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Assist your end-users first: technical writing, copywriting, HTML Help, usability, and multimedia - by Epic Trends
Connect with your customers-and fuel your sales-through user assistance: technical writing, multimedia, web content, copywriting, usability, user interfaces, demos, tutorials, html help, and online Help.
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Monday, August 29, 2005
Now, you need to consider how you write your web copy for those all-important
results in search engines. The right keywords are the grease for higher rankings in
search engines. The following list shows the most popular ways to get keywords:
Overture keyword suggestion tool
Wordtracker
Google Adwords
Tips for choosing keywords
1. Use two to four words phrases instead of individual words.
2. Create phrases that form a question.
3. Include synonyms and common mispellings.
4. Include phrases with the words in slightly different orders.
5. Read your web logs to see how people found you and what they are looking for on
your site.
6. Include brand names and model numbers of products.
Tips for placing keywords
1. Title tags and headings, using H1, H2, and so forth,
2. Body text, the most important area,
3. Links and navigation,
4. Header meta-tags and the Alt attribute in your image tags.
Important:
Make sure the text that appears in the search findings contains phrases that urge
the surfer to take action and are rich in details. Using words like Buy, Now, and
Free can help. Next, include a descriptive sentence that creates an emotional
reaction and intense imagery.
Monday, August 29, 2005
Alexander Halser has added support for:
1. True styles
2. Localization
3. XML
4. Conditional builds
5. RoboHelp import
and more.
www.helpandmanual.com
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Your words matter more than you might think.
1. In "Persuasive Online Copywriting" by Eisenberg and Davis, the authors point out a Stanford-Poynter project. The project discovered that online readers first look at words, especially the captions and summaries. Readers then notice graphics, much later or not at all. You can find out more about this study at www.poynter.org.
2. At User Interface Engineering, www.uie.com, Jared Spool has discovered that a user looks at the center of the screen, scans left, then right. The center of the screen rules.
3. Jared Spool's folks found that users scan the right side of the screen with their peripheral vision, even while attending to the center of the screen.
4. Visitors tend to ignore the bottom of the screen.
How does this information affect web copy?
1. The center of the screen is your prime chance, where you will either succeed or fail in engaging and persuading your visitor.
2. The left side of the screen is a good place to put navigation.
3. The right side of the screen is a good spot for testimonies, guarantees, and privacy statements.
4. Make sure your text is skimmable. Bold your keywords. Bulletize your sentences. Keep paragraphs short. Infuse the first and last sentences of a paragraph with your strongest points. Use hyperlinks effectively, with clear labels.
I bet the word bulletize is not in the dictionary. :)
5. Location, location, location. It matters in real estate, and it matters on the web. At any point where you want your user to take action, repeat your privacy guarantees, refund policies, and other reassuring messages. For example, next to the Buy Now button, repeat your refund policy. Next to a Subscribe Now button, broadcast [We value your privacy]. Give the visitors the exact information and reassurances that they want right where they expect it.
Sunday, August 21, 2005
If your target customer uses English as a second language, keep the following
recommendations in mind as you write:
1. Use sentences of about 20 words or less.
2. Use the active voice.
Avoid this
The events can be scheduled by Speed-o-matic.
Use this
Speed-o-matic can schedule your events!
3. Avoid verbs that combine two or more words: put down, click on, pull in. Use one
word that means the same thing.
4. Avoid negative wording, which is hard to translate.
Avoid this
Aren't you tired of losing time in your work day?
Use this
Save time in your work day!
5. Do not use figures of speech or slang.
Avoid this
Time management is as easy as pie with Speed-o-matic.
And avoid this
Don't play second banana to your calendar.
Use this
Speed-o-matic makes your time count---by counting your time!
6. Proofread, proofread, proofread. And don't repeat yourself. (grin) Get other
folks, especially those who use English as second language, to read over your copy.
Remove words you don't need. Combine sentences where possible, while still keeping
sentences short. Fewer words can usually express your message more effectively.
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Writing web copy should be an intentional, systematic process. The Eisenbers and
Davis in "Persuasive Online Copywriting" recommend the process of Joseph Sugarman,
in "Advertising Secrets of the Written Word: The Ultimate Resource on How to Write
Powerful Advertising Copy." Joseph presents the following work flow you might
consider for the first draft of your web copy:
-Open strongly by eliciting excitement.
