As your site’s welcome mat, the elements of the home page are critically important in terms of communication and usability.

What’s your story? Just say it.

Visitors expect to find out in three seconds or less if a site has what they’re looking for. Jakob Nielsen, a web usability consultant, says that not explicitly stating what you have to offer is #1 of The ten most violated home page design guidelines.

If the headline on your home page says “Welcome to company X,” that’s only telling your visitors who owns the site – not what you can do for them. If your company story is buried in generic corporate speak, it is a one-sided pitch that visitors quickly see through.

In plain language with purposeful words, explain what your product or service is and how it can help your visitors. Use first person so that it feels like a comfortable conversation. Then casually direct them to other pages for more information.

Keep the important stuff above the fold – that is, above the point where visitors have to scroll down to continue reading. They may not get that far, so you want to make sure to make an impression early on.

Make the reading easy with subheads and bullets

Web readers tend to scan on-page content to decide if they want to stay or move on. (Did you know that the back button is the third most-used button on the keyboard?) To make it easier to scan and to hold visitors’ attention longer:

• Break up your story with intriguing subheads
• Use bullet points to separate thoughts
• Incorporate links into bullets to direct visitors to other pages

Where do they go from here? Don’t leave them hanging.

There are many ways for visitors to navigate your site. But it’s up to your site to show them where to go and how to get there.

Does your site have a global navigation – defined as a set of top-level navigation links (for example, Home, About Us, News, Contact Us) – that appear on every page? This helps to orient your visitors. The global navigation should be in about the same place on every page, with the page or section that visitors are currently on highlighted.

Don’t rely on your global navigation alone to be your site’s road map. Include links to important pages in the content of your story. At the bottom of the page, give readers an option to go elsewhere, such as “Contact us for more information.”

Let visitors know they’ve landed on a happening site
Today’s websites are dynamic, engaging and interactive. When people arrive, convince them that there is real value in sticking around. Some ideas for doing this are:

• What’s new? – showcase your latest projects
• Newsletter sign-up – offer free information
• Recent blog postings – prompt visitors to read and comment
• Social media widgets – invite them to follow you on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook
• Post your latest podcast
• Link to your latest press release

Say no to digital barriers – open the doors wide
You want to eliminate any and all frustration around your site, so avoid the following:

• Splash landing page – you know you hate these. So do your visitors. What’s more, splash pages make your site virtually invisible to search engines
• Pop-ups – unless there’s a good reason for a pop-up, don’t go there
• Embedded scroll-down boxes – these can be confusing to visitors, and they’re not pretty
• Long sign-up forms, surveys and password requests – too much work and your visitors are reaching for that back button

When visitors arrive at your site, they already know what they’re looking for. Will they find it on your home page?

Louise Desmarais is an SEO copywriter with a loyal following of web clients from across North America. Louise operates Mud Creative, a writing company based in Calgary, Alberta.

When Is Good – A nifty little tool to help you schedule meetings.

BackUpMyTweets - back up your Twitter content and make sure it is always there should you need it.  They also have a BackUpMy Blog version.

SquareSpace - if you are a DIYer you will be interested in this innovative tool that lets you build your own website.

Twitoria - a tool that helps you filter your Twitter following and boot those not following you.

Tubemogul – online video analytics and distribution tool.

Cotweet – a Twitterlike alternative to Yammer for business micro blogging.

On Twitter Status a recent announcement:

Earlier today, we accidentally suspended a number of accounts.

We regret the human error that led to these mistaken suspensions and we are working to restore the affected accounts—we expect this to be completed in the next several hours.

One additional note: some the accounts suspended were using the third-party site Tweetlater. However, Tweetlater is not to blame for these suspensions nor is it in violation of our Terms.

Tweetlater’s blog:

Sunday, July 5th, 2009: A lot of people with legitimate Twitter accounts are currently suffering from having their accounts suspended (late Sunday afternoon).

It is not TweetLater’s doing or fault. So, please do not submit a TweetLater support request about it.

We just heard back from Twitter via email, and they said : “Spamcloud hit. We’re working on restoring accounts.”

We just need to be patient. The suspended accounts will be restored.

Update: We have no idea exactly what a “spam cloud” means. It is probably Twitter staff lingo for a massive spam attack.

