Archive for the ‘Web Writing’ Category
Now that the social media tools that define Web 2.0 have moved into the mainstream—and believe me, it’s mainstream now that our moms are on Facebook—the interactive community has moved on to the next big thing: Web 3.0.
Recently I’ve seen an increase in tweets and blogs about the topic. After trying to follow the conversation, I had to admit to myself I didn’t really know what “web 3.0” meant. So I decided to see what the buzz was all about.
Here’s your crash course in Web 3.0, in case you were wondering, too.
What is Web 3.0?
The first thing you should know is that the definition of Web 3.0 is still a little murky.
Here’s what some people are saying about it:
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"Web 3.0 is about making the web a more personal web. [It’s] an internet that can anticipate my needs, understand my meaning and even allow me to find information better than ever. " Judy Shapiro, Ad Age
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" The core idea behind Web 3.0 is to extract much more meaningful, actionable insight from information. The goal of Web 3.0 is to reorganize information so users can capture what things are and how they are related." Web 3.0 Conference site
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"… Web 3.0 is about open and more structured data – which essentially makes the Web more ‘intelligent’. The smarter the data, the more things we can do with it. The current trends we’re seeing today – filtering content, real-time data, personalization – are evidence that ‘Web 3.0′ is upon us, if not yet well defined." Richard MacManus, Read Write Web
Web 3.0 is also sometimes called the semantic web. But sometimes the semantic web is referred to as a component of Web 3.0. Like I said: murky.
Why could Web 3.0 be awesome?
According to the various definitions out there, we’re on the verge of the BEST INTERWEBS EVER. In a nutshell, it sounds like Web 3.0 aims to be a customized information delivery system that intuitively caters to your every want and need—wherever you are.
Yes, this includes more and better mobile apps. And not just for the iPhone. (Please? Thank you.)
According to the Web 3.0 Conference people, the benefits of Web 3.0 are totally rad:
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This seemingly simple concept will have a profound effect at every level of information consumption, from the individual end user to the enterprise.
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Web 3.0 technologies make the organization of information radically more fluid and allow for new types of analysis based on things like text semantics, machine learning, and what we call serendipity — the stumbling upon insights based on just having better organized and connected information.
Why might Web 3.0 Suck?
Besides the inherent fear that a “smart” web is the first step to a Terminator-style robot revolution, some valid concerns have been raised about Web 3.0.
Recently, Advertising Age’s Judy Shapiro wrote a blog to express her concerns. Her post “In Web 3.0 We Trust – or Not” explores the need to integrate the human element of trust into the forthcoming “intelligent” web.
She writes that Web 3.0 risks disaster:
"… because as our dependence on the internet grows, a lack of trust will unravel any or all of the marvelous innovations being conceived now.
What good is more linked data when we have no idea which data to trust? Wouldn’t you rather get a product recommendation from a trusted friend than a "paid" digital butler, ah, I mean agent?"
Besides wondering whether we can trust the content Web 3.0 serves up, we’ll also struggle with issues of privacy. In order to make the data more customized, Web 3.0 gadgets will need to gather more of our personal information. Which begs the questions:
Will we like Web 3.0?
I think that depends, on many factors. And of course it will be heavily influenced by personal choice.
Factors to consider:
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Will the technology deliver what it promises? Gadgets are cool, but only if they work.
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How will the technology change our lives, in a tangible way? It has to be intuitive and easy-to-use to improve our everyday lives.
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Can we overcome the feelings of mistrust brought on by an “intelligent” web? We have to be able to trust the content it serves up—and trust that our private information is protected.
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How does Web 3.0’s focus on technology affect the need for publishing useful, useable content? This last factor is the most important, in my opinion.
Here’s what Rachel Lovinger, Content Strategy Lead at Razorfish, has to say about the influence of Web 3.0 on content:
“The promise is that [Web 3.0 is] going to help make content more readily accessible. So, the call-to-arms for content strategy is a big one. Like my tweet quoting Tom Tague [from his keynote at the Semantic Technology Conference on June 16], there’s a lot of content, not enough information.
