Happy 2012!

This year is already shaping up to be another exciting one for me, with lots of great projects planned including another trip to the US in May to go to Confab. To kickstart everything I’m thrilled to announce I’ll be speaking at the next Business Balloon day which will be on 14 February 2012 at Iceworks in Paddington (Brisbane).

Business Balloon poster

Here’s my presentation outline from the website:

“First impressions count—and poorly written, inconsistent, or unclear content will erode your brand and destroy the trust of your customers. Sally will take you through five simple ways to improve the content on your website, blog or brochure so the personality of your business shines through and your key messages are delivered. She’ll show you how to develop a tone and voice for your content as well as share common content mistakes to avoid.”

If you’re in Brisbane and would like to come along, details on how you can purchase tickets are on  the Business Balloon website.

I hope to see some of you there!

Last week I went to Melbourne for the Problogger Training Day to lead the panel on Editorial Strategy with Sonia Simone from Copyblogger and Lucy Feagins from The Design Files. Each of us had quite different experiences with editorial strategy and how it could be applied to both personal and business blogs.

Lucy, Sonia and I talking about editorial strategy

What’s editorial strategy?

Newspapers and magazines have been using editorial strategy to plan the how, what and when of content since publications first started.

Now that we are all publishers (on the internet) editorial strategy is still an important way to ensure your blog (or website, or newsletter, or other content marketing activity) supports your business goals.

Key themes from the panel discussion

It was a great discussion and one I’m sure could have extended for another hour or two.

Key themes which came out of the panel included:

• Know your audience and what they expect from your blog. Lucy uses an annual survey to do this, and then backs it up by monitoring metrics to see which posts are more popular than others, and (as she posts daily) which days of the week are more popular.
• Think about post topics in advance and use an editorial calendar to keep track of what’s going to be written when. Think about holidays and celebrations, seasons, or major sporting events that may be relevant for your blog.
• Stay flexible enough to still post about hot topics in your niche, or events you hadn’t planned for. The whole day had a strong theme of balancing blogging from the heart with blogging strategically.
• If you have other contributors to your blog, have some editorial guidelines so the voice and personality of your blog stays true.
• An editorial strategy can help you come up with ideas for posts by breaking larger ideas into smaller chunks of content.  It can also help with SEO as you can build a number of posts around a particular topic (or set of keywords).

An editorial strategy can be as simple or as complex as your needs. For personal bloggers, it may be a simple list of post ideas. For bigger sites it may be a more complex road map of deadlines, approvals and costings. Sonia said she used an editorial calendar plugin to map out posts at Copyblogger up to 12 weeks in advance. She also provided some fantastic insight into how editorial strategy works at Copyblogger, including how they link post topics with other products and services that are in the Copyblogger Media stable.

If you’re interested in what some of the other panels covered, Annabel Candy live blogged a number of the sessions including the one I was on.

Do you use an editorial strategy in your business?

If you don’t already have an editorial strategy for your business, why don’t you get in contact with me so I can help you write one?

Yes, microcopy does rock

A few weeks ago I presented at Interactive Minds on the topic ‘Optimising your web content to perform’.

While I think some people were expecting me to talk about SEO, I instead focused on what you can do to optimise your content to convert visitors to customers.

I talked about some of the techniques you can use to identify your most important content, how to tell if it’s performing or not, and what to do to help it perform better.

One of the tips I gave to help boost content performance was to improve microcopy.

What’s microcopy?

Think of all of the small pieces of in-context content which help visitors perform a task on your website.

It’s often an overlooked part of content development because it’s found on error pages, forms, buttons and other elements which may not be part of the ‘main’ content areas.

For example, if you have a shopping cart on your site you’ll most likely have microcopy to assist customers making a purchase. It may be a couple of words about which credit cards you accept, advice that shipping is a flat rate, or even tips on creating a password.

Why is microcopy important?

Good microcopy smooths the pathway to conversion. It reassures, it informs, it clarifies. It helps the user engage with the site. And an engaged user is far more likely to convert than a non-engaged one.

