of the easy SEO tasks you can do to increase your chances of being found in relevant searches:

use relevant keywords in your web and blog content
provide quality and relevant content on your site – a blog is excellent for this
aim your web and blog content at humans – search engines are getting more sophisticated at picking out fake pages of keywords
make your content web friendly – search engines read headings, too so make use of them
add links to relevant information (on your site and elsewhere)
encourage links to your site as much as possible without getting into link farms or spam
ensure your web pages and blog posts have relevant meta data (background information about the page) – which means it shouldn’t the same for every page
update your site and blog as often as you can to keep it fresh and give people a reason to come back for more – fresh content and visitors both help your search engine rankings

Posted in marketing, web content | Tagged content, fresh, influencing search engine results, keyword, search engine, seo, traffic, website | 8 Comments

Make it clear what you do

Published 12 February, 2011 | By TashWord

What does your business do? Would I be able to answer that question after reading your website or brochure?

You may be surprised that many businesses do not clearly state what they don on their website. Some just assume everyone knows, others try to be clever and use fancy words and others appear to like being mysterious and/or aloof. And that’s not counting those sites that try to tease and get your details before they really disclose anything – I just can’t trust that sort of site.

Why do I think it is important to be clear about what you do?

make life easy for your potential clients – clarity saves them guessing or searching for the information
using the appropriate words (i.e. keywords) will help search engines find and rank you
save yourself being contacted by people who are after something you don’t offer
it builds credibility – you are open and honest rather than trying to be impressive

Some people argue that effectively hiding information throughout the site means people have to read more pages to find their answers (for example the home page, about us page and services page to find out if you offer what hey want). My answer to that is that many people won’t bother and will look elsewhere, and even if they do, is wasting a client’s time showing them much respect or valuing them at all?

So how can you make this clear?

add an informative tagline to every page of your site
make it the first sentence on your site for real clarity
use commonly accepted words to describe your services at least once – if you use unusual terms by choice, perhaps simplify it on your about us page
have a list of your services if there could be doubts. For instance, a beautician might list she offers waxing, facials and manicures but not pedicures and a legal firm might list they do contracts, employment agreements, family law and business advice (the implication being they don’t do criminal law)
note who you service. My tagline is ‘for all your business writing needs’ which clearly shows I write for businesses rather than writing fiction or being a journalist
be specific “we help people” doesn’t say much but “we help homeowners prepare for sale” and “we help families care for their elderly loved ones” are much more informative (to humans and search engines)

So maybe look at your materials again and think about whether you are clearly stating what you do.

Posted in web content, writing | Tagged clear, describe, specific, website | Leave a comment

Lint & lollies in your website?

Published 20 October, 2010 | By TashWord

Have you ever seen the lint, lolly wrappers and old (hopefully unused!) tissues in the bottom of a handbag due for a clean out?

Lea uses that analogy for websites – many have too much old clutter that is hard to find, but are greatly improved by a tidy up. I like the analogy and it reminded me of a particular website.

The AvSuper website was old when I first started helping the fund with their communications. Initially, I left the site alone and made corrections and updates as required. Even I had trouble finding things on the site and much of it was even repeated on various pages. It really was like a handbag that hadn’t been cleaned out in a long time.

Once we reached the point of having the look refreshed, I was then able to reorganise the information and make the site more user-friendly. My main priorities were:

make information easy to find through simple navigation
have information on the site only once (creating a smaller site to search, manage and update) and use hyperlinks to share it
keep things simple and not overwhelm people with unnecessary pages and information

So how long is it since you cleaned out your website? Is there a lot of useless information still there that could be deleted? Do you need a refreshed look or some content changes?

PS Of course, this just reminds me I need to make time reviewing my site, too!

Posted in bit off track, business info & tools | Tagged clean, navigation, website | 3 Comments

Keep your website looking fresh

Published 24 June, 2010 | By TashWord

Have you ever come across a website that is obviously out dated? What do you think of it when you do?

