What content should we include?

In starting our Web project (see last month’s column here), we mentioned the importance of
understanding what you want your site to accomplish. Knowing what kind of reaction you desire
from your site visitors should help you in determining what kinds of content you want on your site.
Do you want people to feel that they’re being sold something? If so, then you can just post a
brochure. However, if you’d rather have people interact with your site, then think about who will
visit your site and what would they want to see.

Give real world examples of how you’ve helped your clients in the past, set up a Case
Studies Section  and created a form defining all the necessary information to develop a standardized
look and feel. E-mail this to your account team and asked them for contributions.

This brings up another point. Content isn’t just articles. In fact, long articles are many times not
read in the fast-skimming Internet age. Bullet-point lists, pictures and graphs, quizzes, and quotes
from supportive customers or donors all make great content. Best of all, they help you start a
conversation with your site’s visitors.

How to gather content.

So, you’re sold on getting interesting content, but how do you get it? This is the trickiest part, as
it takes some buy-in from the higher ups to make the website a priority for the organization, and
not just the Webmaster. With their support, you’ll have a much better chance getting busy people
in other departments to help you.

Here’s something I suggest. First, have the company’s president send out a letter to all the
department heads stating that you’ve begun a new Web project and you need content. Next,
create a folder on your computer’s desktop and place in it a copy of anything you receive that
even remotely looks like it would be good for your site. E-mails, sales presentations, conference
notes – anything. Finally, remembering your objective from above, weed out what you don’t
want. Don’t be afraid to rip apart articles or informational copy. If you need to use a three-word
quote from a two-page letter and dump the rest, then do it. And don’t forget your organization’s
mission.

Once you’ve got your working content, catalog them into specific themes. Use a spreadsheet to
list each item and create main subject titles for the groups. Then, look back at what you have and
adjust. If you’ve done it right, you have just created a preliminary site map for your Web!

Because getting content is so tough, and sorting through everything can be arduous, I really
recommend that you start this process as soon as you know you’ll be developing your site.
Schedule sufficient time to put out a couple calls for this – four weeks minimum. If you follow
your plan well, you won’t be stuck running after chickens all day. And the great content you’ll find
will make your website a heavyweight champ!

People read differently on the Web. They scan read—jumping quickly from one piece of content to the next. People are much more action-orientated on the Web. They get online to get something done. Words should always be driving actions.

Here are 10 rules for writing effective web content:

1. Know your reader

All effective writing begins with knowing your reader. Write for your reader, not for your ego.

Your reader is not everybody. The most effective writing is keenly focused on the specific needs of a clearly defined reader type. Is your reader a middle class, female American, with two kids, who lives in the suburbs?

Think like your reader thinks. Get to meet her. Once a month, talk to your reader. Read what she reads. Is there a common style and tone being used to reach her? Use it. Put a picture of your readers up on your wall. You shouldn’t have more than 3 to 5 core reader types.

2. Take a publishing approach

Publishing is about getting the right content to the right person at the right time at the right cost. It’s about getting and keeping attention with content. It’s about driving actions. Publishing is about selling with content.

Back around 1995, if you went to many airline websites, you found a big picture of an airplane on the homepage. Now, you will find a booking process and special offers. Killer content.

The first thing publishers must get right is their killer content. What content do you have that will really drive actions? Put that on your homepage.

3. Keep content short and simple

In publishing, less is nearly always more. Remember, the one word that describes the scan reader is impatient. Here are some guidelines for the length of your content:

Headings: 8 words or less
Sentences: 15-20 words
Paragraphs: 40-70 words
Documents: 500 words or less

Get rid of all your fancy words. Writing effectively is not about showing off. It’s about communicating.

It’s about driving actions. Write simply. Get to the point. Then stop.

4. Write active content

The most powerful word in the English language is “YOU.” Write from the point of view of the reader.

The reader has come to your website to do something. Your content should be written in an action-orientated style. Every sentence should be loving them towards a purchase, a subscription, a solution.

5. Put content in context

The Web is about links and connections. Web content is classified and linked content. Never leave your reader at a dead-end on your website.