On the flip side, bad microcopy can confuse, frustrate and erode trust. Think of a bad shopping cart experience you’ve had. Have you ever abandoned a purchase because of something simple like not knowing if postage is included or not? I know I have.

Or, have you ever got an error message on an online registration form—but no clues as to what went wrong? Do you persist, or do you leave the site?

In both of these situations some well-written microcopy could have helped you stay on the site.

So next time you’re planning a content project, spend some time thinking about your microcopy and how it can help convert your visitors.

If you want to know more, I suggest reading Joshua Porter’s post on writing microcopy. Or, if you have a content project coming up which requires microcopy, get in touch with me so I can help.

This week I went to a pantry tour at Black Pearl Epicure. It was for Brisbane Food Bloggers, and although I don’t have a food blog I figured I really do love food and was very keen to learn more about it.

The demonstration was hosted by Black Pearl’s founder Babak Hadi, and was simply amazing.  Babak took about 30 of us through the ins and outs of extra virgin olive oil, different vinegars (including aged balsamic – yum!), salts, chocolate, saffron, vanilla, and cheese.

We all left with a full belly and a better appreciation of how these staple ingredients are made.

So what does this have to do with writing?

The stand out of the night (in my mind) was Babak’s knowledge and passion for his products. He was really interesting to listen to, was very confident in what he was saying, and had answers for a couple of curly questions that were asked.

This knowledge and passion are the foundation for successful sales.

1. Know your product

Babak explained everything from how extra virgin olive oil was made, to the fermenting process of balsamic vinegar.

You should know your business and your products that well too. Describe it in your sales pages, detail it in your customer service info – show your customers that you’ve taken the time to learn.

2. Understand how your customers will use your product

Throughout the demonstration, Babak related all information to how we would use the products ourselves. This is a great technique for selling as we all were picturing using the product in our own kitchen before any purchase had been made.

Unfortunately, this is an area where I see many businesses fail. There are a lot of business owners who are really out of touch with their customers – make sure you aren’t one of them!

3. Love using your product

Sure the foods we sampled were all top-notch, but Babak has a genuine love for using them all. When you are excited about your own products or services, it acts as a reinforcement for potential customers. The old “I’ll have what he’s having” mindset.

So after all that eating (erm, learning), what did I buy? Check it out:

Note: I did get some chocolate too, but it was gone before I took this picture!

Are you passionate about your products? Share your thoughts below.

If you are in Brisbane, I’ll be speaking at the next International Association of Business Communicators Queensland (IABC QLD) event on 20 October 2010 at the Melbourne Hotel in West End.

Here’s the blurb from their site:

Web content strategy: Regaining control of your web assets as a communicator

• Do you see web content as a valuable communication tool within your organisation? Or is it more a maintenance nightmare?
• Not sure how to produce quality content with limited resources?
• Are you about to embark on a web re-development project, but aren’t sure how to approach it?

Content strategy is a fast-growing discipline that connects the dots between information technology, usability, design, and communication.

It offers practical, easy-to-apply methodology to ensure that your website is working hard to meet the goals of your organisation.

This round-table discussion will be based around what’s happening in your workplace. To make this possible, when you register, we’ll ask you to answer a simple question:

What is the biggest challenge you face in your organisation in relation to web content?

So if you are around, please come along and join the discussion. Tickets are only $20 for IABC members and $40 for non-members and can be purchased online.

Tickets have gone on sale for the next Networx event The art of persuasion – communicate and influence featuring Marissa Tree and myself.

If you are Brisbane on 28 July 2010, consider coming along to listen to us speak about how you can develop and refine your communication tools so that people sit up and take notice.

We are going to give lots of practical examples (it won’t all be theory), so you’ll walk away with tips and strategies that you’ll be able to apply easily within your business.

See you there!

Cheers

I am speaking at a Networx event in July with the wonderful Marissa Tree on the topic of Persuasion. The idea is we are going to go through different methods that you can use to persuade people to get them to do what you want.

