Is Your Content Really Truly King?
Tell me if you’ve heard this before: Content is king.
It’s a popular catch-phrase of many a marketer.
But how many actually practice what they preach?
Talking the talk and walking the walk are two different things. From what I can tell, there’s a heck of a lot more talking than walking.
Generic content abounds
Case in point: I’m working on a consulting job where I recently completed a competitive analysis of approximately two-dozen websites belonging to organizations all operating in the same field of business. The analysis considered a variety of factors including website design, information architecture, branding, content and use of social media.
I observed discernable differences in design, user friendliness and overall site organization. Certain sites had more videos and podcasts. This seemed mainly a sign of financial standing — the well-off places can afford more of these assets.
The character and tone of web text ranged from technical to institutional to consumer-friendly. Meanwhile, the messages and information contained in text and videos for nearly all sites was so similar as to be interchangeable. “We have innovative cutting-edge technology, teams of experts, personalized service.” Blah, blah. Yadda, Yadda.
Content is often created in a vacuum
When everyone’s saying pretty much the same thing you’re not making a case for why to choose your product or service over someone else’s.
All too often organizations create content in a vacuum. Their goal is to meet business objectives and state their offering.
But really, that’s the least you can do. For content to be king you must present compelling distinctions that make someone think, “Ah, now there’s a difference that matters to me. I’ll go with this one.”
It isn’t just about you, or even your customers. It’s also about your competitors.
It’s the difference between being a commodity and being a preferred choice.
Put your website to the test
Surely this is not news. Still odds are if you conduct a competitive analysis of websites for businesses operating in your industry you’ll notice a lot of repetition.
In fact why not do it? Visit the websites of your competitors. Read the text, view the videos and listen to the podcasts. See if you can pick out even a handful of differences in content and messaging. I mean real points of singularity, not simply using other words to say essentially the same thing. Be sure to include your own site in the analysis.
If your content stands out, more power to you. If not, start planning for how to make it so.
– Deni Kasrel
What do YOU think? Comments welcome.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )Is Your Web Content A Whole Lot Of Nothing?
This week I toured a health center facility.
I’m part of a team hired to overhaul its website and we took the tour to glean information for our content strategy.
The woman who showed us around gave us good fodder for our project. We asked questions about all kinds of things and wondered what she thought of the website we’re planning to redo.
She offered a number of suggestions and said the site doesn’t have enough information.
A curious comment
Back in the office a colleague expressed surprise at that comment. The site has nearly 200 pages and is chock full of text. How can it be light on info?
I reckoned our guide meant the site doesn’t have enough useful information.
Clutter hides the good stuff
Our tour enabled us to realize this is a fabulous facility with numerous one-of-a-kind advantages.
You wouldn’t necessarily know it from the website. Someone who wants valuable insight into what this center provides, its benefits, or how it differs from other places offering similar services, would be hard-pressed to figure it all out.
Many of those details are in fact noted on the current site. That good stuff, however, is surrounded by extraneous text. It gets lost amid the clutter.
How too much can add up to nothing
Our team has more research and planning to do for this web project. We’ll have follow-up questions for our guide and will probe more deeply to determine what information she’d like to see on the site.
Meanwhile, there’s a simple lesson to be learned here.
Take a look at your website. How much of the content offers real value to users? How much is superfluous filler?
Tip: Too much needless information becomes a whole lot of nothing. Clear out the clutter.
– Deni Kasrel
So what do YOU think? Comments welcome.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )Top 6 Usability Tips For Website Design
This is a guest post by Ruben Reyes, President of Lyquix, Inc. a Philadelphia-based IT and web development company. Ruben works hard to help prevent poorly designed websites from ever seeing the light of day and I’m pleased he was kind enough to write this article outlining six important usability tips. Read up and learn from someone who deals with these types of matters on a daily basis.
1. You Are Not The Typical User
This is the first thing you should acknowledge and embrace. Usually, designers, marketing managers, and business owners make design decisions based on their own taste and browsing style. The end result is a website that works well for the person that made the decisions but not necessarily for the audience at large.
