Tag: Writing & Blogging

Writing Online Content for Distracted Readers

How to capture the attention and interest of a busy, distracted online reader

writing for the web

This article was originally published as “Writing Online Content for Distracted Humans and Web-Crawling Spiders” in the Association Executives of North Carolina’s Success By Association magazine, November/December 2015 issue.

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Remember the days when members read everything you mailed them? Or, at least you thought they did. You never knew for sure, but one thing’s for certain: you didn’t have the competition for their attention like you do today.

Nowadays, media sites, for-profit communities, vendors, consultants, and brands are clamoring like you for the same 15 minutes of your members’ online reading time. Many of these competitors have big budgets to spend on behavioral scientists, marketers, copywriters, and designers to help them deliver attention-grabbing content.

But, you can compete and win if you know the basics of effective online writing.

Capture attention if you want to deliver value.

A few years ago, marketing experts proclaimed, “Content is king.” If you wanted to position your organization as a trusted authority and indispensable source of information, online content was the way to go.

Now, content is in danger of becoming a commodity. Much of the content slung about the web today is irrelevant crap—written in a rush to capture eyeballs and the favor of Google’s search algorithms—those web-crawling spider bots. To deal with the constant stream of content in their inboxes and social streams, readers quickly skim and mercilessly hit the Delete button.

“When information is cheap, attention becomes expensive,” said science historian James Gleick. If you want to deliver value to your members, you must first capture and hold their attention.

Write for skimmers, not readers.

When online readers visit a page of content, eye-tracking studies show that they scan the page in an F-pattern. First, they scan the headline, and the first sentence or two. Then, their eyes glance down the page, scanning subheaders and other bold or bulleted text.

Online readers scan to find out if the content appears to efficiently deliver the promised value, so your content must invite the reader in by looking easy to read. Segment content into short paragraphs interspersed with bold subheaders that summarize the message and guide the reader down the page. With content management systems, you can format subheaders so Google takes notice of any keywords used in them.

Use a parallel structure for subheaders and bullet lists. For example, make each subheader an imperative sentence, like the ones in this article. Bullet lists and indented quotation blocks also provide a target for skimming eyes and the necessary white space to break up a page.

Stick to one font style so the page doesn’t look busy. Use different font sizes for the headline, subheader, and body. Never underline text—only embedded links should be underlined. When using links, never say, “Click here.” Instead use the embedded link text to describe what the reader will get when they click.

Reel in the reader.

Hook your reader with the headline or subject line. Headline writing is an art and science that takes years to master, but a few tips will move you to the front of the class.

  • Promise value.
  • Make it personal.
  • Ask a challenging question.
  • Trigger curiosity.
  • Stoke anxiety.
  • Convey urgency.
  • Make it tweetable.

If you capture readers’ attention with the headline, they’ll read the first sentence. Then keep pulling them in, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph. Don’t wait for a big reveal at the end of your piece—deliver the value up front before you lose them.

Speak to the reader.

Let your content be personally engaging and conversational, not dry and institutional. Be a real person behind the screen. Address the reader with “you”—the most powerful word in copywriting.

Strive for strong, simple language. Avoid using jargon, clichés, and buzzwords. Use the active, not passive, voice.

In MS Word options, under Proofing, turn on the Readability Statistics tool. After a spell-check, it shows the percentage of passive sentences and the Flesch-Kincaid grade level. The lower the grade level, the easier and quicker your content is to read. The Hemingway Editor is an online tool that identifies complex and passive sentences. Don’t worry, you’re not dumbing down your content, you’re saving time for your readers.

Write for the reader, not Google.

Google’s algorithms have changed over the years to become more attuned to what readers naturally seek. If you write content that readers find valuable, Google will find you too. There’s no need to stuff content with keywords. Write clearly and naturally using the words and phrases that readers use to talk about your topic. Listen to members’ conversations in your online community, social platforms, and elsewhere to understand their language and needs.

