Interactive

During the website creation process, weeks, and even months can be spent on the design elements and structure of the site. This is a good thing. However, In doing so, one crucial piece of the website often goes overlooked: the content. Even in today’s visually stimulated interactive market, the quality of your content can make… or destroy your site. To that end, here are 10 rules for creating effective content that keeps users engaged with your website.

1. Remember the first rule of real estate
Location, location, location. I know what you’re thinking. This is supposed to be an article about creating content, not where you should put it. But just like in real estate, you can have the best house (content) ever built (created), but its value is heavily determined by where it’s located. So where should you put it? Let’s start with what should seem so obvious, but many marketers don’t realize – the homepage.Many sites’ homepages consist of mostly images, while others are built exclusively in flash. When creating your homepage, it is essential to keep two entities in mind: your audience, and the search engines you rely on to bring you that audience. Having content on your homepage not only gives your brand a clear voice and message, it provides the opportunity to successfully optimize for search engine traffic.

2. Use just the right amount
As you probably know, there is such a thing as too much or too little content for your lead generating website. On one hand, visitors get bored fast. It is important to note that users do not intend on reading every word of every web page they visit. Additionally, a website rarely ever captures a visitor’s full attention. For instance, think of what you are doing right now. Are you just reading this article, or are you also:

Listening to music?
Drinking coffee?
Watching television?
Texting?
All of the above?

If your target audience is internet savvy, they are digitally multi-tasking on a consistent basis. All is not lost, however. They are used to this juggling media circus act, and more importantly, they are still on your site. So what did we learn? Avoid putting too much content on your web page. But we’re not done just yet. Let’s take a look at the other side.
As you may recall from earlier (unless you were distracted from texting), pleasing the visitors and the search engines is the best way to bring sweet music to your lead generating ears. Pages with very little content can be perceived by search engines to have very little to offer. While there is no magic number, it seems pages with at least two hundred words generally perform better in search rankings than pages with less content. So ultimately, how do you please both sides? It’s a good thing we have rule number three.

3. Use text separators
Text separators are a terrific way to break up content for easy digestion. A large block of text can seem overwhelming to website visitors, making them less likely to invest their time in the page. Generally speaking, readers will skim an article first before reading it to determine if it’s what they were searching for. What do they skim, you ask? Text separators. Text separators are anything that breaks up text or makes it stand out. This includes headings, bulleted and numbered lists, bolded words, horizontal lines, pictures and even a simple paragraph break.

4. Speak to your target

This is probably the most difficult challenge in web content writing. However, the task becomes manageable once you have identified three factors:

-Who is the target?
This one is a no-brainer but considerably important. The easiest misconception for web content writers is that the audience is just like them. More often than not, this is not the case. Market research is an unwavering buzzword in the internet marketing world, but is regularly underutilized.

-Who influences your target?
Within your target market is a small sector of those who are most influential to that market. While the importance of “influentials” may vary by industry, they all have some. If you can get these few on board with your website or product, others will follow. It used to be called “word of mouth”. Now it’s called social media. Either way, targeting your most influential visitors can generate substantial return.

-How do you speak to all of them?
While you must speak to the uniqueness of your market, at most consist of several different segments – meaning different geo and demographic differences. How do you please them all? Start by Determining the spectrum, or segments, and make sure your content is simple and clear for all of the possible users. You may even want to consider separating sections for different audiences, if their needs are drastically different.

This can seem like a mysterious balancing act, but if you address these three questions, your website will reward you.

5. Get to the point
Now that you understand your website’s visitors have short attention spans, are often multi-tasking, and are not automatically invested in your web page, this one is easy – get to the point. Don’t save the best for last. An employer will not read every cover letter he or she receives for an open position. The employer will read the first few sentences and often skip to the next applicant if the interest is not peaked. For the analogy’s sake, treating your website like a prospective employee and the visitors like a CEO will help you get the job.

6. Have a pulse
When a user identifies with the human(s) behind the website, the website-visitor dynamic usually creates a more engaged audience. A common misinterpretation of this point is in order to humanize your writing, its professionalism must suffer. Correlation does not equal causation. In almost every case, you can still have professional writing, while still speaking to the customer.

7. Be consistent
So you probably already know this. However, it is essential to monitor your content’s consistency and accuracy, rather than assuming its flawlessness. Some common mistakes include: using the writer’s perspective (we, I, [company name], ect.); formatting numbers (does it say $49.99 one place and $50 somewhere else): and not keeping your website up-to-date. If the reader can tell your last update was over a year ago, they may discount its relevance, even if the topic doesn’t justify it.