The answer is testing. You don’t need to spend a lot of money or make it super scientific. Just find people that have absolutely no interest in your project, like your neighbor who doesn’t understand what your company does, or your aunt. If they look at your website and they don’t get it, you’ve got a sign that it is not evident enough. Ask questions about what people think and LISTEN, don’t be defensive or try to explain. Ask them to perform some simple task; like find out who is the Operations Manager, or how long has the company been in business or what is the phone number, and OBSERVE if the process is smooth or cumbersome.
2. Understand How Users Behave
Users don’t like to read. When presented with a crowded page, or a long article, people just scan it quickly looking for that tiny piece of information or the next link.
Users won’t even scan the whole page: as they read through text they are evaluating if a particular sentence or link seems good enough, and take it. What this means is that people don’t make optimal choices, they just pick the first “good enough” option they find along the way. So if there is a better option a few lines after one that is just “good enough,” they are not going to get to the better option (at least not on the first try).
Users don’t understand how things work or are intended to be used. They just stick to whatever works for them. When I said that they don’t like to read, that includes instructions. You might be surprised how people use your website in ways you never intended it. Have you seen people that type the address of a website in the Google or Yahoo search box? Or that double-click on links? Or that make 10 clicks to get to a page that they can reach in one click?
3. Make Things Obvious
Have you been to a website looking for the company office address and find a link that says “Global Presence”? It makes you wonder if that is the page you are looking for. When something is obvious you don’t have to think to understand it and decide if that is what you want or not. The more people have to think to understand your website, the higher the energy, frustration and time required for them. The principle is simple: if something is difficult to use people will avoid using it.
For this reason you should avoid using fancy terms to denote simple things. Avoid acronyms, especially the ones created by your company. Avoid technical terms that people outside of your profession will not understand. Make buttons look like buttons, and links look like links.
4. Visually Prioritize and Organize
In some cases you need to have pages with lots of information and options. Usually that’s the case for the Home page since it is the entry point of your website. Here is where a GOOD graphic designer can help. Use graphic elements to ensure that there are clear priorities: what is the most important, what is navigation, what is secondary information. Font size, colors, images and movement are tools that can be used to draw the attention of the user to an area of the page. But be aware: you don’t want to get too creative – after so many years people have grown accustomed to expect certain things to be placed in specific locations or look in certain ways. If you put your menu on the right and start underlining text just to be original you will confuse visitors.
5. Avoid Unnecessary Words
If users only scan, don’t want to think, don’t make optimal choices and have very little tolerance to anything that seems difficult or time consuming, then why would you present them with long and useless copy? Avoid unnecessary words in each sentence, avoid unnecessary sentences in each paragraph. Eliminate all the flashy and self-congratulatory language and get straight to the point.
6. “You Are Here”
Websites can be an ocean of pages and information. Unlike in the physical world, we cannot associate things that are located right or left, or 1 mile down the road. However, it is still possible to organize your website in a way that makes sense to the user and enables them to draw a mental map of connections that they can use to navigate easily.
For every single page, make sure that users can easily understand where they are standing. Show the title of the page, highlight in what section you are located, make links to parent pages or the sequence of pages you followed to get there (breadcrumbs), and of course, have links to related pages.
Additional resources
If you want to learn more about usability, here are some great resources:
Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition
Designing Web Usability
AlertBox, www.useit.com/alertbox/, a newsletter on web usability by Jakob Nielsen
So what do you think of Ruben’s top 6 usability tips? Do you have tips of your own to share? Comments welcome.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 6 so far )Communications Trends for 2010 (Part 1)
Does the start of a new year inspire you to think about the future?
Me too.
And what about those resolutions? Now comes the time to see if we really intend to keep them.
Per my recent post, Why You Should Make A New Year’s Social Media Resolution, one of my goals is to be more engaged with cyber pals, through real conversation, and perhaps meeting up in person.
Also, I plan to step up commenting on other blogs and share more space on my blog for people whose ideas and opinions I admire.
To get the latter resolution rolling, I asked several Twitter pals for thoughts on what they foresee as top communications trends for 2010. My friends could respond however they liked, and this included our speaking via Skype.
All brought up good points to ponder. Ideas offered cover various dimensions of the communication continuum. So much so, I’m breaking things up into two posts. Here’s Part 1:
One-way communication continues to fall by the wayside
The rise of social media continues to rock advertising, marketing, and public relations. Foundations that have stood for decades are quaking, as channels shift more decisively from monologue to dialogue. Here are forecasts from people in the thick of it.