Beware “black hat” SEO agencies that guarantee a search ranking. Never try to game Google—you’ll suffer a punishing and, perhaps, permanent loss of ranking. Knowing a few basic search engine optimization (SEO) principles will ensure your content does well in search rankings.

In April 2015, Google announced that websites must be mobile-friendly to earn a decent ranking. Write for the mobile reader:

  • Shorten subject lines.
  • Use appropriate font sizes.
  • Provide plenty of white space on the page.
  • Make links easy to click.

Use your content management system’s SEO tools to create a title tag and meta tag—the page description in Google search results—for every web page. Make sure your image file names include descriptive keywords. Provide explanatory alt text for every image—when images don’t load, readers read the alt text to see what they’re missing.

Include internal links within your content—links to related content on your website. Check out the SEO starter guides from Google and Moz for more SEO tips.

Neuroscientists say the digital world has rewired our brains. Our attention spans have suffered. We read differently online than we did when print was king. However, we have access to more information now than ever before. Make sure your online content is easy for your members to find and digest.

Deirdre Reid, CAE is a freelance writer for technology firms serving the association market. The association community remains her professional home after spending ten years at national and state associations overseeing membership, vendor programs, marketing, publications, chapter relations and more. 

Related posts:

(Creative Commons licensed photo by Mike Licht after Edouard Manet)

Reads of the Week: March 8, 2013

I’m not the only one who likes being a content curator. Elizabeth Engel is always an excellent source for interesting reads. Check out her weekly What I’m Reading series.

If your job involves engaging members, customers, constituents, donors or volunteers, you must read this post by Jeffery Cufaude, Cultivating Engagement: What was the Catalyst? He says, “If we want to cultivate relationships that invest people in our community, cause, or organization, we must remain curious about them: how might what I’m learning about you now alter my next interaction with you?” Grab your team, make them read this, and figure out how you’re going to start doing this next week.

Andy Freed captures why I like reading all kinds of things and making odd connections. He was heading to TEDActive (the live Palm Springs simulcast) where he anticipated learning about association management from a dolphin researcher. And why not?

When’s the last time you picked up a phone and called a member you don’t know? I know. I never did it either, except when we were desperately promoting our trade show in the midst of the housing implosion. Eric Lanke has some ideas about the real reasons we don’t pick up the phone.

Barry Feldman wants you to take a hard look at your website after reading his post, 11 Reasons Why Prospects Don’t Convert Into Customers. He gives you the eleven reasons, good advice and a quick checklist at the Convince & Convert blog.

I just LOVE this post about a dying restaurant by Ken Mueller. I can feel for them because for eight years I was the general manager of an independently-owned (and very successful) restaurant, long before the days of social media. But we’ve all seen this story – lots of attention, but a little too late. Let’s all pledge to honor Ken’s words:

“I will continue to support small, independently owned family businesses whenever I can. I will also go out of my way to let them know I appreciate and support them. I will reward them for their humanity by spending my money with them, in hopes that they will be sustainable and profitable.”

Are you texting and using LOL like an old fart? Luckily for me I got tired of LOL long ago. And it’s a good thing because it no longer means what you think it does, if you’re of a certain age. Not my age. And if you’re one to lament the decline of the English language because of texting, fear not. “Anyone who says that text language is chaotic isn’t paying enough attention to the system of rules that users have developed to move real-time conversation into written form,” says Anne Curzan in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

At ProBlogger, Thomas Ford explains what you need to know about using free images from the web. His post will help you understand copyright rules, rights and different types of Creative Commons licenses.

Here’s one to bookmark and hope you never have to use. Tia Fisher at Social Media Today shows you what to do if your Twitter account has been hacked.

Steal this idea from Association Media & Publishing: sponsored small group dinner discussions.

Steal this idea too for your next trade show:

vendor twitter game tweet

The only infographic I looked at this week, thanks to Stowe Boyd.

This is conference week for me. I spent Sunday through Tuesday at the Avectra Users & Developers Conference where I wrote a few blog posts:

I got back Wednesday afternoon and today I’m heading to Colorado Springs for the ASAE Great Ideas Conference. Be sure to check out the hashtag #ideas13 if you want to follow along.

