EvoBloggito

Why Bad Websites Happen to Good Companies, Part 10: Not Hiring a Writer to Get Clear, Crisp, Compelling Copy

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Sep 29, 2010; Category: Bad Websites/Good Companies, Communication, Design/Development, Information Architecture, Marketing; Tags: Communication, Information Architecture, Marketing, writing for web; No Comments

There’s a myth in website design that “no one reads the copy.” It’s not entirely true. While most of the people who visit your website will not read most of the copy, the few visitors who are really interested in what you have to offer will. If they’re really interested, they’re your best prospects. And even casual visitors scan your content (quickly), looking for a reason to get interested. If they don’t find it, of course, they’re gone.

Unless you have too much business (I don’t know anyone in that position right now), how can you afford to communicate with website visitors with anything less than clear, crisp, and compelling copy?

Building a great website requires several different skill sets

People tend to think of website design as either a technology project (for which they need a programmer or coder) or design project (for which they need a web designer). There is no doubt that both of those characterizations are partially true, and that people with those skill sets are critical to producing a great—or even adequate—website. But no matter how great it looks or how well it works, without clearly communicated and compelling messages, the site will yield disappointing results (you’d like some results, right?).

Many people pride themselves on their ability to write well. But writing for distracted and non-commital website visitors is a skill few people possess. In addition to being clear and compelling, a web writer must be concise. Using too many words to express a thought chases away all of your casual visitors and all but the most determined of your best prospects. A writer who can develop strong messages and write clear, compelling, and concise website copy should be on your speed dial.

You are not the best example of someone in your market

You’re an expert in your field. Few of your website visitors know a tenth of what you know about your products and services. Because of your expertise, you will make assumptions about what’s important to talk about on your site that won’t match up with what your visitors want or need to know. Website content should be organized and written for your visitors, not for you. It might be more elementary than you would write, but it’s important to communicate with your visitors in a way that helps them quickly understand what you offer. If they understand, they’re more likely to take action.

If a website visitor doesn’t take action, you’ve probably lost them

A skilled web writer can organize your content (information architecture) as part of creating a strategy for moving visitors toward action. That action might be registering for an email newsletter, downloading a whitepaper, or placing an order. For non-profit organizations, it might be making a donation or volunteering. Most people do not arrive at your website with the intention of placing an order or taking the next step toward becoming a customer. If they do so, it’s because the information on the site convinced them. If they’re not convinced, the likelihood that they’ll return to check you out again is small.

A good web writer is good at organizing and delivering copy that convinces people to act. As Elvis Presley once sang, “a little less talk and a little more action.”

A caveat: blogging is different than “writing for the web”

Beyond the ability to write clearly, writing blog posts does not require the same skills described above. Blogging is more of a conversation, a chance for people to get a sense of who you are and what you think. If you’re a bit wordy, no problem. If you want to talk about things only experts in your field will fully grasp, go for it. Lots of successful bloggers cannot write copy that leads website visitors to take action other than leaving a comment. That’s OK because that’s not the goal of (most) blog posts. Just don’t assume that, because someone has a blog and writes “on the web”, that they can write “for the web.”

Evo Launches Energy4me Website on WordPress

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Jun 12, 2010; Category: WordPress; Tags: Design/Development, Information Architecture, WordPress; No Comments

Visit energy4me.org»

Evo recently launched Energy4me.org, the Society of Petroleum Engineers’ education outreach website, on WordPress. It’s a pretty big site, content-wise, and it required us to grow as WordPress developers (that’s our favorite kind of website) to accomplish some of the functions that were needed.

Our clients, SPE’s Darci Ramirez and Margaret Watson, were wonderful to work with. These are people who do things on schedule and do them well. People who ask your advice and value it enough to incorporate most of it (whatever, in their judgment, makes sense). People who respect your experience and knowledge. People who pay invoices on time. Dream clients, in other words.

“Evolution Web Development surpassed our website strategy and design expectations,” said Margaret Watson, Senior Manager, PR/Communication. “Evo is the only website design firm, large or small, that offered us a creative, out-of-the-box solution that truly addressed our business objectives to help us achieve our goals.”

The website’s audience is primarily elementary and secondary-level teachers, providing information about various energy sources and careers, as well as lesson plans and educational materials. Secondarily, the site provides resources for SPE members in support of their education outreach efforts, including school presentations, career events, and scholarships. Because SPE is an international organization, some information is provided on the website in six languages: Spanish, French, Arabic, Chinese, and Russian, in addition to English.

Ecommerce was implemented, but then pulled back just prior to launch when there was an issue with FedEx furnishing negotiated rates to FoxyCart, the shopping cart, to add appropriate shipping costs. Hopefully, that will soon be ironed out and we can turn the switch back on for online purchases of the Oil & Natural Gas book and the Energy4me Kit.

At any rate, this was a great site to have an opportunity to work on. Most people who’ve seen it “get” that WordPress is more than a blog platform.

Quick Tutorial: Simple PHP and CSS to Highlight Current Navigation Section

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Jul 12, 2009; Category: CSS, Design/Development, Information Architecture, PHP for Designers; Tags: Design/Development, Information Architecture; 9 Comments

Good website navigation not only helps visitors find the information they are looking for, it also tells them where they are on a website. This is especially important in light of the fact that people may arrive anywhere on a website via search or a link from another website. They will appreciate some indication of what section of the website they are in; sort of a “you are here” marker.

Essentially, we want to tell the navigation list that, if the navigation section is ‘X’, then this particular navigation list item should have a "current" class applied to it, which would allow us to style that item to highlight the navigation section. But the last thing we need, if we’re busy and have better things to do, is to edit the navigation on each page individually: every time we add or remove a page or change a navigation item name, we would have to update the navigation on every page.