Marketers must build trust and relationships
John Lichtenberger, publisher of Advertising Compliance Service, a reference service for attorneys and advertisers. Twitter: @AdvertisingLaw
“One trend that I expect will accelerate in 2010 and beyond is the continuing paradigm shift away from delivering one-way advertising/marketing messages to using social media to promote a company and its products. Marketers will continue to find out that it is much more effective to establish dialogue and relationships than it is to attract attention in the old way – via traditional advertising. In fact, they will probably have no other choice but to embrace this new medium. Consumers are spending more and more of their time on social media – old-school advertising simply is going to miss out on reaching them.
As we enter this new decade, marketers will need to learn how to effectively use social media to communicate trust first – and worry about sales later. It is not a medium that is at all conducive to the “hard sell”. Some marketers will find this fact out the hard way. But many more will surely learn how to become more adept at using social media effectively. It will be interesting to see the evolution of how businesses will use social media to communicate their company message in the months and years ahead.”
Wider and deeper engagement is essential for marketing and PR
Valeria Maltoni, professional marketer and brand strategist. Blog: Conversation Agent. Twitter: @ConversationAge
Direction for all communicators (marketers, PR people) in 2010.
“You will need to become actively involved in facilitating the active participation of the whole organization to the company’s branding efforts. If you’re not already, it’s time to become engaged with curating industry conversations and analysis to provide senior leadership with insights about market and customer demands.
From learning about what to listen for, to figuring out how the company needs to engage in the knowledge flows, you will need to have sharp focus to zero into what matters and soft eyes to see the big picture. Because customers, prospects, partners, and employees are spending more time online, you will need to become adept at observing and synthesizing trends, building community, and translating that information into action plans.
Communication is the exchange of information that connects to common goals. From multimedia content creation and story telling to value creation through context and calls to action, you will need to become the most adept at spotting opportunity, digging deeper, and bringing the right people to engage in the dialogue and deliver results – as outcomes and contribution to the bottom line.
Time to step off the comfortable side lines and get in the game. You will be accountable at every step of the way. That is good.”
Power to the people: PR goes back to its origins
Beth Harte, Community Manager at MarketingProfs. Blog: The Harte Of Marketing. Twitter: @BethHarte
“In 2010, public relations will revert back to its origins and there will be less focus on media relations (i.e. publicity). The origins of PR include building mutually beneficial relationships with the publics that can make or break an organization’s business and brands. With more publics using online tools as a mechanism for word of mouth (positive and negative), networking with like-minded people, and product/service/organization information it’s imperative for organizations to focus their attention to building those important relationships. Public relations will include things like: online community relations, proactive issues management, and less pitching and more strategic placement of content.”
Searching and sorting through content on the web
A growing number of tools enable us to publish content, to include blog posts, videos, photos and more. We have many ways to project our voices and engage in virtual conversation with any number of participants. Consequently, it’s getting mighty crowded out there on the web. Which brings us to these next few trends, which by the way, were conveyed in conversation over Skype:
New ways to manage and search content
Avi Joseph, web sociologist/strategist. Founder of SC Media, Twitter: @Avinio
“Mobile will be much more like a laptop and in the end it won’t be just a social web but a social mobile strategy. It will be a little bit different…. Geotagging is a step that we are beginning to see slowly entering… You will see much more news and social sharing by mobile.
We will see the boost of social network search. It will be less important to be on the first page of Google results, but it’s going to be more important to be on the first page among your community, your social circle.
You can see already that Google recognizes this. Google has the power to collect information for all social networks… I think what Google will do is when you open a Google profile account, and then every time you open an account on a social network you add it to your Goggle profile, Google will collect the information from there and will show it on your social results.”
Tamping down the fire hose: knowledge curation
Bill Ives, consultant and writer who helps firms and individuals with their blogs and other social media. Blog: Portals and KM. Twitter: @BillIves
“People are overburdened with information overload… It’s definitely a fire hose. The amount of content has grown exponentially and a lot of that content is just crap and you need to sift through to find the gems.
That’s where tools that enable us to filter, and human filters, like you and me for each other, can help. So I see knowledge curation as a trend, both the need and the tools for doing it. And if there is a tool that you can put in the hands of the average user… so that’s it’s as easy to use as Twitter or Facebook, I think it will be hugely successful. The need to make sense of an ever-increasing amount of content will continue for business and the individual consumer.”
