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Is your website design supporting your business? I recently ran across a nifty articled titled, How to Spot and Avoid Web Copy that Kills Websites by Drag + Drop Design by Rick Sloboda, @WebCopyPlus. The article listed common mistakes made in the text of websites that makes the overall design less effective. It serves as a wake-up call for copywriters or anyone else trying their hand at writing copy. So did a newsletter from Amanda Gonzalez, @untangle, 5 web copy trends that belong firmly in 2010. Both these articles got me thinking.

It's not just web copy that can hamper a business. The design of the website can mess you around, too. Design is a tricky thing – it can help but it can also hinder. While creativity is applauded, it's even more important to ensure your site is performing the way you need it to. Here are some of the more common mistakes I see and nothing you do with the content can save it.

1. Ugly
A website is a visual medium. If your website doesn't look attractive, it's not going to get much traffic. While you may be able to coax people to your home page, you won't be able to keep them there if it looks cheap and ugly.

2. Image Problem
You need images on your website and you need good ones. Invest in good stock or even commission your own photography. There's nothing more tired than looking at a website full of royalty free images. It's one way to differentiate your business from the legions of people using the same free stock images.

3. Unused Features
If you've got a blog on your website, make sure you use it. If blogging has turned out to be more than you can manage, remove it. The same goes for news feeds, newsletters, video galleries and anything else requiring consistent updates. If you're advertising your social media profiles, make sure you're making regular updates. It's just not impressive to visit a Facebook page with nothing on it. While your web designer may have convinced you to include them, you're doing more harm than good if you have idle features on your website.

4. Usability Issues
If your visitors can't figure out how to navigate your website or they can't find your contact details, you've got a big problem. There's absolutely nothing wrong with your information being presented in an obvious way. A clever design will ensure people can intuitively find their way around your website.

5. Music
I've said it before but I'll say it again. Remove all auto music from your website. It universally drives people mad.

6. Flash
I know there are applications for Flash but they're few and far between. Unless you have a very specific business reason to include Flash on your website, don't be coaxed to put it on.

7. Designer Portfolio
Make sure the design of your website suits your business, not fills your designer's dance card. Designers are creative people and like to explore new concepts and try new ideas. That's great if what you need falls in line with the designer's wish list for their own portfolio. Don't feel obligated to do what they want. Remember, it's your website and your business.

Moving towards Asset Based Marketing
A website is no longer an accessory to your business; it's a vital marketing tool. When good design and good copy are both present, your website becomes an asset to your business attracting new leads and increasing your brand value. A design not suited to your organisation, however, can have the opposite effect and drive prospects away. Design and content go hand in hand. Make sure both of them support your business.

What website design mistakes have you noticed?

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Image Credit: kringamorphosis by shannonkringen, on Flickr

Have you ever had one of those weeks? I've been on the receiving end of criticism as it relates to my social media activity. In a little over 10 days, I've been reported to MailChimp for SPAM, publically outed on Twitter as a SPAMMER, and accused by the moderator of a LinkedIn discussion group as partaking in `cheap advertising'. In every instance, my first reaction was surprise followed by wonder. After that, it gets a little murky.

E-Mail Marketing gone bad
The person reporting me to MailChimp was a regular reader of my `blog by email'. Of the nearly 50 posts sent to the address, every one of them was opened at least once. Several of the posts received click throughs. The final post I sent was reported to MailChimp as SPAM.

Twitter Trouble
On Twitter last week, I was graced with this mention from someone I had never heard of before:

"how is it that I randomly end up following spammers like @globalcopywrite ?? It amazes me that they exist on this planet to spam."

I did a quick check of my timeline to see where I went wrong. I had one link to my website in the previous four days. No other tweets were related to me or generated income for me. The criticism was completely out of left field but it stung, for sure.

LinkedIn Hostility
I added my blog post from last week, 20 Guidelines for Twitter Success, to several discussion groups on LinkedIn. I don't add every post but practical advice on social media is always well received and usually garners a lot of discussion. Away for most of the week, I didn't participate in the discussion but noticed a lot of activity in one of the groups. Later in the week I was sent a nastygram warning me I was in violation of the group rules. Interestingly, the person sending me the note had steered the discussion away from my article to one they had authored and carried on for five days before sending me a terse warning about my bad behaviour.