We can make our lives easier with PHP. Remember, PHP executes on the server: you must upload your files to a PHP-enabled server to see it work. It will not execute on your desktop unless you have a local server set up. But if so, you are way beyond this little tutorial…

Below is the HTML for a very simple list-based navigation, and below that, the accompanying CSS. See the demo here»

The demo navigation should look like this:

The HTML

<ul class="navigation">
<li><a href="index.php">Home</a></li>
<li><a href="what.php">What We Do</a></li>
<li><a href="who.php">Who We Are</a></li>
<li><a href="why.php">Why We Do It</a></li>
<li><a href="need.php">Why You Need It</a></li>
<li><a href="contact.php">Contact Us</a></li>
</ul>

The CSS

ul.navigation { margin:0px; padding:0px; list-style-type:none; }
ul.navigation li { display:inline; margin:0; padding:0; }
ul.navigation a { float:left; display:inline; font-size:14px;
     font-weight:bold; text-decoration:none; white-space:nowrap;
     padding:2px 10px 2px 10px; background:#fc0;
     border-left:1px solid #fff; }
ul.navigation a:link, ul.navigation a:visited { color:#000; }
ul.navigation li a:hover { color:#fff; }

Create a PHP include from the navigation list and place a call for it on each page.

This include is placed on each page in place of the navigation list with the following call for the include:

<?php include("includes/navigation.php"); ?>

This calls for the include, which was named “navigation.php”, and placed in a folder called “includes”.

Add PHP code to the list items in the include file to display the “current” class when called for:

<ul class="navigation">
<li<?php echo ($navsection == 'home') ? ' class="current"' : ''; ?>>
  <a href="index.php">Home</a></li>
<li<?php echo ($navsection == 'what') ? ' class="current"' : ''; ?>>
  <a href="what.php">What We Do</a></li>
<li<?php echo ($navsection == 'who') ? ' class="current"' : ''; ?>>
  <a href="who.php">Who We Are</a></li>
<li<?php echo ($navsection == 'why') ? ' class="current"' : ''; ?>>
  <a href="why.php">Why We Do It</a></li>
<li<?php echo ($navsection == 'need') ? ' class="current"' : ''; ?>>
  <a href="need.php">Why You Need It</a></li>
<li<?php echo ($navsection == 'contact') ? ' class="current"' : ''; ?>>
  <a href="contact.php">Contact Us</a></li>
</ul>

Add styles to highlight the navigation items when list item has "current" class applied.

ul.navigation li.current a:link, ul.navigation li.current a:visited
     { color:#fff; background:#000; }
ul.navigation li.current a:hover
     { color:#fff; background:#c00; }

One last thing: put the appropriate navigation section info on each page.

At the very top of the HTML page, prior to the doc statement, add the following 3 lines of code:

<?php
    $navsection = 'home';
?>

Note that this particular example would be found above the doc statement on the home page. Because it matches the navsection statement attached to the home page list item on the menu, that list item displays with the “current” class.

This technique works well on the top level of list-based drop-down menus as well, though I have found that it’s easier to attach the "current" class to the link rather than to the list item. CSS, of course, must be adjusted accordingly.

Why Bad Websites Happen to Good Companies, Part 8: Creating Barriers to Downloading Free Information

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Mar 26, 2009; Category: Accessibility, Bad Websites/Good Companies, Design/Development, Marketing; Tags: Information Architecture, Marketing, Usability; No Comments

Giving away stuff on your website is a really smart thing to do. It’s an opportunity to spread your ideas or information about your products and services, sometimes in exchange for a little bit of information that could be helpful in your marketing. It’s a very simple process, but companies screw it up all the time, usually by one of the following two methods.

Screw-up Number One

Too often, companies undermine their attempts to offer free information (whitepapers, product info, sample book chapters, etc.) by requiring onerous amounts of personal or contact information in return. You’ve probably seen this, and maybe even been guilty yourself (I confess, I’ve done it). In exchange for a lousy whitepaper, I have seen people asked for ALL of their contact info (including their work phone, home phone, cell phone, and Twitter ID), their job title, their preferred salutation (Mr., Mrs., Miss, Dr., Professor) and their underwear size. OK, I made up the last one, but it does get intrusive after the third piece of info. By the time people finish and submit the form (IF they finish), that whitepaper had better be damned good.

Screw-up Number Two

Another way to blow it is with poor execution. I recently got an offer in an email newsletter I’m subscribed to for a free chapter download for a just-published book. I need another web design book like a hole in the head, but I was game to find out if there might be a reason to spend almost $30 on this one, so I clicked on the download button. That did not start a download. Instead, it took me to a page that asked for my email so they could email me the download info. While I didn’t consider their request for my email address to be too much to ask, the button had said "download," and I found it a little disturbing that it wasn’t what happened. I also wondered why, if they had my email address to send me the newsletter, they needed it again to send me the download info. Why didn’t they just send me the download info to begin with?

I dutifully typed in my email address and clicked "submit." That took me to a page where they offered me several newsletter subscriptions, all preselected as "yes," including the one I already had. I clicked on the link that said "No thanks, I’m just here for the free book chapter." That took me to a page that promised to send me a download link. Two days later, I’m still waiting for that download information. I don’t think I’ll go back and make the request again: I just saved nearly $30.

Giving stuff away is not rocket science, and unless you’re a government supplier, your customers are probably not rocket scientists. So don’t make it difficult. And keep the information you ask for to a bare minimum. Your visitors will never hold it against you if you ask for too little information.

Information R/evolution

Author: Ray Gulick; Published: Mar 4, 2009; Category: Business, Information Architecture, Video, Zeitgeist; Tags: Change, Future, Information Architecture; No Comments

Another excellent video from Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, this one describing changes in the way we "find, store, create, critique, and share information."