Tips For Writing on the Web

What is your goal when writing on the web?  Is it to showcase your intelligence or is it to inform people of interesting or helpful facts to a specific group?  Knowing the audience in which you are writing for is imperative for success. Below is a an article for advice on writing on the web.



Most users visit a web page for 10-15 seconds. In that brief time, 80% will skim the page for keywords they already have in mind. Therefore, before you begin writing web content, it’s important to understand your audience and anticipate what content and keywords they’re trying to find.

Adhering to the following guidelines will improve your web content:

1. Make your text easy to scan

• Put the most important information at the top of the page.
• Use plenty of embedded links, subheadings, bullets, lists, anchors, etc., to break up your text.
• Use tables, numbers, and charts to convey information visually when you can.

2. Cut your content down to basics

The biggest mistake writers of web content make is providing too much content and introductory text. In general, cut your print text by at least 50% and use the following guidelines:

• Web writing should be clear, concise, and direct.
• Write at a 6th- to 8th-grade reading level.
• Always try to write in first or second person.
• Whenever possible, stick to facts.
• Use active verbs and concrete words whenever possible.
• Try to avoid jargon, abbreviations, technical terms, and cleverness.
• Keep paragraphs short and stick to one main point at a time.
• Sentence structure should be simple and varied.

3. Write accessible link phrases

Accessible link phrases should differentiate links on the same page and be understood easily when read out of context. In general, links should:

• be brief and descriptive
• provide information even when read out of context
• explain what the link offers
• not deal with the mechanics of the site
• not include phrases such as, "Click here for more info"
• identify a new document type if not html (i.e. PDF, DOC, XLS)

4. Write short headlines

Users can generally only process several words at once, so generallyshorter headlines are better.
   Headlines should:
            



Headlines should:

• be concise and direct
• be able to stand on their own or be understood out of context
• avoid jargon, abbreviations, cleverness, and technical terms
• be search engine friendly. Visit our SEO Guidelines for more information.

https://itservices.uchicago.edu/page/writing-web

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Five Website Strategies for 2013

Do you have any strategies for your website development?   There is a lot of competition out there and you may need some advice to help your sites get noticed.

Once considered a calling card for your business or an online brochure, websites have now evolved into a visually packed battle ground for businesses. If you think your marketing is just fine with your standard website, think again! There’s a good chance your standard website just won’t be compelling enough in the new year. Make your web strategy a priority in 2013 by implementing these five trends.

1. Support Mobile Devices
If you haven’t updated your website to support mobile devices, this should be your top priority in 2013. People are accessing your website from a multitude of devices – including smartphones and tablets – at a record pace. The easiest way to support all devices is implementing responsive web design, which enables your website to be viewed on nearly any device. If your website is more complicated, consider creating a separate mobile website or creating a mobile application. Not sure if you’re ready for mobile? Test your website to check for mobile compatibility.

2. Make your Website a Place to Stay
Websites need to be more than just a home page and a list of services. Effective websites have become interactive playgrounds, using video and games alongside striking images and intelligent content. Make your website a place where people come for a long visit. Websites that entertain and educate the audience are much more effective than the traditional sales pitch.

3. Provide Great Content Marketing
With the numerous changes to search engine algorithms, you need to provide fresh content on your website on a regular basis to compete and be found. Strive to create relevant, timely content that people find valuable and ultimately want to share. And sharing is one of the best ways to drive traffic and obtain new, high-quality leads.

4. Tell Your Story Visually
The amount of information that people are accessing in any single day is staggering. Visual storytelling, often through infographics, is quickly becoming a popular way to communicate with viewers. A strong visual element allows visitors to scan information and absorb the data quickly. It’s a great way to get your information and website shared on social networking too.

5. Reignite Your Email Marketing
With the number of smartphones on the market, people have access to email instantly. Rethink your email marketing strategy with the ideas of social, local and mobile. Focus on segmenting your email list based on the preferences and locations of your subscriber, and send out information that is easy to view and digestible on the go. Be sure to make your email list subscription a focal point of your website to build subscribers.

 http://parkbenchdigital.com/blog/5-website-strategies-2013/

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Top 10 Best Practices for Multilingual Websites

Worldwide communication is at the fingertips of business websites. In America alone the Hispanic language is on many products that we purchase on a daily basis. Learning what makes a great multilingual website is important in the business website marketing.  The following article will be of great help to you.