I recently came across two extreme examples of this…

under the heading of ‘latest investment news’ was a link to some reports with the most recent dated April 2008!
an online shop had banners and text stating ‘new version to be released mid 2009’

Those sites didn’t impress me at all!

While adding content regularly is good practice for a website, there are also some ways to avoid your content being obviously old:

avoid ‘page last updated’ foot notes – even if it is perfectly reasonable to not update contact details for example, it looks wrong to say that page is 5 years old! Add a date to the content itself if it needs the date for context
avoid adding a date to copyright symbols. Although your copyright applies from when you created the page, a date ages the page and it is easy to miss updating it each January
if you are unsure of when something will happen, be vague rather than specific. So ‘new version underway’ or ‘give us your details and we’ll contact you when the new version is available’ are better than ‘new version launched 1 July’
do a search of your site for ‘2008’, ‘2007’ and so on then make sure you update as appropriate
be careful of what tense you write in. For example, ‘from 1 July we will sell whatsits’ will be dated in August whereas ‘whatsits on sale from 1 July’ can be used in June and August. Adding a year to either sentence will date it if you leave the text for more than a few months, of course!

Posted in web content | Tagged content, dated, fresh, website | 3 Comments

Work like ours…

Published 25 May, 2010 | By TashWord

How would you react to a website like this?

“we treat the floor and work like ours. We are trying to keep it in cheapest price. If you online quotation we give you 5% discount.”

As key phrases about their benefits on the homepage of a website, the above statements really need some work.

What’s worse is the page title for their homepage includes ‘ploors’ instead of floors.

We came across this site as potential customers, and to be honest we’re reluctant to even get a quote after seeing such errors (trust me, there are many , many more with the site!) They are local and we’d prefer to use a local small business so it just proved to me again how big an impact bad writing can have on your business.

In this case, I suspect English is not their first language and I understand it isn’t an easy second language. At the end of the day, though, do they want people to accept their limitations in English or do they want more customers via an attractive website?

If you struggle with written English (because it is not your first language or any other reason), it really is worthwhile getting someone else to check your writing and edit it for you. An English speaking friend may not get it perfect, but will probably do better than the website I mentioned above. Then get some professional help as soon as you can afford it – even if you have to do it in stages.

Oh, the above sentences would be much more effective as “We treat your floors like our own. We keep our prices as cheap as possible. Get an online quotation for a 5% discount!”

So would you try this business based on their website, or would you go elsewhere?

Posted in bad writing examples, web content, writing | Tagged bad writing, effective, English, impact, website | 2 Comments

Making content web friendly

Published 11 February, 2010 | By TashWord

Websites are about information so it makes sense that you need to provide good content if you want your website to be successful.

Obviously, a site with fantastic content that is hard to find can only have limited success so there needs to be a balance between the content and the site itself being user friendly.

Without going into web design aspects of a site, here are some of my top tips for making your web content usable and attractive:

keep each page focussed and a reasonable length (300 to 500 words is usually ideal). If there is additional information that could potentially help some site visitors, put it on a new page and link to it rather than putting everything into one page.
use headings and sub-headings. There are a number of reasons for this – it makes the text visually more apepaling, is easier to skim read, helps focus and define sections of text and can help with search engines (especially if you use heading styles rather than manually adding font styles).
use white space. For example, I am adding an empty line between each of these bullet points so it is easier to see the difference between them and the page doesn’t look so text heavy.
don’t feel your website has to explain everything. I have had many clients who put too much information into their text ‘just in case’ a client wants to know those details. People get bored and/or overwhelmed by too much details, especially on websites, so keep it simple by giving the important details. You can always link to the fine details or encourage them to contact you for them.
web content is not like a novel, or even a school essay, so get to the point fast. A beautiful introduction may be very nice but will frustrate someone who is trying to decide if you can provide the service/product they are after. If a long introduction and sales pitch means the real informatoin is so low on the page you have to scroll to read it, you can bet not many people will actually read it.
So prioritise your information and put the important bits first.
Keep your content fresh, up-to-date and error-free. Spend some of your website maintenance time adding new content and reviewing the current site (for instance, when did you last check for faulty links on your site?)
Write for human beings, not search engines. That means don’t add too many keywords and concentrate on providing useful information rather than trying to impress a search engine.

