Right.

You can’t even call it writers block, because you aren’t a writer. You’re an entrepreneur, a business owner. You’re a multi-tasking person with little direction for how to make your company blog a successful branch of your web marketing strategy.

Luckily, there are options for you! And no, opting out of business blogging is not a path I can point you down today.

Firstly, you can consider hiring a web-writing specialist to maintain the content and delivery for the company. Navigator Multimedia offers this service via yours truly, and I can assure you that by enlisting a professional writer, you can count on timely, informative, and entertaining content with pristine grammar and an eye for SEO. That’s what I strive for, and that’s what you should expect.

Secondly, you can enlist someone from within your business to oversee the blog content. The advantage here rests in the employee’s deep-set knowledge of the company and its clients. For highly specialized industries, this can sometimes be the preferable option.

Thirdly, you can take a breath and take on the task with a pragmatic attitude: use the resources available to you, and learn what works for your business. With time, and practice, you may even come to enjoy the process.

If the third option seems most realizable, take these tips to begin your confident journey onwards as an effective business blog writer. These tips should save you time, help inspire content topics, and assist in building fantastic blog posts.

1.Turn customer inquiries into blog posts

Let your clients spark your blog ideas. I adapted this idea from Ryan Taft’s suggestion in his article “7 Easy Ways To Turn Old Content Into New Content”, who suggests using user comments to generate new posts. However, if you’re just starting out in the blogging arena, you won’t have much for comments (yet!) If your clients are often emailing or calling with similar inquiries or comments, write a blog post addressing the question, giving a thorough and knowledgeable answer that potential customers can benefit from as well.

2.Break big ideas into series

Another Taft-inspired suggestion here, which minimizes the intimidation factor in presenting a topic in writing. By breaking down the topic into smaller chunks that can be published separately, you spread the value of the idea itself, buying time and tempting readers with the anticipation of “the next chapter”. For instance, instead of tackling “Highlights of British Columbian Tourism” in one article, present a series of “BC Tourism Highlights”, and feature a different aspect over the course of several posts.

3.Post in the morning

Invest in blog writing time at the beginning of your workday, sometime between checking email and grabbing that first bathroom break. If you leave it to the end of day, it will be left eternally until the end of day. Procrastination and writing tasks for non-writers share a tighter bond than Santa Clause and Coca-Cola.  As a writer, I find my mind calmest and least distracted in the early morning, and can whip out effective content in half the time I could if I left it until the evening.  Try it out. Let me know how it goes.

4.Let “Why?” be your guide

Erin Kissane says it best: “Anyone who touches copy can make a difference by insisting that every chunk of text on the site is doing something concrete” (“Writing Copy that Works For A Living”). Instead of floundering in white space, wondering what you’re going to write about, just start small and direct with your subject. Say, “I’m going to write about the differences in synthetic materials,” and then ask “Why?” If you can provide an answer (“It’s imperative that my clients understand the difference to appreciate my product,” or “It will convince clients of the superiority of my materials”), then run with it and don’t look back. Stay focused on why you’re letting the content hit the page.

5.Write about your business as the fascinating company it is

Whether you run a farm or a steel-manufacturing factory, approach blog writing with the attitude that you’ve got the goods on the intriguing inner-workings of a fascinating company. Divulge company news, explain “a day in the life” of an employee, and feature photo galleries with excitement and a sense of sharing something new. Time to rustle up some enthusiasm for your industry; you might know it inside out, but there are readers out there who are learning about it for the first time. Even the seemingly minutest of company routine might be fodder for an interesting blog post.

References

Kissane, Erin. “Writing Copy that Works for a Living,” A List Apart. 4 November 2008: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/writingcontentthatworksforaliving/

Taft, Ryan. “7 Easy Ways To Turn Old Content Into New Content.” Ist Web Designer. 27 December 2011: http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/turn-old-content-to-new/

Although his criticism of project contracts and completion dates does seem a bit radical (check out his article here: http://www.netmagazine.com/features/evolution-client-services) , the core approach is refreshing: build a “team” out of the various parts that make up the development of a web design or software. Without client vs. contractor dynamics, true collaborative effort can occur.