Pretty soon we’ll all be Dr. Doolittles. Vince Cerf “envisions an interspecies Internet” where we’ll communicate with animals and aliens.

Happy Friday!

“…talk with the animals, grunt and squeak and squawk with the animals”Photo by Curt Smith (Flickr)
“…talk with the animals, grunt and squeak and squawk with the animals”
Photo by Curt Smith (Flickr)

 

Reads of the Week: November 16, 2012

In one corner, a company that made a mess of customer service and then made it worse with social media. A moving company threatened to sue my friend’s wife because she wrote a negative Yelp review about them. The company also purchased positive Yelp reviews, deleted negative Facebook updates, and doesn’t seem to know how to dig itself out except by digging deeper.

“The beautiful part of the Internet is that everyone can now be a publisher. The scary part of the Internet for a company like <name> is that you don’t always know who you’re sending crazy intimidation letters to and how they might respond,” says Phil Buckley, the guy in the other corner. They picked the wrong guy to piss off, Phil happens to be an SEO and Online Reputation Management (ORM) expert. He has a lot of friends, and many of them are also ORM experts. The experts think this makes a great case study – you can’t buy that kind of publicity!

And, Happy Birthday, Phil!

Jeff Cobb at Tagoras is in the midst of updating their Association Learning Management Systems (LMS) report. He and Celisa Steele have been talking to LMS vendors and participating in demonstrations of platforms. He’s identified four association learning technology trends: “I can already see that there are at least four areas in which some very significant progress has been achieved over the past couple of years. I’m labeling these broadly as integration, convergence, mobility, and analytics.” Exciting times for associations with the educational innovations that await!

As our use of new social and digital platforms and technology evolves, irksome issues crop up, well, they’re irksome for some, not all. A sports reporter was “reprimanded” by the University of Washington athletic department for excessive tweeting during a basketball game. Sam Laird at Mashable writes, “As the ability to provide real-time updates becomes more and more common — and as the line between reporter and spectator becomes increasingly blurred — should the rights to live updates be protected to the same degree as TV and radio broadcasts?” Another example of an organization having a tough time giving up control? Or are their rights being infringed? I tend to side with the reporter on this one.

One more Twitter item: can we all just agree that you should never retweet something without first reading it? Good. I’m glad you see it my way, you’re a good citizen.

How different would the world be if everyone had access to high-quality education and a bigger world of ideas? Call me a dreamer, but I think we’d have less crazy extremism, ignorance, and poverty. Maybe the $20 Aakash tablet made by Suneet Tuli’s company, Datawind, is a step in that direction. Christopher Mims at Quartz reports that India’s government wants to distribute Datawind’s tablet to India’s 220 million students. It would be cheaper than buying textbooks. Tuli wants to educate the “ignored billion.” He says, “Our effort in all of this was to use technology to fight poverty. What happens when you try to make it affordable at this level?”

“Calling all publishers, editors, and content creators: If you’re creating content for a business, you are marketing. But you might be missing out on all that you can achieve with your superb content if you are not content marketing.” That’s the rallying cry of The Content Marketing Manifesto by Monica Bussolati, her recently released e-book – a call to action you should heed if you run a business or organization. I’ve only skimmed through the book because I’m planning to read it this weekend, but I can already tell I’m going to be reading along saying “Yes!” out loud, and probably learning a good deal as well, and as usual, from Monica.

Blogs are one of my favorite content marketing tools, but they’re also a great way to think out loud and become part of a larger conversation, according to Seth Godin. “No single thing in the last 15 years professionally has been more important to my life than blogging,” says Tom Peters. He goes on: “And it’s the best damn marketing tool by an order of magnitude that I’ve ever had.” Well then! Maddie Grant found this short video of Godin and Peters talking about blogs. It’s only 1:38 minutes, come on, click!