The Fear of Public Attack
One of the biggest reasons businesses avoid adopting a social media strategy is fear of attack in a public forum resulting in brand damage. Speaking from experience, it's an uncomfortable situation. I've encountered it in the past (read my post on dealing with social media hecklers) but never in so many channels in such close frequency.

The Library vs. The Bookstore
The most puzzling thing is the SPAM accusation. I have not monetised my blog or my website in any way. I do not participate in affiliate marketing. I do not derive revenue from ANY of my social media activity. To put it another way, I'm a library, not a bookstore. In the truest sense of content marketing, I'm giving everything away to anyone that wants to consume it. An allegation of SPAMMING is serious. When it's not true, the person making the claim damages their own credibility.

Lessons Learned
While the experience rattled me, it's also taught me a few lessons.

1) It's pretty easy to figure out who is in your camp and who isn't. If you subscribe to a list and actively engage with the content, you're hardly being SPAMMED.

2) If you build quality networks, you don't have to do a single thing to defend yourself against false accusations. Several people rose to my defence after the Twitter comment both directly and indirectly. I'm very grateful to Paul Pichugin from Blaque Studios – @paulmp – who confronted the Tweep making the allegation. Several other people in my network quietly closed ranks making super nice mentions and sharing my post.

3) A networking group with hostile moderation serves no purpose. It's made me evaluate my participation in networking groups, both online and offline. I've currently pared my membership down to a handful of key groups. I look forward to a reduction in the barrage of requests to connect with total strangers.

The Take-Away
Undeniably, it was a tough week. At times, I considered chucking it all in to focus only on my writing. While I'm not generating any revenue with my social media activity, I certainly benefit from the wealth of knowledge available and an amazing bunch of extremely generous people. There's a lot more to lose by checking out than I could possibly gain. More valuable, I've been given rare insight into who has my best interests at heart and who doesn't. Unfortunately, name calling and bullying are a normal part of life. The only way to productively deal with it is to take it in stride and keep moving forward.

Have you ever been attacked or chastised in a public forum? What happened?

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Image courtesy of Tony the Misfit on www.flickr.com

Did you see the article called 7 Deadly Sins of Twitter? It's an evergreen post from October 2009 that pops up from time to time. I read it again the other day and posted it to my Facebook page. While the theme is irreverent a great technique to get more readers to your blog the advice from Zoey Dowling is spot on.

Zoey compares each one of the 7 deadly sins with a corresponding Twitter behaviour. While I've been guilty of most of the irritants at some point in my Twitter history, it started me thinking about how my use of Twitter has changed with experience. New users often struggle to balance professional and personal information in their stream. Like most things, with practice and a fair bit of trial and error, you can achieve a good balance. Here are my secrets:

Always try to:

• Share the best content you can find
• Reciprocate if someone tweets your content
• Answer every mention
• Reply to every direct message
• Keep most of your tweets related to your line of work
• Pick YOUR battles, don't get involved in every drama going

Never fail to:

• Say thank you
• Attribute any content you share and give credit to the tweep who first shared it
• Unfollow anyone you find offensive and don't offer commentary on the situation

Things NOT to do:

• Don't bag anyone, especially your partner
• Avoid the mundane, banal, scatological and tasteless
• Never use profanity
• If you grandmother would be offended by a tweet, don't send it.
• Avoid politics
• Avoid sexual topics
• Avoid religion
• Don't `out' anyone to Twitter unless they have a Twitter ID. This includes your family and especially your children. Don't mention their names. Don't talk about them except in the most indirect terms.
• Don't say anything on Twitter you wouldn't openly say in front of your management team at work.

Keep in mind:

• Every tweet could potentially be presented to you at the interview for your dream job.
• Everything you tweet will be kept for eternity.

Of course, these rules are meant to be broken. Adhering to them helps me to achieve a professional, yet friendly, tone. I love Twitter but if you're using it for business you can't afford to let it all hang out. There are a lot of ways to get yourself in trouble in the Twitterverse but none of them are difficult to avoid if you take a moment to consider what you're really trying to accomplish.

What are your personal guidelines for Twitter?