Web 3.0 is going to help the good stuff rise to the top, but in order for that to happen, there has to be good stuff.”
Exactly. We need to continue planning for content the same way we’ve always needed to—but with more urgency. But don’t worry. Brain Traffic can help. Just give us a call. (The telephone may be so Web 0.0, but it’ll still work in Web 3.0. Promise.)
Posted in Content Strategy, Editorial Strategy, Information Architecture, Resources, User Experience, Web Content, Web Writing
As content strategists and web writers, we frequently face off with the dreaded Welcome copy in project requirements. It seems lots of folks still have difficulty parting ways with this dubious convention.
You know The Welcome. It looks a little something like this:
We get it, we do. It’s important to be friendly and engaging. But here’s a bit about why we consistently recommend against this tactic.
What’s wrong with The Welcome? It’s a waste of your valuable real estate.
The words in this box state the obvious. (And not very compellingly, but that’s not the issue.) Nor do they directly help a user accomplish what she came to do. For example, they don’t actually allow her to print a document. Or help her “take advantage of products”—or whatever. They’re just in the way.
Ironically, The Welcome isn’t even particularly welcoming. It’s kind of awkward, inauthentic, overly formal, and sales-y. It reminds us of the host who overenthusiastically greets you at a party, then proceeds to talk about himself the entire time before abandoning his beleaguered listener go find her own glass of punch.
Gerry McGovern has no love for The Welcome. (And how.)
For some real vitriol on The Welcome, look no further than Gerry McGovern:
“There is nothing worse on the Web than welcoming people, and telling them about how you’re so delighted to announce the launch of, or about how on your website they will be able to find, or about how it’s now even easier, or about how you’re introducing, launching, or already in an orbit of hot air.”
Yowza.
Welcome is a state of mind—not a statement.
So what’s a poor website to do? You still need to make your user feel welcome.
Fear not. You can. If you follow one simple rule: Show—don’t tell.
You’ll notice that nobody’s welcoming anybody here, per se. Rather, the idea permeates every word and image on the page. And I defy anyone to tell me what could be more welcoming than a site that:
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Promises to be the best way of managing my money—for free (They can help me)
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Organizes its navigation to mirror the way I naturally approach information (They understand me)
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Presents high-level benefits (They help me decide whether their service is worth my precious time)
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Offers a fresh, inspiring take on managing finances (They’re approachable and friendly—and different)
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Has won the attention of some important people (They know I’m a comparison shopper)
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Features a bright orange “Get started” button (They clearly show me what I should do next)
Back at the party, Mint.com is the equivalent of the gracious host who waves at you from across the room. He doesn’t waste time telling you how totally welcome you are, or what all you’ll find when you walk through the door. He just smiles warmly, hands you a piece of cake, and asks if you have everything you need.
Posted in Content Strategy, Editorial Strategy, Web Content, Web Writing
Thinking back to my middle school years, if given the choice to hang out with someone who looked cool — and was always saying things like, “Dude, I am so awesome. Look at how awesome I am,” I would have been all, “Ugh.”
However, if given the chance to hang out with someone who just was cool –- how they looked and acted, what they said –- I would have been all “Ohmigod, let’s totally hang out!”
(Okay, this never happened to me, but that’s beside the point.)
This concept still applies … especially to the “About Us” section of a website. No matter how beautifully designed, if a site’s voice doesn’t ring true, it’s easy to spot an “ugh.”
Rather than using this section of a site like a congratulatory press release, consider approaching “About Us” like a magazine’s Editor Letter.
Following this logic, “About Us” should:
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Match the tone and voice of the entire website, while addressing Who / What / Why.
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Give a good indication of what to expect on the rest of the site.
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In my middle school scenario – just be cool.
This Editor’s Note from Travel + Leisure really captures this concept:
We call ourselves travel missionaries at this magazine.