8. Provide direction
You can lead a visitor to your website, but you can’t make her buy… unless you tell her to. Tell your visitors what to do. Make a point to have adequate call-to-action and direction within your text. Website visitors will often ignore advertisements and call-to-action buttons on the top and side columns of a website, and only look at them when they want to navigate to another page. Directive text may not be as pretty as a starburst “Click Here”, but it speaks to the audience when their interest is peaked.

9. Incorporate pictures
I should have the restraint of avoiding this cliché, but… a picture is worth a thousand words. Although using content instead of pictures is not recommended, the combination is key to captivating a visitor.
[insert picture here??]

10. Integrate keywords
Remember the concept of pleasing the visitors of your website, as well as the search engines that send visitors your way? The magic solution is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is the process of altering a website to increase its organic rankings for targeted search queries. Integrating targeted and well-researched keywords into a web page is an important SEO tactic. While the users read this integrated content, the best SEO is that which goes unnoticed, unless your name is Google, Yahoo! or Bing.

Back in February, the regulatory commissions in the US and EU approved a merger between Yahoo! and Microsoft, clearing the way for these two companies to form what they have coined a “Search Alliance”. While we have joked around the office about the obvious Star Wars reference in the name, this merger is serious business and warrants our attention over the next few months.

What is the Yahoo! Microsoft Search Alliance?
If you are unfamiliar with the business dealings of these two search giants let’s start with a little background. About 2 and a half years ago Microsoft began talks with Yahoo! to buy their company. These were tenuous discussions and were opposed at the time by the founder and CEO of Yahoo, Jerry Yang. Talks fell apart and both parties seemingly went their own way to try to compete with the industry heavyweight – Google – alone.

A little less than a year later Yahoo, under new management, made a strategic decision to focus on content delivery and display advertising as their core business, leaving the ‘search’ piece of their business for sale as they moved vital resources previously allocated to search over to their new, more focused core business. After a very brief courting by both Google and Microsoft, Yahoo came to an agreement in principle to sell their search business to their competitor Microsoft. Under the agreement Microsoft will leverage their technologies to serve organic and paid search advertising on all Yahoo content properties and Yahoo for all intents and purposes will cease to be a search engine – allowing Microsoft to be more competitive with market leader, Google.

Originally, the plan was for Microsoft to launch their search technology on Yahoo properties by late 2011 or early 2012. However, the plan has changed and now the launch of Microsoft’s Bing search engine as the search provider for all US and Canada Yahoo properties is anticipated the second week in October 2010 – in order to take advantage of the holiday shopping season.

So Now What Happens?
I’m sure you are saying to yourself that all this background is interesting and awesome but how will it impact me? After the changes take effect, both organic and paid search results on all Yahoo properties will leverage Microsoft technologies, so anyone performing a search on a Yahoo owned property will receive Bing search results. There is no plan to change the look and feel of the search results so to the end user of those search results there will not be a noticeable change. To the advertiser and the agency, however, there are several changes that will require your attention:

1. Take Action:
Most importantly, the Search Alliance will leverage Microsoft’s AdCenter technology to manage all pay per click marketing campaigns on all properties. Yahoo’s management interface will cease to exist. This means that as an advertiser you will need to move any Yahoo campaign you are running into the MSN interface. This is not as simple and straight forward a move as one may think. There are several changes that will need to take place to make Yahoo accounts work in Microsoft’s program, so make sure you give yourself plenty of time to make the switch. Make sure you utilize your account rep at Microsoft when you need help.

2. Be Careful:
An additional consideration is that this will be a rolling transition, meaning that only portions of search volume will be switched over to run through the Microsoft/Bing search at a time. This means it will be important to transition all your accounts to the Microsoft interface and run them concurrently with your Yahoo account to avoid losing search volume.

3. Understand the Limitations:
The final consideration for this transition to Microsoft/Bing is advertisers will no longer have a choice whether or not to run on Yahoo or Bing. This is an important point since in some cases we have found Bing or Yahoo to be ineffective at lead generation. Once this shift occurs and for the foreseeable future, your ads will show on ALL Yahoo and Bing networks. From an advertiser standpoint this is one of the larger downsides of this merger.