So if you are approaching web companies, or are involved with one on a project today, keep this relationship ethos in mind. Here are 5 tips for finding, maintaining, and thriving in a team environment for online marketing:

Go Local

Stick with qualified professionals operating in your community. Besides encouraging local economic growth and easing communication costs (phone meetings and flights will otherwise be added to your e-marketing budget), establishing relationships and best relaying the “goals” you should all come to share is most efficient in-person. Finding capable innovators in your community is often as simple as a Google search for “web design [your community here ] “. The first-page results will give you some sense of the company’s dedication to SEO, and provide portfolios of past projects to help you make a decision.

Blind date the team

Don’t settle on an agency until you have had an opportunity to meet and greet the ones whose portfolios impressed you. An initial meeting can establish whether you share aesthetic preferences, worth ethic, and communication efficiency. You need a team you can truly feel welcome and excited to start working with. This often requires a few rounds of “blind date” meetings.

Give meaningful feedback

The words that haunt the sleep of designers everywhere: “I need my website to really ‘pop’ on the page.” Pop? What does that look like? How does that feel? Lazy mis-articulation of critical feedback and concepts can frustrate and divide designers and clients. Show an eagerness to provide meaningful feedback to all members of your team with specific details that get to the point. For instance, instead of suggesting, “I want my site to be more exciting,” try offering what would make the experience exciting, specifically. “I’d like to see brighter colours in the fonts or more Flash animation, to add an exciting feel,” works better here.

Be open

Consider yourself as part of a collective now: designers, content writers, programmers, and you, will all have ideas as the project moves along. Listen actively to others suggestions, and don’t feel pressured to make decisions right away. Remember that “new team members who are excited about their roles in a project will breathe fresh energy into the project and those around them” (Smith), so an influx of suggestions for your project is often the sign of positive collaboration!

Count on courtesy

Absolutely respond to all emails from members of your web project team as quickly as time will allow. Absolutely respect payment terms and follow through accordingly. Absolutely speak up when if you feel the project turning in a direction you are not comfortable with (financially, stylistically, or otherwise), or if there are portions of the project that you need some clarity in understanding. You might be approaching a web-marketing agency from a seemingly opposite industry, but there are still models of business etiquette that will determine the effectiveness and positive completion of projects of all kinds.

For 2012, we can look forward to massive advances in social e-commerce, mobile web compatibility, and ongoing search engine optimization challenges. Enlightened discussion about approaching and collaborating with web marketing teams provides an awesome launch pad for starting the year off with anticipation of the changes to come.

What are your thoughts on collective participation in web marketing? Would you be interested in being more (or less) involved in the design process?

Understanding the Internet as the new media-and that it’s here to stay-can be a minor speed bump for vehicle retailers who have enjoyed decades of effective radio, television, and/or print advertising results. Business marketing has gone to the ‘Net, and vehicle retailers must jump on for the ride. With some of our tips, you’ll see that it won’t be nearly as painful a transition from traditional retail marketing as you thought. It’s necessary and rich with business-building opportunity.

Vehicle Sales and Social Media

An insightful blog, populated by resourceful information and fed continuously into your additional social media accounts (via an RSS feed), will strengthen the company site’s SEO and give your vehicle retail business an edge on its competitors. Imagine offering blog content that has users visiting again and again for tips and advice for maintaining or purchasing a vehicle.  Vehicle retailers have an advantage in this social media realm; vehicles of all kinds incite hobbyists that hunt online for new information, and news about fresh blogs with useful content spreads fast. Update your company blog between one to three times per week to begin improving site traffic. Posts can be as simple as news updates pertaining to your vehicle brands, or as thorough as an interview with an industry specialist.

Vehicle Sales and Content

Recognize your dedicated employees and build a personable online presence with a “Staff” page that showcases each member with a photo and short description. Users don’t need the whole autobiography; friendly, first person accounts that highlight professional credentials and personal interests are best. Staff write-ups can boost moral by spotlighting each member online as important to the team, and aid users in choosing a dealership or vehicle retailer that they feel comfortable with. A staff page also builds user confidence, suggesting legitimacy as a thriving business.

Vehicle Sales and User Experience

Vehicle specifications are often showcased online through drop-down menus and search applications that help users find exactly what they want. Makes, models, body styles, prices, and vehicle years all can (and should) be accessible through these modes of display, with user-ease taken into account. Make the search process as simple as possible, so that users do not become frustrated and abandon your site. Test the usability of your vehicle search function thoroughly.