Posted in blogging, web content, writing | Tagged Balance, content, friendly, user, web, website | 3 Comments

Do you have a website?

Published 1 April, 2009 | By TashWord

I posted earlier about the MYOB survey of small business owners’ response to the global financial situation, but am startled by another part of their survey.

Apparently, 60% of surveyed small business owners don’t have a website for their business. That is incredible. They surveyed 1,503 business owners with no more than 19 employees, so it is a reasonable number but perhaps not statistically significant compared to how many small businesses there are in Australia.

Not all businesses are internet based, obviously, but offline businesses can have a website and use it to good effect.

Why am I so surprised they don’t have a website?

personally, I often refer to the website for further information or to get a feel for a business before I contact them – no website and there’s a good chance I’ll move on. This is especially true now I have a baby as it is easier to research and compare from home than to drive around
a website is like a brochure that works 24 hours a day, every day of the year, so why limit yourself to paper?
a website can be a lot cheaper to run than many traditional advertising options (I pay $5 a month for hosting – you won’t get much advertising for $60 a year!)
people generally find it easier to remember words than numbers so if you or a happy customer are inviting someone to learn more about your business, a web address could be more successful
people expect websites now – not meeting that expectation may decrease your credibility in their eyes

A website can be simple and as short as one or two pages; it can be static and need little maintenance (although search engines prefer more active sites). Some online directories offer full page listings which can act as a website, which is better than nothing, but the URL may be long.

SO back to the original question? Do you have a website? Do other business owners you know have websites? If not, why not?

Posted in bit off track, business info & tools | Tagged business, survey, website | 5 Comments

Data Compression

Published 25 September, 2008 | By TashWord

Data compression is the act and process of encoding information using fewer bytes. This can be important if you run a website or send a lot of documents via email (or other electronic means.)

Compression relies on the notion that the data is superfluous or redundant. A compressor reduces the size of a file by deciding which data is more frequently used and assigns it less bytes than to lesser used data. An example of a data compressor is a Zip file format which on top of compressing acts as an archive and stores many course files in a single destination.

Compression is used to help reduce the consumption of resources such as transmission bandwidth – and that can affect the size of hosting you need for your website.

Posted in web content | Tagged bytes, compression, data, file, space, website, zip | Leave a comment

Promotional Articles

Published 9 August, 2008 | By TashWord

Think about why you use the internet for business. Sure you look at the graphics and pictures, but the main activity is collecting information, right?

So, does it make sense that one of the best ways to pull people into your site is to give them information? Selling your product or service is your main business aim, of course, but if you give people information they will trust you – and they’ll stay on your site long enough to learn your name.

How can you use information to get people to visit your website?

By far the easiest way is to submit informative articles to various web sites and ezines. That doesn’t mean you submit an article about you or your business as that will bore and annoy your readers. What you have to give them is good information about something relevant to your business, something they can use and appreciate you for.

If you are a mechanic, you could submit articles explaining what fuel injected means or how to jump start an engine; a wedding planner can write about how to decide on a guest list; an accountant can explain negative gearing or claiming GST inputs; and a butcher could write about the different cuts of meat.

You also need to make sure the article is interesting and basic enough for your potential clients to understand and finish. It must be accurate and presented professionally as well, if it is to promote your business positively.

At the end of the article, you include a short bio about yourself and your business. You can see the bios I use at the end of business and health articles.

If you have a web site or email address, make sure the bio includes this information so it can be hyperlinked back to you. Thus anyone reading your article and wanting to know more or use your service can contact you instantly.

I mentioned the value of promotional articles a few weeks ago, and I will cover ways to make use of them in coming posts.

Posted in newsletter content, writing | Tagged articles, bio, business, informative, interesting, online, promote, promotional, resource box, website | 8 Comments

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