Outside of the technical challenges and work involved in transitioning the accounts to Microsoft’s AdCenter platform, the jury is still out on the effect this merger will have on advertisers. Some industry experts believe that there will be no noticeable impact where other believes the opposite. In my opinion, if there is an impact on our clients, the effect will be minimal and most likely result in slightly higher CPL’s. Only in cases where we have clients who do not currently have a Microsoft (or Yahoo) campaigns should we see an increase in volume from pay per click traffic. It is also difficult at this moment to tell how the market will react to this change. We may see a slight increase in cost per click on the new search alliance as more advertisers enter the space that may have previously only used one or the other of these ad outlets. As for overall search volume, I do not believe we will see any impact. The average user will not know what is going on under the hood of this search alliance, as their favorite search engine will function and look the same way it did before the transition.

With only a month left before the transition begins, we have a firm grasp on what steps advertisers need to make the move from Yahoo to the Search Alliance. What remains unclear is the impact, if any, this merger of two industry giants will have on their advertisers.

What is Caffeine and why should I care?
As the seasons change from Spring to Summer, Google has also brought forth a change to its indexing process, implementing its “Caffeine” update.

On June 8th, Google implemented the Caffeine update across the web. According to the Official Google Blog, this update “provides 50 percent fresher results for web searches than our last index, and it’s the largest collection of web content we’ve offered. Whether it’s a news story, a blog or a forum post, you can now find links to relevant content much sooner after it is published than was possible ever before.”

There are many articles, blog posts and resources out there discussing the Caffeine update, but we wanted to provide a distilled version of the update and how it will impact your web sites.

Overview of Caffeine
As Caffeine is an update to the indexing infrastructure, its intent was not to modify the Google’s ranking algorithm. In the past, the crawling and indexing system of Google worked as a batch process. A set of documents (content pages, videos, images, etc.) would be crawled and then those would be processed for information (content detail, anchor text and inbound link information, etc.) and then ultimately added into the index. This again was done on a batch basis, so it was not an immediate process. With Caffeine, every time a page is crawled, it goes through the entire process pretty much immediately, and the piece is added into the index. This allows content to be added into the Google index and ultimately the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) much more quickly than in the past.

In addition, the new infrastructure allows further data to be collected about each document. With more relevant data being collected about the characteristics of the document, there’s potential for the document to rank for additional long tail keywords. Basically, Google is setting their indexing system up so that it can eventually add in additional ranking factors into their algorithm as the web continues to evolve.

What does Caffeine mean?
Fresh, new content is getting added into the SERPs more quickly. This also implies that older content will have more pieces to compete with in the search results. So although this is not viewed as a ranking update, with additional fresh content competing with existing content, rankings may fluctuate.

What can we do?
To continue performing well in the search results, within the new parameters Caffeine is putting out there, consider creating new content on a regular basis, and getting (or remaining) active in the social realm as well. If Google is highlighting fresh content, frequently creating updates, new pages, images, videos and adding them into a blog, web site or social media presence would make sense in an effort to capitalize on Caffeine.

PlattForm’s SEO team is staying on top of the situation and will report additional insight and information as it becomes available. Stay tuned.

People have become information and communication junkies. We want to know, and we want to know now! We want up-to-the-minute news and interactions at our fingertips, on a moment’s notice. For these reasons, social media has become a vital part of online communication. Social media can seamlessly integrate with existing marketing strategies, and even add an all new dimension – a “face” of your brand. Social media makes it easier to reach many more people online than a traditional Web site alone.

More than 63 percent of consumers research products and services online before buying. So doesn’t it make sense to have a broad, comprehensive presence on the Web? Having your own Web site is fantastic, but nowadays, alone it isn’t enough to make a real impact online. Fortunately, the Internet is booming with exciting and new opportunities to capitalize on the “I want to know now” mentality and people’s desires to interact with one another online. Why not update your online package with access to social media technology and tactics?

So many of our education clients are perfect candidates for interactive and social online features like blogs and micro-blogging, social bookmarking and video. Social by nature, the education trade is chock full of working professionals and potential students itching to find out more and start conversations. How about a brief overview of some of the handy interactive and social media tools?

Blogging: A great blog does not simply push company specials and products, but instead covers a range of topics in the field –news and commentary, how-to information, interactive quizzes and polls related to the field and other topics that are important to your audience. All the great content makes it easier to plug your stuff from time to time without putting your audience off! In fact, blogging is a great way to find and create enthusiastic advocates for your brand in the average user! Another excellent, similar tactic is micro-blogging on sites such as Twitter to send out quick bursts of updates and information to readers.