Vehicle Sales and Design

An awesome addition to a vehicle retailer homepage is a Staff showcase that provides a link to an employee’s contact information. We built a site for Don Folk Chevrolet Kelowna (www.donfolkchev.com) that features a “Top Achiever” box in the right hand corner of the homepage that offers an alternative call to action for users and personalizes the company brand

Visiting brick-and-mortar vehicle retailers involves face-to-face contact with sales representatives that often approach potential clients first. This “Top Achiever” addition puts users in the control position, and guides them towards completing their goals, such as inquiring about a vehicle price or setting up an appointment.

Vehicle Sales and SEO

Google metrics gauge a site’s authenticity by how engaging a site is for users: in other words, the more time users spend exploring your site, the better for your SEO rankings. Other factors like bounce rates, number of pages opened per visit, and page response times, are included in this criteria. By creating an enticing homepage that leads users to new pages and more information, vehicle retailers can improve user-friendliness. Build your homepage with calls to action that lead to new pages, such as drop-downs on categories with “Book a Test Drive” or “Call Today”. Categorize individual searches for “New” and “Used” to ease user navigation. Creating pathways for specific users encourages site engagement.

It should. Take a look at our Facebook Page fundamentals list to see if your company is making the most of this free service. From improving your business’ SEO to expanding its brand persona, the Facebook social media platform provides ample opportunity to explore and conquer e-marketing.

Here are some fundamentals for effective Facebook Pages:

1. SEO strategies

Just Creative Design guest blogger Richard Larson has some awesome tips for optimizing your Facebook Page, such as including keyword rich text in the “About” and “Info” sections. Why not add keywords to status updates as well? Facebook provides businesses with multiple opportunities to load up the Page with fresh, keyword-specific content. Be sure to update the content regularly with industry news and announcements.

2. Leads in and out from other social platforms

So you have a Facebook Page. Great! But Facebook operates like a vintage set of Beatles figurines: you better collect all four for their value to be appreciated. The Fab Four here are LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. By offering pathways to all social media platforms via Facebook, you can harness the attention of users that “stumble across” some quip of content, and encourage them to explore all pathways of your social media presence.

3. Feedback, dialogue, announcements, customer service

It’s the “platform of choice” for resolving customer service issues, says Derika, a social media writer for Tempero.co.uk. She insists that “an official brand account is a place to complain in the eyes of the consumer,” bringing social media marketing and customer service closer together. An effective Facebook page must be maintained as such, with daily monitoring that conveniences users and gives a friendly voice to brand representation in instances of customer inquiry and complaint.

4. Customized layout

Creating a mini-website for your business with a Facebook Page can increase brand awareness and entice users to explore your company site. Keep it consistent with your website design colours and graphics, to help users gauge authenticity of the content. Your web developer can implement the change, and align it with your Twitter and YoutTube channel layout. Now you’ve got the complete social media package, with visual finesse.

5. Friends!

This gig thrives on social interaction, right? So make friends and start talking. You should be targeting Friends that either use your product or service or should want to. For instance, realtors should focus on inviting local users to join their Friends group. It wouldn’t make sense, from a marketing standpoint, to make hundreds of Friends in Europe, if the realtor’s properties are all within a hundred-mile radius of his hometown.

Friends require maintenance. New Friends should be recognized with a welcoming message, and interaction with users within your group can extend from thoughtful wall posts, comments on status updates, and “Like”’s on their posted links. With Facebook, you get as much as you give.

In your daily interactions with Friends, remember the company persona you wish to project, and maintain it throughout all social media communications.

Facebook Pages that aid businesses in online marketing success will more often than not exhibit these fundamental elements. Getting started does not have to be intimidating, even for those of us without personal Facebook pages. With tutorials and assistance from Navigator Multimedia, your business can make the most of this valuable, free tool.