 Prepared by GobiernoUSA.gov and Government Multilingual Websites Group based on theHispanic Online Best Practices developed by Lee Vann.

1. Language: Online communications must address the language preferences of users. The use of machine or automatic translations is strongly discouraged even if a disclaimer is added. If government agencies decide to use software assisted translation, have the translation reviewed by a qualified language professional before posting it to the website to ensure that the translation correctly communicates the message.

GobiernoUSA.gov, the trusted source for government information in Spanish, offers users a complete experience in the Spanish-language. Content, navigation, and all functionalities and features in GobiernoUSA.gov are in Spanish.

2. Culture: Conduct user research to understand the cultural considerations for your target audience. Regardless of language used, the online experience must be culturally relevant to achieve an emotional connection with the audience.

Although GobiernoUSA.gov and USA.gov, its English-language counterpart, have the same structure and look and feel, the Spanish site offers content, images, and a color scheme that resonates with the Hispanic community.

3. Access: Enable users to find your multilingual website via prominent access on the English site. Access to multilingual websites should be made available on the global navigation on the top right of every English page.

The Federal Trade Commission provides the "En español" link as part of their global navigation on their English site.

4. URL Strategy: Use a stand-alone, dedicated URL for marketing and search engine optimization purposes. That URL can then re-direct to another one more in line with your agency URL convention.

The Social Security Administration uses http://www.segurosocial.gov to market and drive traffic to their Spanish language site.

5. Comparability and Maintenance: Ensure that your multilingual website provides a comparable user experience to your English site. Plan for regular updates and maintenance to ensure that your multilingual website remains comparable to the English site.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provide a comparable experience on the English and Spanish sites through consistent maintenance of site content and experience.

6. Users' expectations: Manage user expectations by providing notice when a user is going to navigate to an English-only area, external website, or require a special program or software to view an application.

EPA.gov's Spanish site denotes English-only content by putting "en inglés" next to links only available in English.

7. Toggle: Enable users to toggle between comparable content or features on the English and multilingual websites if available.

Users on MedlinePlus and MedlinePlus en español can go back and forth between the English and Spanish sites on a page-by-page basis without having to go through the home page.

8. Online Features and Functionality: Provide interactive features and functionality on multulingual websites.

The CDC site in Spanish offers basic features such as Print and Email This Page and gives users the ability to subscribe to email alerts, RSS feeds, podcasts, and more.

9. Integrated Operations and Marketing: Integrate your multilingual website initiatives with internal infrastructure and external consumer touch points, and into your overall online-offline strategy.

GobiernoUSA.gov provides phone and email support in Spanish through 1-(800)-FED-INFO, as well as PSAs and other marketing materials in Spanish. In addition, GobiernoUSA.gov is an integral part of the overall online and offline strategy of the Office of Citizen Services in GSA. This was especially evident in 2007 when a name change and redesign were implemented at the same time for both USA.gov and GobiernoUSA.gov.

10. Online Marketing: Develop and execute a targeted multilingual online marketing program, including social media, and track results.

Many agencies conduct dedicated online outreach for their multilingual sites includingGobiernoUSA.gov, MedlinePlus en español, CDC.gov, and EPA.gov, among others. In addition, many of these sites are using social media tools to reach out to Hispanics: EPA's blog Greenversations has regular bilingual entries; CDC.gov offers RSS and podcasts; andGobiernoUSA.gov has a presence on facebook.com and twitter.com.

http://www.howto.gov/web-content/multilingual/best-practices

image: drupalbusinessdays.org  

 

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Best Practices in Optimizing SEO Videos

The following article has great advice in using videos in providing information to potential customers for your business or organization.