6. Write for how people search

Write to be found when people are searching. That means using the words your target readership is using.

Before you begin writing, you need to sit down and plan the keywords you will use in your content. There are two excellent websites that will help you do this:

Wordtracker
Overture

7. Write great headings

Headings are the most important piece of content you will write. That’s because:

People scan read and the first piece of content they often read is the heading. If it’s not interesting, they’re gone.

The heading is often used as title metadata. This is what the search engines use on the search results page.

The heading may be placed on a homepage as a link to the content.

When writing headings:

Keep them to eight words or less
Make sure you include the most important keywords
Cut out as many adjectives and prepositions as possible (and, the, a, of)
Be clear and precise. Avoid Shakespearean references. Avoid being clever.

8. Write great summaries, sentences, paragraphs

The summary is the: who, what, where, when, how. It’s about getting the facts across in 50 words or less. An objective of a summary is to make people want to read on. Keep them punchy and factual.

Sentences should be between 15-20 words. Paragraphs should be between 40-70 words. Remember, people scan-read. If the first sentence in the paragraph is not interesting, they’ll move on. So, always lead off a paragraph with a factual sentence.

9. Write great metadata

If you can’t write good metadata, you can’t write for the Web. Metadata gives web content context. You need to see metadata as an extension of grammar. You might say that metadata is Web grammar.

Classification (categorization) is metadata. Focus on what classification terms are used on your website. Focus on how your content is classified. It is your responsibility to ensure that your content is properly classified. Misclassified Web content might as well not have been written.

Headings and summaries are metadata. Date of publication and author information are metadata. If there’s one piece of metadata that every page must have, it’s title metadata. Every page should have a unique title that precisely describes the content on that page.

10. Edit. Edit. Edit.

If at all possible, find someone else to edit your content. If you are editing someone else’s content:

Take your time. Good editing can take anything from 30-50 percent of the time it took to write the original content.

Aim to do about three edits.

Edit first for style and tone. Ask these questions: Is it clear? Is it necessary? Is there a shorter way to say this? Is there a simpler way to say this?

Leave the checking of grammar and spelling until last. For a thorough edit, print out the content. Get a ruler. Place the ruler at the end of the content and read backwards.

Author: Gerry McGovern

We all know that online fundraising is growing rapidly; every survey shows a great number of gifts from more donors. And rare is the nonprofit of substantial size that does not offer Internet giving as an option for its donors.

Online fund raising is still very much in its infancy – but has great growth potential. To start meeting that potential, your organization needs to make sure it has the basics in place. Here are five common problems I see in online fundraising efforts, and five ways to solve them.

Problem 1: You don’t have enough e-mail addresses

Solution: Never pass up an opportunity to capture them. It’s worth redoing every form and response device your organization sends out (or posts online) to ask for e-mail as well as mailing address and phone.

But don’t stop there. Give prospects a reason to communicate with you via e-mail. On your home page, urge visitors to sign up for your free e-newsletter. Even if it’s just your latest press releases or a summary of your most recent donor appreciation luncheon, it opens new channels of communication – and lets you gather addresses.

Once you get e-mail addresses, be sure to keep them all in a single database. This way you can track how many e-mail addressees are converted to donors.

Problem 2: Your Web site’s donor sections aren’t visitor-friendly

Solution: Get your site ready to ask for, and receive, gifts. When you invite people over for a big party, you spruce up your house first. Do the same with your Web site. Make sure it’s well organized and attractive. And – just as in any kind of fund raising – don’t forget to actually ask for the gift! Recruit someone who’s not affiliated with your organization to progress through your site to the point of donating. Can they find the right page and understand what to do? (Web site examples)

Problem 3: Your efforts lack immediacy

Solution: Get personal. If you don’t already personalize e-mail–just as you would a direct-mail letter–learn how. (With the right software, it’s not hard.) Work on achieving the right tone as well. Remember, you couldn’t just take a direct mail letter and slap it into an e-mail message – any more than you could put a phone-a-thon script in an envelope and mail it. E-mail can be a bit more casual, as if you were dropping a friend a note.