References

Derika. “Facebook customer service is 24 hours: Lastminute.com case study.” 16 August 2011: http://tempero.co.uk/facebook-customer-service-is-24-hours-lastminute-com-case-study

Larson, Richard. “7 Strategies To Make Facebook SE0 Friendly.” 5 December 2011. JustCreativeDesign.com: http://justcreativedesign.com/2011/12/05/7-strategies-to-make-facebook-seo-friendly/

Motivated by complaints from unhappy users who have clicked on site pages only to scroll through advertisement space to find the actual information, Cutts insists that the change is all part of an ongoing effort to deliver the “best possible user experiences.”

The tweak has ignited some critical fire in the last few days from the tech community, being blasted as a hypocritical move from Google, which sometimes favours ad-heavy results in its own search queries.

Although Cutts insists that this alteration will effect “less than 1% of searches globally,” skeptics wonder how Google will penalize popular information sites currently rife with advertisements. In response to Cutts’ blog post, commenter JohnRobertWilliam noted that most EHow.com pages include around 1/15^th of actual information; the rest is ad space.

Cracking down on popular information sites and cleaning up their own search result pages should give Google a bit more work to do than Cutts suggests for current publishers. He insists that website owners focus on delivering effective user experiences, not adapting furiously to every algorithm tweak.

So should you be worried about weakened search rankings on your own site? If your current landing page looks ad-heavy, use the Google Browser Size tool (http://browsersize.googlelabs.com/) to determine its current ad-to-information ratio.

Websites saturated with advertisements will need new strategies for maintaining revenue while presenting the best possible front page for users and Google search rankings. Although this tweak is only one of nearly 500 expected algorithm changes for this year, staying acquainted with the changes will make SEO improvements to your site easier to manage.

Contact Chris at Navigator Multimedia today if you’re unsure if the new Google algorithm tweak will affect your site rankings in the coming weeks. There are changes that can be made, and solutions for every project.

References

“Page layout algorithm improvement.” Cutts, Matt. 20 January 2012 : http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/01/page-layout-algorithm-improvement.html

*What users see on a site page without scrolling down.

• Okanagan Wine Festivals iPhone App
• Desert Hills Winery
• Silver Sage Winery
• Orchard Hill Cidery
• Quails Gate Okanagan Valley Winery

Wineries can take advantage of e-commerce opportunities while marketing their establishment online for touristic purposes as well. With a “cellar” offering product shipments, and lush graphics enticing users to visit both the site and the location, a strong web presence can extend your marketing investment.

Effective winery web marketing often includes these points:

Winery Marketing and Social Media

Live-tweeting is “engag[ing] on Twitter for a continuous period of time- anywhere from 20 minutes to few hours-with a sequence of focused Tweets” (dev.twitter.com), and should be used by winery marketers and owners for event promotion and garnering buzz.  Any event that your winery is involved with, either on-site, or within the community, can be discussed “as it happens” on Twitter. Use a hashtag (like #okanaganwinefestival or #winterwinefest) for every Tweet, and have fun describing your surroundings, your interactions, and your thoughts on the event, as it happens. Add pictures, and be sure to send a message every ten minutes or so, as you feel fit. It spreads awareness your winery, and provides a personable voice for your business. Of course, you’ll need that business Twitter account to get started.

Winery Marketing and SEO

Create individual pages for each type of wine in order for it to position on Google’s search index. Though tempting to simply transfer a PDF file listing all wines with descriptions, the extra bit of work involved in devoting an individual page for every wine will increase your search rankings.

Winery Marketing and Design

As The Winery Web Site Report author Mike Duffy insists, “the top error for winery websites remains a lack of freshness, from home pages that haven’t been changed in years, to a lack of information about new vintages, to “News” pages where the last update was more than a year ago.” Even the year of your “Copyright” notification in the bottom corner of your site page counts in maintaining a current, refreshing web presence. “Freshness” can be as minimal as updating your events calendar, or as momentous as a “facelift” that factors in Flash banners, graphics (high-quality photographs of your vineyard property is essential), and improved site navigation. The choice is yours-just keep it current!

Winery Marketing and User Experience

E-commerce does work for wineries, though shipping and delivery costs can make the conversion challenging. Provide as much instant pricing information as possible, making the purchase easily visualized and comparable to other wineries. If the shopping experience feels easy and intuitive, users should respond positively. Be sure that the user has access to “Total Cost” in every step of the transaction process. It’s a refreshing way to guide users to the purchase.