                                                www.internetsearchinc.com

The Best Practices in Optimizing SEO Videos

SEO videos are a great way for you to expose your brand to users who are not familiar with your brand, your products or your services. All marketers and site owners continuously experiment with video as a way of intercepting their target markets. And because of this, we see more and more video-driven content surface on the Web. The popularity of video content on the web depends on the study or data you're reviewing and the results always vary.

Nowadays, there are a lot of vids out there that are useless and lacking in information in their content. Although there are a lot of great "How To" videos out there, there are still a lot of video footage that are just a noise and an interruption to those who are looking for useful and relevant information.

The growth of SEO videos has been quite explosive. Because of this significant growth, the need for online video optimization should take place. These are some best practices that one should consider when planning to optimize online vids.

1. Make sure that the clips of your videos are relevant and informative. You must ensure that your video gives useful and informative information. Vids that show step by step procedures are great while videos that express opinion about a specific topic can also be useful. Some videos that have nothing to do with your brand or service offering and also a general or vague one in nature will only confuse your audience. Save your viewer some trouble and don't upload for the sake of uploading a vid.

2. Give your video a catchy title - The best way to get users to view your vid is to give it a catchy title that should contain related key phrase which are relevant to your product, service or brand. This is one search engine optimization trick you can use.

3. Use your video as a portal to other contents on your website. You can upload some vids to Youtube and provide links back to your related content as well as other vid content on your website.

4. Optimize your video for important key phrases. Tag your vids with terms then, consider naming the file-name with terms in mind.

5. Provide transcripts of your vids. In order for your video to rank well, you need to give the search engines something to index and rank.

6. Keep your SEO videos to five minutes or less. Make sure your vid is just five minutes or less because if it's of long duration, it makes it boring to watch and your visitors might lose their interest in watching it.

7. Make use of a Video-Sitemap. Ensure that users and search engine spiders can find your content; and the easiest way to do this is by using video-sitemap on your site. Make sure you use important keywords in the anchor text links on your videos.

8. Brand your vids with Logo.

9. Offer the option to embed your SEO videos. You can allow the users to access the coding that will allow them to embed your video on their site or blog.

10. Allow your users to rate your Video. Let your users rate your vids because vids that have high ratings are the ones that users tend to favorite and save.

11. Submit your video to RSS.

The best way to optimize your vid content is to think about the user and the people you want to engage in your video. Don't just post a video just for the sake of posting it. Consider your audience. Keep in mind that SEO videos are also important factors for search engine optimization

 Article :http://www.promotionworld.com/se/articles/article/130716-best-practices-optimizing-seo-videos

 

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The Power of Mobile

Smartphones and tablets are growing in popularity, so you might be assuming that they are completely transforming how folks shop.

Transforming? Yes. Completely? Not quite.

A recent study by Yesmail found that even though mobile device owners shop more often, they still prefer the PC for making purchases: 42% of mobile device owners use their PC for completing purchases all the time, as opposed to their mobile phones (10%) or their tablets (6%).

Does that mean mobile devices haven't changed the shopping experience? Not at all.

Some 47% of mobile device owners have used their devices to look for a product review while in a store. And three out of five in-store shoppers have left the brick-and-mortar store to purchase a product online (even if the discount may have been as little as 5%).

Some more highlights from the study...

Mobile device owners are more likely to interact with brands on social media.

• 41% made a purchase because of an email promotion they received on their mobile phone.
• Mobile commerce is now 21% of all traffic to e-commerce websites.

 

Using information from the survey, Yesmail created the following infographic:

 

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Three Steps for Stopping Checkout Abandonment

You've gotten your customer on your site, and even to the checkout page, but (as you well know) your efforts don't end at the "Add To Basket" button. If you want to encourage your website visitors to complete their purchases, you need to double-check your checkout process.

Any e-commerce site owner knows the frustration resulting from the abandonment of a full shopping basket; all online shops suffer from a certain amount of checkout abandonment. But the most likely causes of a high rate of abandonment are few, and they're relatively simple to rectify.

Here are three key areas that can generate improved conversions if you pay attention to them. I explain what steps to take in each area and why doing so will improve conversion rates.

     1. Optimize the checkout process

You don't have to look far to find one of the main reasons for customers' abandoning their purchase at the checkout: your checkout process.

