Tips on Better Writing for Your Website
Posted by Chip
I've been having a number of conversations recently about how and what to write for websites. The best advise that I can give is keep it short and sweet - don't take your content too seriously. Now, that doesn't mean that your content isn't important. But, what it does mean is that less is more.
Here's some great information from one of experts on the subject - Jacob Nielsen
- A collection of articles on writing for the web
- Writing Style for Print vs. Web - this one is really interesting. The last sentence says it all.
If you're smart, you'll write accordingly: make your content actionable and focused on user needs.
The only thing I'd add would be ... well not really anything. That's pretty good.
A Valuable Cheat Sheet
Posted by Chip
I was reading a great email newsletter this morning and stumbled onto a great article about online copywriting. When I glanced down at the bottom of the page, there was this great link: "the ultimate cheat sheet".
Check this out: Online Copywriting 101: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet
And here's more: Online Copywriting 101: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet, part 2
If you've read some of my posts from the past, you know that I'm big on online copywriting. These are two great resources that help outline some of the great tips out there.
Post Your Freakin’ Holiday Hours on Your Website
Posted by Chip
To all of you in business out there - please do us consumers a favor. I have had three instances over the last three days where I went to a website to look up the hours for a business. Guess what - they were wrong.
In one case my oldest son was sick and I went to three different walk-in clinics to get him some help. I checked out the local Minute Clinic at the CVS and their site said they'd be open from 8:00am until 8:00pm - granted this was on Christmas Eve and I figured that it wouldn't be the case - but I went anyway. Sure enough there was the little sign - we're open from 10:00am until 2:00pm on Christmas Eve. So we came back - mainly because the other walk-in clinics weren't open. They didn't even update their auto-attendant on their phone systems.
Then today I desperately needed a hair cut and called the place where I go - nothing on the message - nothing on their website about holiday hours.
C'mon people this is simple stuff to keep from frustrating your customers. Think a little, would 'ya.
How Much Do You Talk About “You” on Your Website?
Posted by Chip
Here's an interesting tool from the folks over at FutureNow - the "Customer Focus Calculator".
This tool counts certain words on your site and pairs that against how many times your name or company name is mentioned. Research suggests that talking in a customer-centric voice will greatly impact your conversions and website effectiveness.
Give it a try and see how you score. I ran the calculator on my company's homepage and here are my results:
These are the Customer Focus Calculator results:
For the url: http://www.linearmill.com
Your Customer Focus Rate: 43.48%
You have 10 instances of customer-focused words.Your Self Focus Rate: 56.52%
You have 10 instances of self-focused words.
You have 3 instances of the Company Name.You speak about yourself almost as often as you speak about your customers.
Might you improve that?Original length of Page (including all HTML)= 5,037 bytes
Content length after stripping HTML = 2,587 bytes
Total word count: 360
Looks like I have a little tweaking to do myself.
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