Looking for Tips for website owners
I’ve been thinking of adding a ‘Tip of the day’ sort of note to the dashboard of eWrite Lite that a user sees when logged into eWrite.
With eWrite providing many useful tools to manage a website, I’d like to be able to give users handy practical tips on an ongoing basis in relation to their website content.
Short and useful tips such as:
- Don’t forget to add an email address or phone numbers to your contact information page to allow customers to contact you directly
- Why not place a Google Map on your contact information page to help customers find your business, use http://www.communitywalk.com
- Try to avoid writing your email address on your site. It will prevent web robots from collecting your email address and sending you spam. Create an image with your email address instead.
Can anyone think of a few more ?
Tags: ewrite lite, help, tips
June 29th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
One question to ask yourself: What am I trying to tell people with this site? From there, your content should grow. This seems obvious, but can be quite tricky. For example, a website may be used to tell people about your product - or it may be used to try and sell your product.
In the former situation, your content should provide useful information about the product - how it works, what it does, etc. In the latter situation, you need to concentrate on the benefits - the improvements it makes to your ‘life’ (even if your ‘life’ means how you work or what you do).
Always keep it simple. From the above point, once you have decided the central message of your website, you then need to really consider the easiest way to tell it to people. This may be indirectly - by describing situations where your product/service will help people. Or, it could be direct - by just defining features or benefits.
June 29th, 2008 at 9:39 pm
Use News
If your site includes a news section that can be pushed out, you really should use it. The point of a news section is to show that you are current. One problem many sites have is that visitors come to it to find the last ‘update’ appears to have been months ago.
You probably keep your eye on industry news. Even if there are few developments in your own company that you can discuss, think about commenting on industry developments.
Whatever you do, make sure your site (and therefore your company) remain relevant in clients’ and visitors’ minds.
June 30th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
How about a few tips on writing great copy?
I’ve seen a lot of sites with content that’s obviously been copied and pasted from company brochures and is all wrong for the web. It’s too wordy, too long, and all to often, self important as well. Might be a good idea to offer some simple tips on writing suitable text for the web.
June 30th, 2008 at 11:18 pm
Iarfhlaith, Thats exactly what I’d like. Site owners can add all sorts of widgets and gadgets to their sites, but they can often be unsure what to write.
Any tips or suggestions in this area would be excellent and I think the users would really use and appreciate or get ideas from these tips as they log in to change a page.
July 27th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Great idea Gordon,
I’ve been thinking of starting a blog on writing more effective web copy for a while now. Even registered http://www.copycrusader.com and the twitter user @copycrusader for the purpose, just haven’t got around to doing anything with it yet… so what’s new!
Copywriting (online and off) is very much a “horses for courses” game. You need to know your audience and tailor your copy to their needs. Perhaps the single most important piece of advice is this: write your content for your readers, not for yourself.
Sounds obvious… but you’d be amazed how many site owners/content writers fall into this trap. Know your audience, know why they’re visiting your site… then deliver it in a format that audience is comfortable with!
I’d be happy to let you have regular copywritng tips for the E-Write dashboard, if you like… but think I might have an even better idea.
Why not get social? Let your users contribute and rank tips on your website — then take the top tips (as provided by and voted for by your users) and incorporate them into the e-Write admin dashboard.
User generated content that generates real value for other users… surely that has to be a winner!
July 27th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Oops… just realised I now have a live link in the last comment to copycrusader.com, and no site there! Will have to remedy that pronto.
C!
July 27th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Hi Calvin,
I like where you’re going with this. I love anything the has a life of its own in this way. Allowing users to post tips and letting them get rated sounds perfect to me.
My worry is that they’re aren’t enough users of eWrite yet who would offer suggestions.
In relation to your twitter account for @copycrusader, will you be posting short tips there or something to that effect? If so, I’d love to aggregate those tips into eWrite with your permission with links back to your site.
My main aim with these tips is for an ewrite user who looks at his or her site one morning and sees low traffic. Anything that will help and guide them inject new life into a page or site would be a huge benefit to them.
July 27th, 2008 at 3:37 pm
That’s exactly the plan with @copycrusader — tips, updates and pointers to useful online resources. You’re welcome to aggregate whatever I post to @copycrusader — but first job is to get the site up and running. ;-).
Will give you a shout once things start happening.
Cheers,
Calvin!
July 27th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Excellent stuff. Thank you. Looking forward to seeing what you have planned.