I was sharing this with a friend, who looked at me, rolled her eyes and said

“You mean you are going to tell them how to trick people.”

I was actually quite shocked.

Then by chance I saw an advertisement on TV for an upcoming current affairs show that was going to “expose the tricks that supermarkets use to get you to buy more groceries”.

It all sounds so negative.

Sure, there are unscrupulous people out there who deceive and lie about their products or services, and as a result consumers feel ripped off.

But I firmly believe that if you have a great product or service that is relevant and useful for your audience – then what’s wrong with ensuring you do you best to sell it? It doesn’t even have to be something for sale. You may want people to register for community consultation, download a whitepaper, sign up for a newsletter. Whatever your call to action is.

Sometimes understanding just a little about the psychology of persuasion will make a huge difference to your conversions.

What are your thoughts?

If you are in Brisbane on 28 July 2010, keep an eye out on the Networx site for ticket details.

I was lucky enough to go to the first networking event for Interactive Minds today. The topic was ‘Measuring online success – Beyond the click’ and had guest speakers from the REA Group and Omniture. It was a great event, good to see something like this starting up in Brisbane.

October’s event will focus on ‘What customers want’ and also offers some good guest speakers, including Tania Lang from Peak Usability.

If you are in Brisbane, make sure you check out the Interactive Minds website for more details.

If you subscribe to any freelance writing or content related blogs, you’d know that everyone is vying for votes in Michael Stelzner’s (Writing White Papers) 3rd Annual Top 10 Blogs for Writers Contest.

The competition highlights the best of the best. I’ve found it a great starting point when you are first looking for blogs that offer good advice and case studies.

I’ve placed my vote for Men With Pens, one of the few blogs that I look forward to every new post. If I had a couple of extra votes I’d give them to Copyblogger and Daily Writing Tips. Also excellent blogs – well written, interesting, and achievable. What more could you ask for?

Take the time to cast your vote.

I’ve been a follower of Jakob Nielsen for a number of years. Love him or hate him, his theories on usability are tried and tested, and I’ve been in a number of workplaces who have implemented his guidelines and as a result have very successful sites.

Last week I went to Melbourne to attend Usability week 2008. It was great. Unfortunately Jakob wasn’t able to make it, but there were a number of excellent presenters. Chris Nodder held the writing for the web workshop.

So, as promised, here are some key tips that I picked up from his workshop. There isn’t anything earth shattering here, just some good advice on how to write quality web content.

• Most online reading is done for research, not entertainment. Be to the point, don’t tease, and clearly have a purpose to the content you are writing.
• Uppercase letters slows down your reading speed. This means that sentence case (which I’ve always advocated) is best practice for headings and titles. Title case isn’t completely bad; it just means that readers can’t scan content as quick.
• It’s important to have a good understanding of the reading age of your content. By making your content suitable for a lower reading age, you not only help those with lower literacy levels, you also make it easier for those who can read at a higher level. MS Word does a basic reading age check under Tools > Options > Spelling > Readability. Most sites should be written for a primary school reading age.
• Having a low reading age doesn’t mean that you are uneducated or stupid. Intelligent people can still have a low reading age, as can people with English as a second language, and older people.
• Short sentences, short paragraphs, and short words all make it easier to scan text.
• Keywords should be at the start of sentences and paragraphs as online readers don’t usually read content word-for-word.
• Bold text can draw people’s eyes to key words or ideas within content.
• Sub headings and bullets are great for readability.
• Have one idea per paragraph.
• Meaningful links are very important: they help with search engine ranking, screen readers, and allow people to know what will happen if they click on one. ‘Click here’ as a link is very BAD.
• The first paragraph on a page should be a summary of what’s on the whole page (inverted pyramid theory).
• Use simple words; don’t make up words, no jargon.
• Write concisely – there should be 50% less text than in a printed document.
• Have a consistent ‘voice’ for your site.
• Images should have a purpose and add value to your content.

Sorry for the briefness of the notes, but I think most of them are very self-explanatory. Chris offered his del.icio.us page as a source of reading.