Winery Marketing and Content

The delicate nuances and varieties in wine flavours can be so deliciously articulated in an interactive wine tasting with a sommelier or wine educator. Bring that experience to your product descriptions online with professional web writing that is grammatically correct, up-to-date, and engaging to read. For your e-commerce efforts to flourish, users need to be able to anticipate the taste of your wine in their mouth. Recognize the importance of succinctly enticing product descriptions when strategizing your e-commerce investment.

References

Duffy, Mike. “Heimoff on ‘The Biggest Mistake Most Wineries Make’.” 14 October 2011: http://mikeduffy.typepad.com/wwsr/

Been given the opportunity to learn and grow from our awesome clients, we feel it only makes sense to give back some of the tips and tricks that have made success stories out of countless web projects.

“Navigator Knows” blog posts will cover concepts and tools for industry-specific needs. Today we’re going to focus on Real Estate Web Marketing.

Good news for non-real-estate-related-business-owners: this post (and further “Navigator Knows” posts to come) comes chock-full of resourceful information that is applicable for all businesses aiming to make their mark online. Read on, friends.

So today, we consider Real Estate Web Marketing. A strong web presence is essential for realtors looking to distinguish themselves and their service from their competitors. We’ve worked with realtors through the highs and lows of the market, and can attest to the reliability of web marketing for gaining leads. Here’s what works:

Real Estate SEO: Refine Your Keywords

Realtors face high competition for plush spots on Google keyword searches. Attempting to outdo your contemporaries will only create frustration, and waste time. Refine your keyword search goal to achieve higher search rankings. For instance, aiming for a top spot with “real estate Vancouver” is achievable, but not as efficiently as “post-war homes vancouver” would be. Get specific. Consider your niche, and tailor your SEO efforts to it. You will attract the clients that are searching for your specific service, and with a higher ranking on the page, more likelier achieve conversion.

Real Estate Social Media: Local Networking is Best

Remember your web marketing goals: attracting real estate buyers and sellers to your service. Achieving the conversion. Your business happens in your immediate community. Make location-based networking a focus in your social media efforts. Sending Twitter messages to celebrities in Los Angeles only makes sense if you are a real estate agent in Los Angeles. Maintain a Twitter “Following” of mostly local persons and businesses. Apply this rule to your Facebook friend base. It makes sense for local marketing, and shows potential clients that you have made a committed to serving your community.

Real Estate and Design: Galleries, Galleries, Galleries

Galleries must feature prominently on a realtor web site, as it allows users the convenience of “shopping” without leaving their computer. Realtors sell property, and so should display their wares proudly through every aspect of their marketing efforts. Interactive, full-colour galleries with up-to-date images titled “Currently Available” and “Recently Sold” promotes user confidence in your service. A “Feature Listing” gallery promoted on the homepage will entice users to explore your site and return often.

Real Estate and User Experience: It’s Not “About” You

While you aim to promote yourself online, be mindful of the user that you need to engage in order to achieve conversion. Avoid a self-centered approach (an “About Me” on the front page is irrelevant to your user’s goals). Consider what your user is looking for: your listings. Offer galleries on the homepage. Offer a search tool that allows users to locate properties by their specifications. Offer quick access to your contact information by displaying it on the homepage.

Real Estate and Content: Area and Niche Specific

By refining your keyword search term goals, you increase your rankings within those terms. Maintaining high rankings within these terms requires some SEO-tailored content, which can be fun to create when you’re focusing on your niche market!

Your content should describe:

• Where your properties are located. The region you operate from. Location can be weaved into your copy seamlessly with enthusiastic advice for interested users looking to move to your location, or looking for a specific kind of property in your area.
• Types of properties you specialize in, with accordance to your keyword goals. You can include information about your niche market in relation to your location, or feature a page with your credentials in that market.

Look forward to ongoing advice from “Navigator Knows” blog posts that will feature a different industry and fresh tips every week! If you’d like to see your business industry showcased in a “Navigator Knows” post, send a comment our way and get noticed on KelownaWebDesigns.com!

Without marking your place on the Google Map, how will Google know where you are? By providing Google with the accurate location information for your company, you boost the search engine’s confidence in your service, and boost your PageRank.