The mission is to get our readers out to experience the world, with all its eye-opening, mind-expanding, and life-enhancing possibilities. But at this moment it’s hard to focus on destinations and trip-planning strategies without addressing the economic problems that travel is facing …
Showcasing travel at home and abroad is what we do in the pages of Travel + Leisure, with stories about alluring destinations from Alaska to the Basque Country of France, to name just two in this issue. Our focus remains on providing T+L readers with the inspiration and information they need to achieve their dreams and aspirations.
Although this excerpt appeared in the print version of the magazine, with some slight modifications, this could easily populate an “About Us” section online. It’s current, specific, descriptive and accurately captures the spirit of the publication.
A bit of advice? Don’t announce your awesomeness in “About Us” and expect to be cool forever. Even if your site doesn’t overhaul content as frequently as a magazine — consider frequently updating “About Us” to accurately match your evolving online presence.
Posted in Content Strategy, Editorial Strategy, Information Architecture, Web Content, Web Writing
A few months ago Kristina was asked to write a book about content strategy. Shortly thereafter she took off for a writing retreat in lovely Vermont. She must be busy, because no one has heard from her since!
We did manage to get our hands on an excerpt from chapter one:
All work and no play makes Kristina a dull content strategist
All work and no play makes Kristina a dull content strategist
All work and no play makes Kristina a dull content strategist
All work and no play makes Kristina a dull content strategist
Watch your back, Hemingway!
You can pre-order Kristina’s book now. Can’t wait? You can buy her webinar today.
Posted in Brain Traffic, Content Strategy, Web Content, Web Writing
I am sort of a rarity at Brain Traffic, because I really don’t have much of a writing background. I probably wrote less than five papers in my entire college career, I get along better with Excel than Word (numbers and color coding!), and I like digging deep into the details of project management.
Although I have no immediate plans to transition into a web writer, learning about writing for the web has made me a better email communicator and project manager.
For example, here’s a first draft of an email I needed to send to a client:
Hi John,
I wanted to ask a few more questions about the newsletter project we spoke about today over the phone. I spoke with my supervisor and we need clarification on a few items. First, we are wondering about your timing and schedule. How many newsletters do you need? Have you decided how often these will be sent to subscribers? We also need more information about the requirements of each newsletter, such as number of content blocks, if advertisements appear, and if you are looking for us to create unique content.
It will also be helpful to understand your approval process, such as who will be approving the text and how long that usually takes.
Once I hear back from you I can draft the proposals. Thanks!
Beth
This email is a big ol’ mess.
It’s not easy for the client to pick out the action items and dissect what I need from him in order to complete a proposal. This email would be much more effective if the content was broken out in easy-to-understand sections with a clear guide for next steps at the end.
Also, itemizing the list of questions provides an easy way for the client to provide feedback to me. We cut down on the possibility of things getting missed this way.
Here’s a much more effective way of communicating this information:
Hi John,
I just had a quick connect with my supervisor about the newsletter proposal. I’m going to need a little more information than what I heard in our phone conversation last Thursday.
Timing
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How often are the newsletters sent out?
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How many newsletters do you need written?
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Functional/design requirements
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Do advertisements appear?
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How many content blocks are there?
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Do you need unique content created (opposed to editing existing content)
Approval
I’m hoping to receive clarification from you by the end of Thursday. I can then send you revised proposal on Friday. Thanks!
Beth
Some of the simplest principles for writing for the web can and should be applied to email communication:
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Don’t use ambiguous language.
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Eliminate unnecessary words.
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Keep your sentences and paragraphs short.
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When making lists, use bullets.
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When giving instruction or steps, use numbered lists.
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Your last sentence should include a clear call to action.
Tags: email, Web Writing
Posted in Information Architecture, Web Writing
I saw this sign during a recent trip to Midtown Global Market.
I liked it for the following reasons:
- It clearly communicated that there was still a play area but it had been moved.
- It helped me understand where I was in the market (northeast) and where I would need to go (southwest).
- The graphic gave me additional information (rather than acting as unnecessary decoration) and reinforced which direction I should go to find the play area.