For those of you who read last week’s post and had doubts about an old band led by two guys in their late 60s: I’m happy to report that The Who exceeded my expectations, and my boyfriend’s, whose expectations were much lower. They did the entire Quadrophenia album, followed it up with five Who classics, and then a quiet version of Tea & Theater with just Roger and Pete on the stage. The highlights of the evening: Roger’s voice and efforts to get every note and scream right; Zak Starkey’s Moon-like melodic bombastic drumming (he is so damn good); video solos by, rest their souls, John in 5:15 and Keith in, what else, Bellboy; the mesmerizing Quadrophenia instrumentals; and being in the same room as Pete. Long live rock.

Happy Friday!

Young Zak Starkey with godfather Keith Moon (credit unknown)

Reads of the Week: October 19, 2012

The coolest thing I saw all week, no contest, was Felix Baumgartner’s supersonic free fall skydive. Nothing beats that. Red Bull has two short videos of the event: a 1:30 minute highlight version and a 4:30 minute full recap version. Both are exhilarating to watch.

If you publish text, video, and photos on the web, please understand how copyright works. I’ve been a little loose a few times with screenshots of YouTube videos, but other than that, I try to stick to the rules, it’s only fair.  However, I’ve seen lots of blogs using copyrighted photos, and I bet it’s because they just don’t know any better. My most popular post of all time explained the basics of copyright, so if you’re not clear, be a good social citizen and check it out.

Here’s the worst case scenario when you infringe on someone’s copyright. A blog hosted by EduBlogs, a client of web hosting firm ServerBeach, had posted a questionnaire copyrighted by Pearson, an educational publishing company. ServerBeach received a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) violation notice from Pearson. Jon Brodkin at Ars Technica explains what happened next: instead of dealing with the complaint in a rational way, ServerBeach shut down all 1.45 million education blogs hosted by EduBlogs.

And here’s another one. Jeff John Roberts at GigaOm writes about copyright trolls hired by “image owners (who) are brandishing the nuclear option against everyone — from small blogs to careless interns.” This could happen to you if you use copyrighted material and the owner gets sore about it.

I love politics. I hate politics. That’s life inside my head during election season. I guess what really drives me bonkers is the partisan hatred. The self-righteous arrogance that too many people on both sides have toward the other. No wonder I’m an independent, but not undecided.

Chelsea J. Carter at CNN says this election tests Facebook friendships. An election should never test a real friendship but I can see how it would test your tolerance for being around someone who talks politics all the time. According to Pew Research Center, “Nearly one-fifth of people admit to blocking, unfriending or hiding someone on social media over political postings.” I’m part of that one-fifth. I’ve hidden people for now. I’ll bring them back later. Her article mentioned a Facebook page: Nobody Cares About Your Political Posts. Really. Like. There’s more to life than politics.

All this political drama might just be an exercise in someone’s lab. According to physicists at the University of Bonn, “they may have evidence that the universe is a computer simulation.” Have we finally discovered who the They are? Hmm, maybe someone is watching you.

And if that didn’t spin your mind around enough, have you read this Newsweek piece by Dr. Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon, about the after-life experience he had during a coma? I hope this guy is on the level. Pretty wild.

I read a disturbing essay last weekend by religious scholar Sarah Sentilles in the Harvard Divinity Bulletin: The Pen is Mightier: Sexist Responses to Women Writing about Religion. No, I don’t normally read the Harvard Divinity Bulletin, but I was led to it by one of my literary blogs. She writes about the sexist responses her recent book received from male critics. Then she goes on to discuss the more pervasive sexism existing in the literary world, and speculates about the reception her essay will receive: “I expect to be called whiny and strident and annoying and grating and hysterical and uninformed. I expect to be told I don’t know what I’m talking about.” Why does this persist? It makes no sense to me.

Art geeks will enjoy this one. Bence Hajdu creates new works from paintings by Old Masters, like David, Boticelli, and Fra Angelico. They’re eerie and wonderful in their abandoned state. See for yourself at Hyperallergic.