Social Networks: By participating in social networks such as Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn – where users can create custom profiles, share links and media and have conversations – you create a public forum for people to discuss your brand, and even better, for you to see what they’re saying and apply it! The social network space is great to connect with people, learn their business needs and respond quickly and simply.

Social Bookmarking: Social bookmarking allows visitors to tag or bookmark your site to return to later. Social bookmarking also helps them share your site with other users as a “favorite” and encourage them to visit. Many sites have even “gone viral” and spread like wildfire as a result of social bookmarking!

Video: There are numerous video uploading sites available where you can place commercials, how-to videos, video blogs and any other video component you can think of. The big social component, though, is that people can search for, comment on and rate your videos! The most viewed videos on YouTube have even been viewed more than 115 million times.

This is only a tiny glimpse into the world of social media, but these innovative strategies can be put to use quickly and cost effectively to deliver a great experience to customers. Not to mention, it can help reach new levels of ROI for your brand. We at PlattForm are super excited about the implications of these new media, and love getting our hands dirty for our clients.

My grandfather was a pretty smart guy.  Aside from being pretty much the definition of awesome, he gave me the best advice I have ever received.

On February 27th the Plattform Interactive department was treated to the Big Fuss Party Buss (©Justin Gill) to celebrate an amazing January.  We managed to grow business in record breaking strides and (being the awesome people they are) John VanFleet, Mike McHugh, and Justin Gill booked two party buses to celebrate.

In truth, I hadn’t given much thought to what they would look like (the buses not Gill/McHugh/VanFleet) but I can honestly say I wasn’t expecting two school buses to be parked in front of the building.  Everyone started laughing- all the build up for a “party bus” and we were rolling out in a Dunham Special.

Of course, inside was another matter completely.  With nightclub seatin, lighting and sound system- things started looking up.  Certainly once the booze made its way on board- that helped too.

I will go on record right now, as saying that Eric Dahlstrom’s home brew that he shared with us on the bus was amazing.  That guy can make some beer.  I would buy it if it were in stores.

After sampling some of D-Storms brew, the serious matter of getting to happy hour was at hand.  I mean, partying on the bus is all well and good- but then what?

The Levee- that’s what.

Well…the restroom at the Levee.  I mean- we were drinking the entire way to the plaza from Lenexa.

From the Levee we made our way to Baja 600- except that Justin Gill and I almost got left behind.  We couldn’t find the buses.  I don’t know Justin’s excuse- but I blame Joe Mulvihill.  More on him later.

At Baja John had scored us a fajita buffet.  And at this point- I think we all needed a bit of food.  Apparently Dan needed more than most of us- or maybe it was the ten dollars he was offered to plant his face in the plate of guac.

I said I would speak more about Joe, well this pertains to Webster Jorgensen too.  Apparently I thought it would be a good idea to hand over my phone to them and let them text my girlfriend.  What follows is a list of some of the messages my girlfriend received.

·    Hi I am joe?a
·    You are my friend
·    I just hot sauced myself to a tree

That is the last time I buy Irish Car Bombs for Mulvihill.

The last stop before moving on to power and light was a stop-over at Granfalloon next door.   Most of the team had split off and were talking at booths, and some were back playing pool.  However I used my slightly more courageous state to talk to Mike McHugh and John Van Fleet.  After a month I hadn’t really talked to them yet, they are the CIO and VP of Internet Marketing, respectively.  A bit intimidating right?  I should have known at Plattform that wasn’t the case.

Both of them have come up through the ranks here at Plattform and were more than happy to take the time to talk with me.  John told me that after 9 years, you can’t really see how the company looks through fresh eyes, and it’s important to get the input of new people in order to stay relevant and vibrant.  That’s not talk I am used to hearing at a company- which is part of what makes Plattform such a great place to work.

Around that time, we were departing- one bus heading back to Plattform, and one on to the Power and Light District.  Well for those of you wanting sordid details about the goings on at P&L… you aren’t getting them from me.  I was on the first bus.  But I was there long enough to know- I work with some awesome people.

And in case you were wondering- we had several designated drivers- and no one was allowed to drive that wasn’t sober.  Was I sober?  Yes.  Able to drive?  That’s questionable in any state.

Till next time-

BE CHAMPIONS.