It is widely understood that a content management system allows you to both edit the current content of your site and add new content using the provided templates. One advantage of a CMS that’s not that widely known is personalization. Instead of sending everyone to your homepage and hoping that they connect the dots properly, you can create custom “mini-sites” for each prospect, using hand-picked samples to show how you meet their particular needs.  Using a CMS in this way evolves your website from an informational brochure to a …

Nowadays most business websites have a Content Management System driving them so their owners can make edits without having to go back to the original web developer. They have become sort of the norm and most business owners request such functionality when purchasing a new site.

If you hire the right web developer, the process of building such a site will be smooth with your having to make some key decisions along the way. However, regardless of how great your web developer is, he will eventually require content from you.

In the past—with static websites—content could be provided in simple Word documents… …

Each morning I walk Archee McLeash passed JFK University’s lovely creekside campus. Recently, they installed new No Smoking signs. The signs look like this:
Please

That’s the sign: The word please with a no smoking graphic.

Why did they include please on the sign? Please implies a request, that a person can make a choice to comply — or not.  However, here in California, it’s against the law to smoke within 20 feet of a public building. There’s no choice. I’d rather see a sign that says, flat out, Don’t smoke …

A blog is an invaluable tool when dealing with a public relations crisis. With a blog you can correct errors and quash rumors, advance your company message, and deliver the facts ahead of the news cycle. Through fair and timely treatment your blog will show that you are concerned and responsive, and allow you to influence the lens through which others view the crisis.

It is important to focus on transparency, information sharing, honesty, and accountability. These four elements are essential to maintaining trust and credibility, whether you are a multinational aerospace company or a local coffee shop …

Your marketing writing doesn’t need to be all sell, sell, sell.  Your writing can speak to your customers pre-sale and then post-sale.

I’ve mentioned before the differences between marketing writing and technical writing. You can use both on your web site, in your newsletters, and in various communications to customers and potential customers.
Think “Post-Sale”
After you sell your product or service to a customer—the work was performed and paid for—he still needs to hear from you.

Depending on your business, your customer needs instructions or opinion. If you sell garage door openers, provide installation and how-to-use instructions. If you sell mortgages or cosmetic …

….but you’re not.  So remove the Latin abbreviations i.e., e.g., and etc. from your writing.

Maybe you got used to using the Latin when you were writing term papers in college.   You’re in the business world now, communicating with customers and colleagues.

It’s time to express yourself in English. Why? Because:

• Writing to customers should be conversational, not a thesis.  Do you ever say  i.e. or e.g. out loud?
• Not all of your readers speak English as a first language. They might come from a country that doesn’t use Latin abbreviations in its educational system.
• You just might be using them incorrectly.  A lot …
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One of the types of reproduction that is allowed under the United States’ Fair Use laws is duplication for the purpose of parody, and as today is the 43rd anniversary of “Paperback Writer” reaching #1 on the American charts it also seemed an appropriate time to roll out this caution against banal and derivative blogging.

SEO writer

SEO writer (SEO writer)
Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my blog?
It took me hours to write, will you give a slog?
It’s based on some posts by a man named Cutts
And I need a job, so I want to be a SEO writer,
SEO …

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You catch more flies with honey. Make sure readers stick to your web site!

We’ve talked about how to keep readers on your site longer. Now let’s look at how to get them to come back often.

Offer Your Expertise

You are an expert at what you do. Make your web site a resource of the useful, the informative or the entertaining: Reader will remember you. They’ll bookmark you. They’ll come back to your site—and to your business—and they’ll mention both to others.

Let’s say you’re promoting your restaurant. Post the menu and some ambience-expressive photos and you’ve …

Over the past couple of decades, Internet users have learned that not all websites are created equal. There are a few things that the web savvy browser will look for without even realizing it. If you do not provide the answer, your visitors will come to their own conclusions.

Who wrote this page?

Remember that not everyone will find your website by typing it’s URL directly into their web browser. Most new visitors will follow links from search engines or other sites. One of the first things they’ll want to learn upon arriving is whom they are …
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