Happy Friday!

into the light by mindfulness (Flickr)

You’ve Got to Read This: December 6, 2011

Blogs are not dead! That was the verdict from DelCor Technology Solution’s unconference last month: Progress U. – Blogger Summit. I’m go glad I got up to Arlington VA to attend, it was a great day of conversation. DelCor’s publishing a series of follow-up posts from the Summit. The first talks about the state of blog reading and writing today and why blogs are a good idea for associations.

DelCor’s second post discusses Six Barriers to Blogging – And How to Bust Them. Don’t let limited resources, organizational culture, staff’s full plates, fear, lack of confidence orleadership’s unfamiliarity with blogs discourage you.

We’re so lucky to have access to free tools for professional development, like blogs, but there is a potential downside: cognitive overload. Back in August, Ed Rodley, an exhibits professional at the Museum of Science in Boston, wrote about Dealing with Your Cognitive Load. His post received so many replies from the museum community that he compiled their ideas into four more posts.

I must share something he said in Part 4 – it’s what drew me into the rest of these posts because it’s so spot on about personal growth:

“All of the strategies listed above have one thing in common. They don’t require anything aside from your own desire to learn. As someone who has worked in a large institution for most of my professional career, it’s easy to succumb to the mindset of waiting for permission to do anything. This is especially true of old-school “professional development.” There are forms to be completed, signatures to be garnered, and justifications to be gathered before any learning happens. But in the current climate, waiting for anything seems like a recipe for getting left behind.”

Speaking of traditional nonprofit organizations, how many of them have a full-time employee dedicated to managing volunteers? Yeah, not many. In associations, volunteering is a benefit of membership, often the benefit that brings them back year after year. You’d think more resources would be directed at keeping members engaged and satisfied, but no. Susan J. Ellis at Energize, Inc. says Part-time Volunteer Management Means Equally Limited Volunteer Involvement.

In this brilliant post Jamie Notter, author with Maddie Grant of must-read book, Humanize, points out that social media is just a wave knocking down a corner of your sand castle. But be ready, he says. “The tide is coming in. Social media is giving us a bit of an advance warning that things are changing.”

While Eric Lanke was visiting one of his members, a manufacturing company, a simple sign on the wall provided a moment of clarity. He brought the mantra back to his association, it’s one that works in any organization: help the customer succeed.

I started this selection with two posts from an unconference, I’ll end with a post that Jenise Fryatt wrote about Event Camp East Coast: How an Unconference Changed My Life.

That’s it for now, happy reading!

Lady Blogger with Her Maid, after Vermeer by Mike Licht (Flickr)

You’ve Got to Read This: October 11, 2011

I usually start off my selection of good reads with something to help you save time or be more productive, but nothing wowed me this week. So I wrote my own: Be Productive While Having a Beer (or Two).

This is such a cool idea from Mike Brown at Brainzooming: assign extreme creativity makeover roles to everyone on your project team. You be the Outrageous Ideameister and I’ll be the Minister of Scare the S#!t Out of Us Possibilities!

I never get tired of sharing this type of post because I know many people are stumped when it comes to blog content. Jackie Roy at TMG Media’s Engage blog (a must read in my book) provides 7 Ways for Your Company to Break the Ice with the Blogosphere.

If you’re going to a conference or educational session and plan to tweet, read this post first. Megan Yarbrough at M+R Research Labs shares tips for thoughtful and effective live-tweeting from an event.

Standard press releases are often misdirected, irrelevant and boring. Here are some creative alternatives to sending a press release from Claire Celsi at Ragan’s PR Daily.

Yes, yes, we’re all professionals, but sometimes you just have to giggle in the middle of the day. One of my favorite sites for that is Funny or Die. If you’re an Arrested Development fan (hey, the rumor is the show’s coming back, woo hoo!), start with this slideshow of AD screen captures.

you've got to read this

You’ve Got to Read This: September 20, 2011

This is a big week in the association management industry — the week of Innovation Talks, aka #asaeinnov. I wrote about innovation in associations last week for the Avectra blog and will have another post on Wednesday about how Disney encourages an innovative culture.