Update: We have seen during previous spam attacks that Twitter tends to shoot first and ask questions later and indiscriminately lay down carpet bombing when their system comes under a spam attack. A lot of innocent-bystander accounts get massacred in the process, which they then have to restore afterwards. This is most likely what has happened again.

Update: We have no idea how long it will take Twitter to restore the wrongly suspended accounts. We do not have insight into that information.

Twitter needs to get better. People are using this as a business tool.  Account suspension can tarnish a company’s brand, diminish hours of genuine effort in building a valuable Twitter presence, not to mention severing an important communication channel.  This is just another example in a long line of Twitter issues that hamper its productive use from a business perspective – how many times have you had the over capacity message?

This also serves as a great reminder not to put all of your eggs in one basket from a marketing perspective.  Twitter should not be your only social media marketing tool, nor can it be central component until the system becomes more reliable.

At the time of writing the @outsmarts account is still suspended.  We’re not sure how long this will take to resolve.

The presenter was Doug van Spronsen a fresh faced twenty something who is a co-founder of Water Drop: a non profit organisation dedicated to raising awareness of the world water crisis.   Doug’s presentation entitled “Why Social Media is Essential and How Non Profits Should Embrace It” introduced social media for non profits (what it is and what its not), he talked about why you should bother (you have to; fostering transparency;to gain a new audience;to control your brand), and how to be effective.

There’s something invigorating about watching a younger presenter.  Its almost as if you are seeing things all over again for the first time through their eyes.  You can’t fail to be infected by their enthusiasm.  The presentation itself, whilst falling slightly short of my expectations (I had hoped to get some really specific non profit tactics and to learn more about off the wall strategies to build an audience of donors in these forums), was ideal for its intended audience (which I am decidedly not given my social media experience).  It gave a great introduction to social media from a general perspective and touched on most of the points that a not for profit organisation should consider when building their soc med presence, I also came away with some blog and tool gems to explore.

At the time of posting I am not sure what is next for Kontent Creative’s summer school (I will update this post as the information becomes available).  I would highly encourage you to keep and eye open for these events especially if you are new to social media and considering your approach.

During the intro Liz reminded us of the core considerations you should take into account when taking your product or service to market: the 4 P’s: Product, Price, Promotion and Placement.

Products are the products or service you intend to offer, who they are intended for and how they will impact your intended audience;

Price is how much you will charge for your offering;

Placement is how you will take your product to market (ie bricks and mortar store, online, distribution etc);

Promotion is how you will spread awareness of your product.

Social media is a means to promote your offering but it is only one of many tools that you can use.  Before you embark on promotion you should always take time to research and plan for the first three.

Always  use a mix of marketing tools to promote your offering, in addition to your social media efforts, for added impact.  Which you choose will depend on your audience and goals and could include online advertising, search engine marketing, direct marketing and so on.  The message should be consistent and complementary across each of these so that your brand becomes more recognizable.

By taking marketing fundamentals into account your social media and overall marketing efforts are more likely to succeed.

7 Tips for Writing More Effective Newsletters

It’s very important to keep in constant contact with your prospects to keep you and your services top of mind. One very effective way to do this is to send out a monthly newsletter. Some write newsy emails with updates on recent events and pics of their children. But a far more effective strategy is to provide information about your industry that your readers will find valuable. This also helps to establish you as an expert in your field. Here are 7 tips that will help you to get started.

1. Put your newsletter subscribe form on every page of your website. You never know which page your visitors will enter your website so it’s a good idea to have your subscribe box on every page near the top.

2. Offer a FREE REPORT to entice visitors to sign up. Did I get your attention? Nothing gets people’s attention better than a FREE offer. This also gives your visitors a free sample of your valuable information.

3. Have copies of your previous newsletters available on your website so that visitors can see that you really do have a newsletter that is worth subscribing to and you won’t spam them. For example, view back issues of our Monthly Tips Newsletters.

4. Write list articles like this one. Highlight in bold the first sentence of each paragraph. This serves as a catchy headline. And then write a short paragraph providing further explanation. These types of articles are very popular on the Internet are very easy to read quickly.

5. Use a headline in your subject line. When I first started sending out my monthly newsletter, the subject line read Monthly Newsletter. When I started putting the title of my article in the subject line, I received a much higher response rate.

6. Send out your newsletter at the same time each month. This way your subscribers will start to look forward to reading your newsletter.