Many thanks to John, Valeria, Beth, Avi and Bill for offering your insights. And readers, I recommend you follow these folks on Twitter. Each one is a great source of information and conversation.
– Deni Kasrel
Do you agree with these thoughts on communications trends for 2010? What other trends do you see for the coming year? Please share. Comments welcome.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 2 so far )The Boob Trial
Guest post by: Steve Hartkopf | Read his blog
If you blog, then you know that generating traffic takes constant promotion, especially in the beginning. My blog readership is up nicely this year and it isn’t an accident — I work hard.
I believe bloggers earn every one of their readers. That said, I’m always searching for new ways to attract more readers. This post is about how that very common goal led me down an unexpected path.
The path between my pragmatic readership goal and what I’m now calling, The Boob Trial, requires some background.
Sex sells
It’s no surprise, especially to those of you who have teenage boys, that words associated with sex and the female anatomy are highly (Highly!) searched on the Internet. I mixed those two facts and, whammo, The Boob Trial was born.
Joanna Krupa is a famous bikini model and recent contestant on Dancing With The Stars, which is where I was introduced to her. When she was (unjustly) eliminated last week, she handled it with maturity and poise. Her fans, however, did not. They sent emails and posted comments about Joanna’s treatment, they acted like boobs. I took the liberty of naming them, Joanna Krupa’s boobs. My November, 23 blog, “Bloggers, Don’t Act Like Joanna Krupa’s Boobs,” was written to coach my fellow bloggers using Joanna as an example.
I just wanted them to redirect their energies and stop whining about how hard it is to find an audience. If you’re a great writer it may be “unfair” that you can’t generate an audience. Who knows? But whining is not the cure or the solution to your problem. The solution, as it is in most of life, is hard work. OK, so I had a little fun with boobs. Hey, you know what I mean.
The boob test
Good tests have limited variables so I abandoned my usual promotional activities and only posted a few Tweets. I do a lot more promoting for most of my blog entries, but this was my version of a Mammogram, a boob test. The results were probably predictable but hilarious, nonetheless.
To determine the impact of boobs I needed some numbers, so I calculated my average pageviews, bounce rates and visitor duration for the prior three months and they became my baseline, my average day. Here are the results:
- “Boobs” increased my pageviews 331%. 331%!
- My bounce rate, which refers to the number of people who view one page and leave, went up 340%. That’s bad because it means virtually none of my new visitors stuck around to peruse my site. One and done, baby.
- The average length of time spent on my site is about 4:00 minutes but I’ve had visitors hang around for a half an hour. Not Monday. The average visit was under 30 seconds. Apparently my new visitors aren’t big readers. No pics, no sticks.
More than meets the eye?
I’m always very grateful when anyone takes the time to read my blog, leave a comment or send an email. So I want all my loyal readers to know that I don’t ever plan on using such tactics again.
However, if it weren’t for my little experiment, would Deni have asked me to write a guest blog? So maybe suspending my better judgment wasn’t a bad idea? Maybe there’s more here than meets the eye? I wonder what Heidi Klum is up to?
Steve Hartkopf, is the founder and managing partner of Aligned Marketing, LLC a marketing consulting and technology solutions provider. Steve’s insights and clear communication cut through the noise to increase sales, improve profitability and lower costs.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )An Easy Trick For Increasing How Often You Post To Your Blog
Did you know this November is Better Blog Month?
Yes, it was decreed so by Cathy Larkin, a public relations/social media consultant, who has designed a month-long program for improving the content of your blog.
A well thought-out program
Larkin says one of the reasons she devised this scheme is because she wants to improve her own blog. She reckoned, why not have others join in the process? Which is, by the way, nicely thought-out.
Larkin posted invites to her program via LinkedIn and Twitter. I saw her tweet and enlisted in this blog boot-camp.
Each week of Better Blog Month has a different theme, with corresponding exercises to complete. The process begins with self-examination: You ask yourself why you’re blogging in the first place and then take a hard look as to whether your blog does indeed meet all of those goals. If not, then make a note of where the holes are and think about how you can plug them.
Write shorter, post more
An end-goal of the project is for participants to post more frequently.
Posting more frequently can help your search engine optimization (SEO), because search engines seek out new content, and a fresh flow of stories means visitors come to your site more often, which also affects your search rank.