-Develop the drama.
-Explain why the product or service is different.
-Explain how to use it.
-Elaborate on the unique benefits.
-Justify the purchase.
-Identify the lasting value.
-Address service concerns.
-Ask for an order.
As you write, keep the following tone and style guidelines in mind. However, remember that no guideline can work for every product or every selling situation.
1. Decide whether your copy will appeal to the emotions or the intellect.
2. Present tense verbs usually have higher impact that past tense or future tense.
Tip
Verbs are your friend in copy writing. Use strong verbs everywhere. Weak verbs
include: is, are, have, has, and so forth. Strong verbs include any word that shows
motion, action, or imagery; for example, the following verbs are strong: spill,
illuminate, compel, buy, reveal, intrigue, hammer, and on and on. You can make verbs
into nouns or use them as adjectives to add spice to your copy:
Dripping with light, the photo snags my gaze.
Giving is better than receiving.
3. As stated previously in this blog, "you" is the most powerful perspective--not we or us.
4. The Eisenbergs and Davis point out an interesting rule of thumb about style in
your copy:
"If your product is mainly about style, you can promote it with style; if your
product is mainly about substance, then you'd better promote it with substance."
5. Promote positive gains over fear of loss. When describing benefits of your
product, the following phrase will promote more sales:
"Save time with Speed-o-matic, the best software for revving up your PC."
The following phrase will make fewer sales:
"Do you fear working late? Are you tired all the time from late nights at the
office? Speed-o-matic can solve these problems."
Basic writing devices to get you started:
1. See the previous tip about verbs.
2. Describe details about your product, rather than generalities.
3. Copy somewhere between 250-500 words per web page seems to produce the best sales
results. Write enough to cover all the essentials, but keep the page short enough to
hold your reader.
4. Use visual images rather than just telling your reader how great your product is.
Engage the senses with words like "bright," "cold," and so forth. Show the reader,
don't tell them.
5. Be bold, unexpected, provocative . . . even audacious. Fear of
offending someone is a common reason for bland web copy. Take a chance.
The Eisenbergs and Davis cite this example from Customatix, a customized athletic
shoe business, that greets new accounts with the following copy:
"Well, you've gone and done it now. By opening a Customatix account, you've just
changed the way you're going to buy athletic shoes forever. Be careful. The surgeon
general reports that designing your own cool athletic shoes can be highly
addictive."
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Read a fascinating summary of eye tracking studies. These studies show where visitors to your web site look first and where they spend the most time gazing.
The Best of Eyetrack III: What We Saw When We Looked Through Their Eyes
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Read the following article to find out how you can improve your software usability-without using tons of your precious time or money or other squeezed resources. Joanna Bawa, the author, outlines techniques that are mostly based on common experiences. However, you might not have thought of these techniques as valid usability tests.
Effective usability inspection techniques
Saturday, August 13, 2005
I gathered a quick laundry list of tips that you can implement today.
Think of your web page titles as headlines. Keep your titles to 50-75 characters, including spaces, as a guideline.
Sprinkle variations of your keywords throughout your web copy by adding -ing, -ed, and so forth.
Use key phrases in your links. These exhort your visitor to take action, to click.
Tip
Do not wait until the actual season to implement copy that focuses on seasonal sales. Try a 6-month window to give the engines time to adjust to your changes.
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Take a step back and look at the copy on your web site. Make sure that you are aiming right at the heart of your customers. Talk about what matters most to them. On every page, consistently concentrate on the words that speak to their personality-hone your relationship with them in every paragraph. How can you do this?
1. Deploy a ‹you› statement in the first headline and make sure that you use H1 tags.
2. Use verbs that push your visitor to action. We'll discuss more about that later.
3. Describe a benefit and then prove it with a feature.
4. Use bulleted lists and bolding to allow visitors to skim, if they want to.
5. Use emotion. Appear happier than your competition, not more technical.
Emotions sell. No doubt about it. In "Persuasive Online Copywriting," Eisenberg and Davis cite a University of Rochester study on brain activity imaging. The study reveals that emotions are an integral part of the buying process. People with damaged frontal lobes have extreme difficulty making personal decisions on what to buy.
Buyers rationalize their decisions with facts. However, they make buying decisions based on emotion. Make sure your copy creates powerful images in your visitors' minds.