Imagine your business appearing in the top spots of a “10 Pack”: that corresponding list of “Places” that accompany a localized search on Google Maps.

The beauty of focusing on improving rankings for local search results rests in the comparatively low competition for spots. Instead of trying to rank high for “independent coffee shops”, localizing the search to “coffee shops kelowna” trims your competition and gives your business a greater shot at the top.

Let’s get our businesses primed for local search results with these tips, offered by NetMagazine.com writer Mark Buckingham:

1. “Claim your Google Place page”: This is a free service that lets businesses verify location, contact information, website, hours of operation, amongst other features. Google honchos invest massively in Google Maps, and strive for complete confidence in the information they display in the search results.
2. “Ensure your contact information is crawlable”: Keep it somewhere in “plain old HTML, so that Google [webmasters] can properly associate your Place page with your website.”
3. Mark your spot on other prominent local search sites: “Google’s spiders crawl assiduously for business information across many websites, looking for matches they have in their own index,” says Buckingham. Listing your business on Yelp and Foursquare invites user dialogue and authenticates your site information.
4. Anticipate user reviews: Yelp.com accepts reviews for any business or service, operating on a 5 point rating system. Buckingham says, “Some local search experts speculate that in some industries and geographies, Google might take volume of reviews into account.” Business reviews from genuine users can also boost your business’ brand awareness.

Web designer Soh Tanaka anticipates that conversion rates are positively affected by localized search rankings, suggesting that “by users narrowing down their search and stumbling across your site, the conversion rates naturally become higher…[as] ranking on the first page of their local search, you are most likely in the door to becoming their prime candidates.”

High PageRank potential, brand awareness, and user conversion all make the effort of marking your spot on Google Places and Maps an essential move for your business’ SEO strategies for 2012.

Business e-marketing solutions found in one’s own backyard.

References

Buckingham, Mark. “Boost traffic with local search.” 21 November 2011. NetMagazine.com: http://www.netmagazine.com/features/boost-traffic-local-search

Tanaka, Soh. “Dominating In Your Local Search.” 13 November 2008. SohTanaka.com: http://www.sohtanaka.com/web-design/search-engine-local-search/

And the gossip doesn’t confine itself to the ever-solemn “who’s-looking-pudgy-now” drama: people are logging on to Facebook to dish on products they’re purchasing and services they’re using.

Social media and e-commerce are currently walking hand-in-hand. Just last month, TechCrunch.com reported that 50% of e-commerce site visitors are Facebook account holders. Businesses are taking note: 88% of the Internet Retailer Top 200 retail sites currently integrate Facebook in their marketing and/or e-commerce strategies.

What makes social media so effective for e-commerce? Consider this: Facebook business pages give account holders free access to commenting about products. This is a space for retail reviewing without actually purchasing the product. Responses to user comments can (and should be) quickly dispatched, creating a customer service space that is at once personal to the user’s online identity, but open to viewing by much larger audience that grows more sophisticated every day.

Yes, today’s typical web user is keeping retailers on their toes. According to Graham Alichurch of I-Com.Net, IMRG stats show that conversion rates for e-commerce are dropping dramatically, “55% over the past five years,” with “more people using the Internet to browse, rather than purchase.”

Retailers have turned to Facebook for its customer service potential, where complaints can be sounded off and promptly resolved, creating examples of customer care that are basically “advertised” publicly, for free.

By creating these positive customer service experiences, retailers extend dialogue-or gossip- opportunities to anyone who “Likes” their page on Facebook.

With over 800 million active users on Facebook, each averaging a claim of 130 friends, that’s gossip on a whole new level.

This relationship works. Check out Jessica Bailey’s article over at I-Com.Net  (http://www.i-com.net/blog/social-media-protect-your-business-from-angry-mps/), for a fitting example of how big companies are resolving customer service issues via social media.

Social media is the next step to boosting those e-retail conversion rates, and with millions logged on and ready to chat, it only makes sense for businesses of all sizes to climb aboard for the oncoming surge of satisfied customers.

With Christmas jingling its bells closer and closer to our ears, now’s the time to re-evaluate your Facebook business page and consider if it’s working for you and for your customer.