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Image Credit: tweet by D'Arcy Norman, on Flickr

Have you ever tried to track down the mailing address of a business? How about a phone number? More and more often, I'm finding websites don't have any real detail on their Contact page, just a form to fill out. It bugs me to no end but when I queried one business owner about why he didn't include his postal address on his website, he said he didn't want to get junk mail. Really?

I was startled to hear this. Junk mail is almost obsolete. I've had my mailing address on my website for over two years. I can't think of a single piece of junk mail I've received. What I don't want to do is discourage someone from contacting me via the post if that's their preferred method. I want to encourage anyone to get in touch whatever way is the most convenient to them. Working on the principle of content marketing – and I hope you are – drawing people to your business is the hardest part. Once you've got them at your door, make sure someone answers their knock.

I've noticed other things businesses do to protect themselves from being contacted by the general public. Interestingly, the general public is full of prospective customers so what's the point in not being completely transparent about where to find you?

Unlisted phone number
If you're an A-list celebrity or get all your business through an agent, by all means make it difficult to find your phone number. Otherwise, put your phone number where people can find it one your website, in the telephone directories and in online business directories. Plenty of people still enjoy the immediacy of the phone. If they can't find your number, they'll move on to someone else.

Protected Twitter Account
Why any business sees the need to protect their Twitter account is beyond me. The whole idea of social media is to make it easy for people to find you and connect. When you protect your tweets so no one can see you or must get permission to join your exclusive ranks you're greatly reducing the likelihood of prospective customers finding you. You're likely eliminating one of the most amazing aspects of Twitter, total strangers helping you out.

Validation Services
I refuse to connect with anyone requiring a validation of my social media profile. It gets my back up to think I need to pass some sort of authentication before I can follow, connect or friend someone. What is the point? Are the bots and spammer so distasteful you're going to ask every single legitimate follower to jump through your little hoop?

Contact Forms
There's no disputing contact forms serve a purpose but they shouldn't be the only thing on your contact page. Put your phone number, email address, mailing address and social media IDs on your contact page, too. Make it super easy for people to find you.
SPAM, bots and crank calls are a fact of life. You can take steps to prevent these nuisances from reaching you but, in the process, you'll also be preventing potential customers and networking opportunities, too. By all means, use email filters, moderate the comments your blog post and make sure you've got anti-virus programs running on your computer. When it comes to contact details and social media profiles, let the masses find you. They might just want to spend some money at your company.

What things have you seen businesses do to inadvertently discourage business?

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Image credit: Letters From Home Pen and Airmail Envelopes by Pink Sherbet Photography, on Flickr

I've been living and breathing content marketing for the past two weeks, even more than usual. While my own blog languishes, I've been busy guest posting and working on the rollout of the first issue of the Australian edition of Chief Content Office (CCO). It's been an exhilarating time.

"It is a quality of revolutions not to go by old lines or old laws; but to break up both, and make new ones." Abraham Lincoln, 12 January 1848

The Revolution in Upon Us
I was delighted to be invited to guest post at the Loft Creative blog. The Content Marketing Revolution is Upon Us addresses a huge paradigm shift in the way people are thinking about marketing. Check it out if you're not sure what content marketing is all about. If you take the Lincoln description of revolution, content marketing fits. Consumers are demanding more information and moving business into publishing. Outbound techniques broadcasting to your target audience have lost their effectiveness. In full swing in the USA, we're starting to see the emergence of the revolution here in Australia.

Courting International Audiences
Part of launching CCO was getting the magazine localised for publication in Australia and Europe. I selected the name Global Copywriting for my company because I've worked in corporate environments in so many places. I've been on all sides of the localisation issue and offered to write a post for it at the Content Marketing Institute. Once I got started, it was hard to stop. What I thought would be a quick article ended up being two meaty pieces.

The Great Language Divide
The first post titled, Produce Local, Distribute Global: 3 Keys to Your Content Marketing Localization Plan deals with the strategy required to get your content successfully published in a different market. Once I was done with the strategy, it was time to address the nitty-gritty of localising content. Read Lost in Translation? An 11-Step Checklist for Localizing Content if you have any intention of doing business outside of your home country, even one sharing a common language.

For more insight to localising content for a foreign market, have a look at the Global Reach Copywriting blog by Ann-Christin Lindstedt.

Have you ever distributed your content in another country?

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Image Credit: ABRAHAM LINCOLN in 3-D by Okinawa Soba, on Flickr