One easy way of posting more often, so Larkin tells me, and especially if you are pressed for time, is to write shorter posts.
One trick to writing shorter posts is to dash off an intro and link to an article that you like and think will be of interest to your readers.
Apparently it’s cool to link to articles that you’ve written for other web sites.
Let’s give it a whirl: I wrote a more detailed post with notes and early impressions of Better Blog Month for The Bloggers Bulletin.
It’s got more tips on how to improve blog content. Here’s the link to the story titled One Month To A Better Blog.
– Deni Kasrel
What are some of your tricks for increasing the frequency of posting to a blog? Care to share? Comments welcome.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( None so far )How Your Website Can Soar Above The Rest
What’s the difference between a good website and a great one?
It can be a fine line, but one you want to cross.
Recently, when discussing this very topic, I used ballet as a point of comparison.
Yes, ballet can relate to website strategy. Here’s how:
Shiny dancer
Earlier this year I went to a show by BalletX, a Philadelphia-based company. I’ve seen this ensemble a number of times and generally enjoy the performance. This one had an extra spark, much of it fired by a guy named Matthew Prescott.
Matthew was a guest artist and, wow, did he shine.
Not that Matthew was a showy dancer. He just had a wonderfully natural ease of movement combined with superb technical ability.
Now, everyone who dances with BalletX is a high-end professional. Still, Matthew stuck out like a beacon. He was exciting to watch.
No matter what, make it look easy
Matthew showed off his wide smile throughout the program, even when lifting a ballerina high above his head. And sure, she was a flyweight, but really; raising a grown-up body, no matter how light, is tough to do with grace and a grin.
Also, Matthew was keenly attuned not only to the dancers he maneuvered about, but to the audience as well. Everything he did outwardly communicated, “I’m doing this for you.”
So, what does this have to do with strategic web communications?
How to make your website shine (without being showy)
You can have an attractive website with well-written content and that surely goes a long way. But when you’re outstanding it makes a big difference. That’s how you get from good to great.
Here are ballet-inspired pointers for making a website soar:
- Shine without being showy. Resist the temptation to have lots of bells and whistles. Unless you are an actual purveyor of bells and whistles, these are distractions rather than attractions.
- Even if your service or product is difficult to execute, make it seem easy to accomplish. Your instinct may be to show all the effort, but the customer just wants to know you’re a real pro. Of course, if you’re in a technical industry, certain customers will want detailed information on your process. It’s fine to have this available. But don’t make it a focal point on the homepage. Drop it down a couple tiers. The best first impression is of your exceptional value proposition. Convey this in clear compelling fashion.
- Your site must operate flawlessly from a technical standpoint. All actions need to execute smoothly and without delay of process. On the web, performance (not patience) is the preferred virtue.
- Every aspect of your site — design, navigation, text, functionality, search engine optimization — must focus on your audience. Your organization does not exist to serve itself and neither should your website.
– Deni Kasrel
What do YOU think of these tips to make a website soar above the rest? Can you think of other aspects that make the difference between a good website and a great one? Share your thoughts. Comments welcome.
Read Full Post | Make a Comment ( 3 so far )(Baby)Stepping Into The Blogosphere
Welcome to the Communications Strategist: A new source of ideas for creating communications strategies and tactics that can help you get the results you want, and maybe even more. The scope will include the traditional (such as print, which does still exist, at least for the moment, and the 4P’s of the marketing mix), current online practice (web design, usability, content strategy, social media, etc.) and emerging trends (web 3.0, web 4.0 and whatever else comes up).
FYI, part of the impetus behind this blog is my current status of being, ahem, between jobs. Now, with extra time on my hands, I have been doing more reading than usual, to include poring through many articles, books, web sites and blogs relating to trends and practices in marketing and communications. I’ve also been networking a heck of a lot, and that often includes attending meetings for local groups that have something to do with communications, especially social media, as well as assorted other web-centric topics. I am constantly learning new things that I’d like to share, hence this blog.
Of course, as anyone who knows me well would expect, I did some research about blogging prior to making this first post. I figured it would be good to get a grip on the basics, and as it turns out, that’s all you need to know to get rolling in the blogosphere.
My main reference thus far has been the Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging
– Deni Kasrel
The Communications Strategist 