References

Alinchurch, Graham. “3 Big Reasons to Improve Your E-Commerce Website Before Christmas.” 23 November 2011. ICom.Net: http://www.i-com.net/blog/improve-your-e-commerce-website-before-christmas/

Bailey, Jessica. “Social Media: Protect Your Business From Angry MP’s.”  15 November 2011: ICom.Net: http://www.i-com.net/blog/social-media-protect-your-business-from-angry-mps/

Constine, Josh. “50% of Ecommerce Site Visitors Are Logged In To Facebook.” 22 November 2011. TechCrunch.Com: http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/22/ecommerce-logged-in/

“Content is king.” It is! It reigns supreme! Just listen to the glistening words of Fast Company contributor Shawn Parr last month in an article titled “Content is the New Currency”:

“Great communication is an art and a science and needs to be treated as one of the most valuable currencies of your organization.”

So that hunk of space reserved on your homepage for explaining your business? The blog that seems like a thorn in your side to update on a weekly (or monthly) basis? It’s valuable real estate for effective web marketing, and should be maintained as such. As Parr suggests, “when the correct words are used with sincerity and passion, they can have a mobilizing and lasting impact.”

Not to mention the search engine ranking potential of delightful content. SixRevisions author Adam Heitzman lists the “Focus on Quality Content” as pertinent to optimizing websites for Google’s Panda algorithm, noting, “A large emphasis on quality is being placed on the creation of content. This must be at the forefront of any design or website management duties.”

And the potential branding advantage that research-rich and resourceful content can give your company, as I mentioned in an earlier post about possible Google algorithm changes.

So yes, let’s all bow down to the value of content online (and our content writers too, while we’re at it), but keep in mind the mortality of all kings, web-based or not.

Rule as it may, content requires strategy to truly succeed. Curious about what that means, exactly? Let’s look to Kristina Halvorson, the spearheading champion of content strategy, founder and CEO of Brain Traffic (her own consultancy devoted to the craft), speaker and author of books on the subject, and overall awesome entrepreneur:

In an interview with Tom May of NetMagazine, she defines content strategy as that which “identifies how content will help you achieve your business objectives,” “inform[ing] how organizations create, deliver and govern or take care of their content, online and beyond.”

It’s more than the come-and-go of content creation: it’s “long-term management of content,” and focuses on answering “Why?”

“Why put that there?” Any time a new piece of content is suggested for a site, there better be a purpose for it.

That is one of three solid points Halvorson suggests for companies looking to start implementing content strategy. In an interview published on IdeaMensch.com , she also mentions auditing all site content and “look [ing] long and hard at it,” to decide if its working for specific business objectives.

She also suggests companies “put someone in charge of the content at the beginning of the project [a launch, a microsite, a brochure, etc]. Not just the content creation, but  [someone who is] really asking the tough questions about it and finding out who has the answers.”

Without strategy, site content can get messy and disorganized. Like a king going into battle without military consultants (and at the very least, a map), content can collapse quickly when direction is not defined.

However, the smaller the monarch, the easier it is to rule. Halvorson mentions to May that content strategy “is not vital, or even appropriate, for every business.” Specifically, small companies can effectively balance their own content with careful planning with only a copywriter on staff to “ensure the copy is appropriate and structured well.”

So while hiring the services of a content strategy agency may not be essential to every business website’s content success, maintaining the content in an organized manner surely is. Whether operating on a big-budget agenda or depending on a prudent copywriter to manage the material, business website owners need to start thinking long-term about their content.

Navigator Multimedia can aid your content strategy needs at every level, whether looking for a complete content audit, or hoping to organize the distribution and creation of effective written material. As we know now, it ain’t easy appeasing a king.

References

Heitzman, Adam “Creating Websites Optimized for Google’s Panda Algorithm.” 15 November 2011: http://sixrevisions.com/content-strategy/creating-websites-optimized-for-googles-panda-algorithm/

“Kristina Halvorson-Founder and CEO of Brain Traffic.” http://ideamensch.com/kristina-halvorson/

May, Tom “Kristina Halvorson on Content Strategy.” 2 November 2011: http://www.netmagazine.com/interviews/in-depth/kristina-halvorson-content-strategy

Parr, Shawn “Content is the New Currency.” 20 October 2011: http://www.fastcompany.com/1789107/content-is-the-new-currency