- The design isn’t any fancier than it needs to be. It’s clear, simple, and readable from a distance.
There are only two improvements I could offer:
- Use sentence case to improve the readability.
- Change relocated to moved. Same message, only simpler.
Nice job, Midtown.
Posted in Editorial Strategy, User Experience, Web Writing
I've been getting a lot of messages in my mailbox lately from CEOs and the like trying to reassure me about the state of their business. No, your money didn't go towards that $30,000 antique rug in my office. I swear.
A great example of this phenomenon is a recent TV campaign with Sprint CEO Dan Hesse. In it, he strolls through Central Park in a luxe overcoat pitching a new product, all while empathizing about the "trying times" we're in. Bill Clinton feeling my pain this isn't.
Occasionally, we get asked at Brain Traffic to make space for this kind of thing as part of a larger content development project.
It seems like a lame holdover of a (much) older style of advertising . . . say from the 1950s. I guess I just can't get my Gen X brain around the idea that an appeal from authority is an effective way to retain a customer, let alone a good means to convert a sales prospect.
It's as if they think a few platitudes and a reassuring word from the Person in Charge can fix a deeper issue.
Well maybe it can, and maybe it can't. But I'm skeptical that putting executive marketing messages on your website is an effective way to soothe a nervous customer.
The customer is on your site to accomplish a task. Maybe they want to learn more about a product, or service an existing product. A leadership message doesn’t help accomplish that task.
The best way to convince a customer that your company is still trustworthy is to prove it with action. Continue to provide value. Make the customer service process easy. Make it clear why you’re offering something your competitors aren’t.
As hard as it is for an old editor to say, there are times when content alone can't fix the problem.
Posted in Content Strategy, Editorial Strategy, User Experience, Web Writing
Sure, someday you’ll have a free decade or two to tackle the mountain of books out there on web writing. Until then, use this nice, basic list of web writing best practices to tack on your wall:
- Trim fat. Keep your content short and sweet. (Would say more about this, but, you know.)
- Stay focused. As you’re writing, stop yourself every once and awhile and revisit your topic sentence. Ask yourself: Is what I’m writing relevant? Delete what’s unnecessary and retool what’s awkward.
- Don’t exceed 60 words per paragraph. Doing this will make your readers’ eyes want to jump out of their sockets. True story.
- Honor thy bulleted lists. Three items? Perhaps you should bullet. Ten items? Definitely bullet. This will help your readers quickly assess, divide, and digest information.
- Avoid fantastic, wonderful fluff and cutting-edge, innovative corporate-speak. Readers can smell it a mile away. They don’t like it. It’s just a big, dumb, useless mountain in between the user and what they want.
- Speak to the audience as ‘you.’ Make them feel special, like you’re speaking directly to them. Remember, conversational. If you went to check into a hotel, a friendly concierge would say “Here’s the key to your room. Hope your stay is pleasant.” A not-as-nice concierge would bark “Here’s the key to the room. Hope the stay is crap.” (The crap bit was for emphasis. But you get the point, right?)
- Divide and conquer existing content. Sometimes a content expert will give you information for the About Us section that would actually be more useful in the Jobs section. Or, a sentence won’t fit with the rest of a paragraph. Don’t assume the person who put it there was smarter than you. Move it! When reorganizing existing paragraphs or forming new ones, a good rule of thumb is to use the inverted pyramid style.
- Talk like a human. If you’re writing for an established brand, by all means use their existing tone—if that’s what the client hired you to do. If you’re hired to create a new tone, that’s great. Do that. But in all instances make sure you don’t sacrifice clarity for cleverness. Also, don’t get overly grammatical. Sometimes it’s better to break a few grammar rules than to sound stuffy.
- Stay grounded. Don’t fall in love with your writing. You’ll lose perspective. And, you’ll probably be less open to constructive client feedback.