Problem 4: You don’t really know what works online

Solution: Test, test, test. Set up the infrastructure that will help you find out what gets results. The right software will also allow you to track click-thrus so you can learn what parts your visitors like most. It’s Marketing 101: Measure your response to find out what to do more of – and what to stop doing.

Here’s a good way to start. Split your e-mail list into two groups and mail the same content to both groups using different subject lines. Then see which version is opened or clicked on more frequently. If you run several articles in your e-newsletter, try experimenting with story order. You could be surprised at which story links get clicked on the most!

Problem 5: You fail to keep your prospects’ options open

Solution: Communicate with donors in a variety of ways. Today it’s all about options. Some people want to mail a check. Others want to charge their donation by phone. Still others want to click and give on your Web site. Your job is to provide the full array of easy-to-use options so that your donors can choose for themselves the means they like best. Just because you get a response one way this time is no reason to cut off other avenues next time. They should all work together for the benefit of your donor, and your organization.

Many nonprofits who haven’t planned for search engines when building their website pages find themselves in a similar situation when they try to achieve higher search rankings. Last time we discussed the importance of choosing proper keyword phrases to target for searcher.  This month, I’d like to give you some tips on how to place those phrases into your web pages effectively so the engines can find them.

Following are the areas in HTML coding of web ages that you need to pay the most attention to.  Now if you contract with a web development firm to build your site, you should make sure that their development includes these methods.

Page Titles – Make sure that your Title tags are unique, descriptive and longer than just two or three words.  Search engines rank titles higher because they assume that’s what the page is about.  One caution:  make sure the content on your pages truly reflect the page titles; otherwise, the engines will think you’re spamming them.

Heading Tags – Use the H1 and H2 tags for important summaries of text.  These are weighted more highly as well.  Current HTML supports these tags as being scalable in terms of size, so the headings on your page don’t have to appear huge.  You must separate headings with paragraph text, though, to appear legitimate.  If you’re designing a table, the TH tag (an often forgotten one) makes that table cell a heading and its contents will be weighted more heavily.

Body Copy – Make sure the copy on your pages contain your keyword phrases in more than one place.  It is also important to try and keep your keyword phrases at the top of the page, before any tables or other layout designs.  The higher these words appear on the page, the more heavily they’re weighted.

Alt Tags – Alt tags are used to define the text labels you see when you place your mouse over an image on your site.  Make sure you put proper text there!  Too many people will create their corporate logo in a beautiful image, post it to the top of their web page, but only enter “logo” in the alt text.  Not only does this make their brand invisible to search engines, but anyone who is blind or on a text-based browser sees the word logo and has no idea where they are.  Don’t be afraid to make the text explanatory.

Links Page – Instead of only relying on your site’s internal search engine, place a text-based site map on your site, linking to all important pages.  Then make sure that page is linked from your homepage.  Search engines use automatic programs called “spiders” to follow links from one page to another and index your site.  They can’t use your search engine and they can’t follow your JavaScript mouseovers or image maps.

META Tags – META tags are tags that don’t show up on the web page itself, but they are placed into the page’s code specifically so search engines can pull from their keywords and descriptions.  Not all search engines rely on these tags, but not having them is as much a mistake as thinking they’ll solve all of your search engine ranking problems.  Make sure your keywords don’t repeat and your descriptions are complete and accurate.

Doorways – If your site deals with several different topics, make sure you draw attention to these different audiences by building doorway pages.  Doorway pages are static pages that lead visitors to a specific section of your site.  They employ all the techniques above while focusing on that section’s specific niche. This way you aren’t having all your keyword phrases fighting each other for relevance.

According to Statistical Research, Inc., Web users report searching the Internet (57%) on an average day. This means that people use search engines more often than any other Web activity, second only to email.  If you want new people to hear about your organization online, you’d better make sure you aren’t buried on the 34^th page of a search result.  Putting these techniques into practice when building a website is one good way to make sure you aren’t left in the dark