Written website content the forgotten business asset
Posted on Fri Feb 08
Tagged: Marketing | Leave your comments
Although written website content is one of the most important factors in online communication, most business website owners are either unaware of, or misunderstand, its potential value.
It's true that many things work together to make a website a commercial success. It's also true that anyone who runs a business has other things to think about besides their website. While taking all that into account, I think there are three basic concepts the general business community needs to grasp
- the web is a medium for written communication
- words have a powerful influence on website performance
- written content is an asset
It's human nature to overlook things to which we're constantly exposed. For example, you probably wouldn't realise how much advertising for fast food or alcohol you see every day unless someone pointed it out to you. Something similar happens to our perceptions when we use the web. The most common activity on the web is reading. We do it so much that we stop being aware of it. We forget that communication on the web depends on the written word.
On a typical business website, those "forgotten" words have got several big tasks to perform, such as
- providing understandable labels on navigation menus
- helping people find you in search engines
- motivating and persuading
- informing and educating
- building trust
With careful planning, execution and management, your website should give you a long-term return on the money you put into it. Although your accountant may not suggest including it on your balance sheet, it's an asset. A long-term investment, a major part of which is words.
Getting it right isn't easy. The irony of course is that if written content is easy to read, it looks as if it was easy to write. It's not. Simply copy-pasting from your brochure or catalogue is never a clever idea, because people read printed material differently to the way they read web content.
Like other assets you own, your website needs maintenance. Remember all those websites that have annoyed you with links that no longer work, ancient news items or outdated product information? Now that's one type of written content that people do notice, for all the wrong reasons.
A website is just like a shop front
Posted on Thu Feb 08
Tagged: Design | Leave your comments
I don't know how many times I have said this but a website is never finished. I stead of telling you this over and over again I thought I would relate it to something most people would understand, the good old brick and mortar shop front.
For those of you who haven't changed anything on your site in a few months, you should really read this.
Ok so let's get into it. First of all they say that a shops front window can often be the decider on whether that customer is going to walk through the door or not. For example look at Louis Vuitton, their shop windows around the world change on the same day and look exactly the same whether you are in Perth, Sydney or Switzerland. This shop window gets changed every month, displaying the latest and greatest.
Now not everyone has the same reputation or customer base as Louis Vuitton but with expansion of the Internet into almost every home (in Australia that is) you can have the chance to play with the big boys so to speak, on a much small budget.
For those with a shop front that you use to market your wares, do you change it every month? I know in the fashion industry with it moving as fast as it does they change their window displays on a weekly basis.
Now I assume that you are reading this because you have a website, so I won't go into the pros of having a site to market your business to the wider community.
It is important to think of your homepage as a window display. In most cases this is the main entry point to your site. Most of your traffic is going to come through it so make sure it is appealing.
Of course you are sitting there saying well it is easy for you, you know how to use a computer. Exactly it really isn't a large expense per year to get us as your private design house, where we run the website like it was our own. With a bit of participation from you we can take control of the window display and really get the site going. I mean it is what we do.
I can't stress enough the importance of consistent updates to a website in regards to search engine rankings, however if you have the traffic to your site you may as well convert a few with some clever marketing methods for your front home page.