Innovation is right up there as one of the most over-used words this past year, but maybe that’s because we finally realize that if we don’t innovate, we might become irrelevant. Apple’s been doing it right for a long time so Alan Webber at The Christian Science Monitor looks at what Apple can teach the rest of us.

You want to start a blog, you really do, but there are many factors to consider, or so you say. Laura Click examines The Top 10 Excuses That Keep You From Starting a Blog and tells you how to overcome each one.

Now you have a blog, but you still have trouble finding time to blog regularly, despite Laura’s good advice. Stephanie Cuevas to the rescue with her tips for Time Management for Ridiculously Busy Bloggers.

When’s the last time you took a hard look at the About Us page on your website? Is it the same old lame copy your organization has been using forever? Oh dear. Have no fear, Brian Eisenberg at ClickZ shares the Five Traits of an Effective ‘About Us’ Page. 

Sheila Scarborough provides some of the best advice I’ve read about conference tweeting plus Tips for Following Conference Twitter Hashtags. Bookmark this one so you’re ready for your next real or virtual conference experience.

Finally, and in keeping with the spirit of risk-taking and innovation, here’s a list by Michele Martin of Seven Dangerous Things Every Adult Should Do. I think I’ve done at least six of them. I’m honestly not sure about #4. Surely I’ve done that in a committee meeting in front of members, but I can’t say for sure. What about you?

blogging website copywriting innovation association freelance writer
Photo by Flattop341 (Flickr)

Get to Know Your Customer: An Alternative to Vulcan Mind Melds

I get my ideas for articles and blog posts by thinking about readers. Yes, you, you’re always in my thoughts. I think about how I can help you solve a problem or make your job (or life) a little bit easier. Or I aim to share something interesting and valuable.

When I begin work on a copywriting project, I also think about the ultimate readers — my client’s customers, prospects or members. I can’t communicate effectively to them unless I first get to know them. If only I had Vulcan mind meld skills, this part of my job would be a lot easier. Instead I rely on consultation with my client and lots of research and reading.

Studying customers is only the beginning, but let’s stop there for a moment. What if you’re on your own without a marketing vice president or a freelance writer, what do you do? Like me, you must completely understand your customers before you can determine how best to communicate with them.

I’ll share with you some of the questions I usually have; perhaps they’ll help you create a list of your own.

First, create a descriptive profile for each type of customer (or member) you serve. Heck, give each one a name too. If your customers are businesses, the profile will include characteristics that a consumer profile wouldn’t, and vice versa. Here are some suggestions to start, but you’ll end up with others specific to your business:

  • Location
  • Age
  • Gender
  • Employment status
  • Marital or family status
  • Interests and hobbies
  • Lifestyle
  • Purchasing history
  • Memberships
  • Career stage
  • Position in organization
  • Role in purchasing process
  • Place in conversion process
  • Educational background
  • Comfort with technology

The most interesting part of customer research comes next – the big meaty questions. Again, these will vary depending on your business. Since I usually work in the business-to-business sector, my questions have that slant.

  • What are your customer’s biggest problems at work?
  • What keeps her up at night worrying and stressing?
  • What does she fear?
  • What annoys her? What frustrates her?
  • What would make her life and job much easier?
  • What does she yearn for?
  • Why does she have these problems? Why aren’t these problems solved yet? What are the obstacles to solving them?
  • How do prospects like her usually find you?
  • What type of questions do your prospects and customers frequently ask your sales, social media and customer service staff?
  • What do they search for on your website? What search terms bring them there?
  • What hurdles (mental or real) prevent them from taking the next conversion step?

Spend some time where your customers hang out – blogs, forums, Twitter chats, face-to-face meetings, radio shows or podcasts – so you can get a sense of the language they use and their industry’s or profession’s culture.

The whole point of this exercise is to get into your customer’s mind to understand their perspective and needs, so you can connect their desires or worries to a solution you provide.

There are many more questions I must answer before I start writing, but that will be a topic for another post.

customer persona profile understand copywriting marketing
A Vulcan understands his customers.