Making sure you comply with the following three checkpoints will maximize completion rates:

• You do not force registration for purchase.

• You offer more than one payment option.

• Your procedure is simple and quick.

Forcing registrationto your site in order to complete the checkout stage does little more than cause potential customers to abandon their purchase.

Many customers will be first-time purchasers, and they may not initially plan on using your site to purchase again.

Trying to force the issue will often put such buyers off. So make sure you include a "Checkout as Guest" as well as a "Register and Checkout" option.

Offering a single payment option may be simpler for you, but doing so will put off those whose preferred payment option is not the one offered.

For example, if you offer payment via PayPal only, you automatically exclude potential customers who do not have a PayPal account and have no desire to create one simply to buy from you. Having the option of PayPal among several other options is a good thing, however, because it is some people's preferred payment method.

Of course, make sure you allow people to use all major debit and credit cards.

Too lengthy a checkout procedure causes about 10% of people to abandon their shopping at the checkout stage.

Make it simple for customers by allowing them to enter their delivery and billing addresses together if they are the same, and never make extraneous questions mandatory to answer in order to complete the process (for example, "How did you find our site?").

Also make sure that completed fields in the forms are retained, customer security permitting, should a customer forget to check a box or fill in a mandatory field and be directed away from the checkout. Most customers will not have the patience to fill in an entire checkout form more than once.

     2. Cut down on hidden charges

Almost half of those who have abandoned a shopping cart at checkout cite their unwillingness to pay hidden charges.

Make sure you are as transparent as possible with all pricing. Most customers expect being charged a small amount for shipping or delivery at checkout, but displaying prices on product pages without, say, VAT included (in Europe), can be misleading.

If you charge extra for a service that is needed for the product (for example, fitting a glass curtain pole) either incorporate that charge into the price on the product page or make it clear on that page what additional amount will be added at the checkout stage.

Ensure that your shipping and handling prices are reasonable and transparent.

If possible, offer standard delivery for free (factor the cost into the product price, or decide to absorb it in anticipation of increased sales), and offer the option of quicker delivery at a higher price.

Also, consider flat rates for each option (standard, next day, named day) rather than calculating amount, size, or weight of the purchased goods.

     3. Use a lead-recovery service

Using a lead-recovery service can help you pick up those customers who still abandon at the checkout stage. If the potential buyer has entered an email address or a telephone number, he can be contacted to prompt re-entering the site and completing the purchase.

Email reminders can be sent a short time after the abandonment occurs, offering a helpful reminder to customer that they did not complete the checkout. The reminder can offer an email address or local-rate or free telephone number to call if the purchase abandonment was the result of an unanswered question—whether a query about the product or a difficulty with the site.

However, contact via telephone is the most direct way to pick up sales leads, as it does not require any action by the customer, and it gives a straightforward way to find the cause of checkout abandonment. The caller is able to unknot any uncertainty on the customer's part and answer any queries, so you retain the sales lead.

By: James Duval
Author's note:This article was written for UK-base lead optimization firm Optilead,




Source: MarketingProfs

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2012 State of Online Video

The amount of content videos and video ads viewed in 2012 reached record-breaking numbers, according to a recent SundaySky report.

Take a look at these jaw-dropping stats:

• 456.6 million content videos were watched. 
• 105.4 billion video ads were viewed. 
• 182 million users were watching videos

Factors in video's soaring popularity in 2012 may have included the London Olympic games (159 million videos were streamed) and the 2012 US presidential campaigns (which spent a combined $78 million on video ads).

Videos, however, aren't just for newsworthy events such as the Olympics and presidential campaigns. Videos that are personally relevant also matter to viewers: Viewers spent 2.5 times more time watching personally relevant short-form videos than other videos, and emails that contain personally relevant videos boast a 40%-60% open rate.

To help illustrate the state of online video in 2012, SundaySky created the following infographic.

The collective findings and data in the 2012 State of Online Video Report are from Adap.TV, comScore, Forrester, Nielsen, Pew Internet, SundaySky's upcoming 2013 Smart Video Index, and other sources.

Source: MarketingProfs

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