- Stay active. Jog twice a week. Heeeyyyoooo! Seriously, though, use active voice. Say, “She rocked the content.” Not, “The content was rocked by her.” Active voice sounds more conversational and offers less potential for confusion. Make sense? Good!
Want to dig deeper? Check out Kristina’s book recommendations.
Posted in Web Writing
Here’s the story.
A suburban New York man said the personalized license plate he obtained for his car—XXX PERT—causes many people to ask him about buying pornography.
Henry DeRossi, 78, of East Meadow, N.Y., said the plate on his Mercedes-Benz is a reference to his business, Expert Metal Slitters of Long Island City, N.Y., but the triple-X on the plate causes many to confuse him for a porn seller, the New York Daily News reported Monday.
"You’d be surprised how many people stop me when I am at a light and want to buy porn," DeRossi said.
He told the Daily News the number of people confused by the plate has grown to the point where his auto dealer has him park the vehicle in a back lot when he brings it in for service.
Clearly label content, or risk user interpretation
DeRossi may be an expert at metal slitting. But next time he chooses a vanity license plate, he may want to get a second opinion. Perhaps even from a web writer.
DeRossi’s unintentionally kinky license plate makes me think about poorly written navigational and page links. Since most users skim and scan web content while they’re looking for useful information, it’s important to clearly label your navigation and page elements.
Even if your users carefully read every bit of content on your site, they’re not likely to click a link unless they think it will take them where they want to go.
So when writing links, be sure to use words that are meaningful to your users. NOT corporate jargon or internal slang. And especially not the cutesy labels your marketing team cooked up.
Keep your links in context
Ginny Redish gives us a great example of how not to write web links in her book Letting Go of the Words. In chapter 2, she talks about how we all interpret as we read. For instance, your users may not know the same words you know. Or the same word might mean different things to them than to you.
Her example refers to an old version of the official Transport for London website. Two users are looking for information about special deals on tickets, which is found under a link labeled “Oyster.”
p. 11, Letting Go of the Words, Ginny Redish.
Call your content what it is
Let’s all learn from DeRossi’s dirty little mistake. If you label a section of your website “XXX PERT”—but what you really mean is “read tips from our knowledgeable staff”—be prepared to field lots of questions about porn from some very frustrated users. Or, you could just call it what it is: “Expert Advice.”
Now, that’s one clean label.
Posted in User Experience, Web Writing
Back when I spent much of my day contacting media folks with the latest and greatest from my PR clients, the best compliment I ever got from a reporter was:
"I always open your emails because I know they'll contain something I can actually use."
Why should you care about my prized compliment?
Because reporters have a lot in common with website visitors. Really.
- Both suffer from information overload
- Both need information or content to help them complete tasks
- Both want to feel like content providers understand them
- Both get annoyed by content that wastes their time or gets in their way
That's why we recommend you learn three very important things before creating a lick of web content:
- Who the content is for
- What information they want
- How they want to receive information
The case of the compliment
Here's what I learned about the reporter before I ever pitched her:
- Who the content is for. This reporter wrote a personal finance column.
- What information they want. From reading the column regularly, I determined that the information my client had to offer – personal finance tips focused on the emotional aspects of money – was precisely what this columnist was looking for.
- How they want to receive information. I also knew – because I asked her – that her voicemail box was perpetually full and ignored and that she preferred to get PR pitches by email.
The web content connection
Successful websites find the sweet spot between business goals and user needs. Searching for the sweet spot can be a lot of work. But it's absolutely necessary.
Finding the sweet spot
At Brain Traffic, we develop a Strategic Foundation Brief (sometimes they aren't that brief) at the beginning of every project. It includes an analysis of business goals, audience characteristics, and user needs.
First, we learn all we can about the audience – web usage, gender, family situation, etc. Then we cross- reference business goals with audience wants and needs. It's sorta like magic when it becomes apparent that the business and the users want some of the same things.
Voilà. Your starting point. And your path to site feedback that garners the compliment: "I always find the information I need when I visit your website."
Posted in Content Strategy, Information Architecture, User Experience, Web Writing