7. Newsletters are meant to be educational so be careful about putting ads in them. Many people don’t like getting huge one page ads in their email box. But many like reading informative articles to help grow their business. So place your ads in a smaller second column or at the bottom of your article. Be sure that your ad content compliments your article content.

Today I received a letter requesting a link from my blog. Because I’m a relatively small player, I though some of you might be interested in seeing what one of these looks like.

Link building is ultra-very important when trying to build our site’s authority, page rank, and overall SEO awesomeness. What is “link building” you say? It’s any strategy used to get links from other websites pointed to your website.

How do you it? There are many ways, and one of them is sending a letter to the site’s owner requesting a link just like the letter I received today. Here’s the letter:

Good morning,

My name is Xxxx Xxxx and I work at a company called Xxx Xxxxx Xxxxx. We are a publisher of a variety of leading business and industrial sites across North America and Europe.

I have noticed that your organization’s website, http://www.joseuonline.com/, is linked to http://www.boardoftrade.com/ which is a Board of Trade in Canada. I am writing to you to request that you please also link to our Canadian industrial business site called Canadian Trade Index at http://www.ctidirectory.com/.

Why link to http://www.ctidirectory.com/?

* Canadian Trade Index is Canada’s leading industrial website (comScore, March 2009) with nearly 9 million annual visitors.
* The site plays a key role in connecting buyers and sellers of industrial products.
* The site features a rich, relevant and searchable database of industrial products and the suppliers, distributors and manufacturers of these products.

More information about us can be viewed at www.ctidirectory.com/pages/about_us.cfm.

For these reasons, it’s likely that your constituents that visit your site may find Canadian Trade Index to be a valuable resource to source, buy and sell industrial good and services.

Would you please place a link to http://www.ctidirectory.com/ on your site?

Thank you for the consideration and if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at my email below.

Regards,

Xxxx Xxxxx
Xxxx Xxxxx Xxxxxxxx
XX@XXXX
905.xxx.xxxx xxxx

I am sending this email to you using an address I found on your web site. If you no longer wish to receive emails from me, please click here: unsubscribe. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause. Xxxx XXxxx xxx-xxx-xxxx ext. xxx.

The lack of perosnal detail tells me that this is probably the work of some automated system, so I’m probably not goingt to act on it. Having said that, I did check Canadian Trade Index site advertised here.

I believe in these letters, as long as they are personal and have sound reasons behind them. Have you ever sent one of these? I’m curious on the results. Feel free to coment here.

This is not the first go around for these spammers.  This time around they have corrected the grammatical errors and spelling mistakes and have taken out the request for donations so it is actually less laughable and looks more realistic.  Don’t be duped by it – Facebook has other ways to track whether you are using your profile regularly.

If you receive this post, the best thing to do is to simply ignore it and please DO NOT forward it to your friends. You should also consider removing the Super Wall or Rock You Live application.

1. Keep entries to one page or less – a blog entry should be short and to the point – people don’t like to scroll endlessly.

2. Blogs are intended as on-line logs or journals and are more informal than other marketing mediums so write accordingly.

3. Use simple terms – don’t include jargon or abbreviations unless you are sure your audience will understand otherwise it will simply put them off.

4. Don’t use your blog as a forum to attempt to promote or sell – its not appropriate.

5. It is generally accepted in the blogosphere that you can quote from another blog as long as you state your source and link back to it.

6. Remember to add value. This is huge.  If you don’t tell people something they don’t know then they have no reason to come back.  Think about who your intended audience is and write posts that are informative – share useful links to cool sites and on-line services.

7. Emoticons may be okay for a personal blog but in a corporate one they look unprofessional. Unless your target audience is the under 20 consumer crowd then its best to avoid using emoticons at all.

8. Its good to include video clips, images and podcasts as long as they are relevant to your topic.

9. Don’t use fonts that are too large or hard to read and be sparing with capitals (no need to yell!).

10. When you include links to other web pages, always remember to check that your links work before publishing your blog article (there’s nothing worse than clicking on a link in anticipation only to find that it doesn’t link take you where its supposed to).

11. The most important part of your post is the title.  Take time to craft a title that will make people want to read more.

12. Always consider your corporate brand and image when blogging.  Before you post anything, consider if it reflects your brand.