Tuesday, August 09, 2005
One of the most intriguing aspects of writing web copy is that your audience is not passive. They give feedback. And how. Sites like epinions.com, planetfeedback.com, tucows.com, and thousands more have vehicles for customers to vent or praise. The web is owned by your audience, not you. Write like you have no other chance to impress. Because you don't.
Make sure that you are writing with lots of ‹you› words. Cut out the ‹I, we, us›. Eisenberg and Davis point out the Customer Focus Ratio. Take one of your pages and count the number of customer-focused words to self-focused words. Use the tool at the following link to see the ratio.
Customer Focus Calculator
Eisenberg and Davis point out that pages that score 60 percent or higher seem to have a real advantage over sites that score below 60 percent.
My score is only 51 percent for www.epictrends.com. Better roll up my sleeves and get to work.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
I've had a hard time keeping mum on the newest version of Help & Manual. My limited participation in the beta test gave me a real challenge in keeping my mouth shut about some of the new features. Those of you who know me realize what a challenge I have in keeping quiet. :)
Help & Manual 4.0 gives you all the things you might have missed in Help & Manual 3.0. Check out the following link for the details.
Help & Manual 4 feature list
Some of the features I like:
Trados support
Import of RoboHelp files
Styles! This fixes one of the shortcomings of 3.0.
An added benefit of using Help & Manual: Alexander, the owner, listens to his customers in ways that the makers of RoboHelp never did. Send him a suggestion or participate in the Help & Manual forums. You'll be glad you did.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
To continue my series on web copy that works for you . . .
By this time, I hope you've written down a good profile of your target visitor: age, maybe gender, interests, passions, and so forth. This is the potential customer whom you speak to as you write your web copy-enticing him/her to act with every page you write.
You can't win those potential customers over with flashy writing that is starved for meaty subject matter. Nail down what content and issues matter the most to your target customer. Hammer those issues into your web copy. Your writing can be mediocre-and still be better at grabbing your visitor's attention than stellar writing about issues that your visitors don't care about.
How can you do this if you are locked away in one of those solitary offices ripe for growing mushrooms? Get out into the community and go to meetings where some of your target visitors gather. Go to the online communities where these folks hang out. Read their magazines. Join their professional or special interest organizations-but don't advertise there until you really know the community. Write down words and phrases that you see or hear often from these folks. Keep a small notebook for this-try to fill up that notebook.
After filling up that notebook, you may be fired up to start adding tons of content to your web site. Before you go too far, remember to present the right amount of content and not too much. More is not better in every case. When Internet browsers search for content, they are not always shopping. When shopping, most surfers want a straightforward process on a site that they trust. Make sure your content is geared towards the information that helps those shoppers make a better choice. Don't present content that distracts-present only content that propels that shopper towards the sale.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
I am re-reading several of my favorite web copy books by über-copywriters such as Nick Usborne, Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg, Lisa Davis, and others. As promised in a previous post, I will write a series over the next few weeks about the points that seem to be most relevant when I work on web copy.
One tip that might work for you: The best web copy seems to breeze in when I am in the fresh air--as I drive, play on the river, or mess around with my dogs. So try thinking about your web copy when you are outdoors, away from your office. Fresh ideas might propagate like rabbits.
Speaking of the outdoors, a U.S. Army commercial shows a guy climbing a rock wall with the tag line: An army of one. Nothing could be truer of the Internet and the potential buyer who visits your web site. The visitor, and potential customer, is one person, clambering through that mountain of information called the Internet.
You have the chance to occupy that climber's full attention for several minutes. No other medium, including TV, radio, or even print ads, is so compelling in this way. Yet, like radio and TV, you have about 10-20 seconds, or even less, to latch on to that visitor's radar. The words on your web site must compel that visitor to act: to click, to follow, to read, to buy. These processes must happen on each page and throughout the overall experience of browsing your web site.
The writers of "Persuasive Online Copywriting: How to Take Your Words to the Bank," Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg and Lisa Davis, recommend using AIDA:
Attention, Interest, Desire, Action, and Satisfaction.
These steps morph mere browsers into buyers when you hammer these elements into every page of your web site, not just the landing pages and the home page. Look at each page and then step back and look at the big picture on your web site.
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