Website design newsletter
Every month we publish interesting news articles relating to website design, search engine trends and other exciting changes happening online.
June 2007
Contents
Creating engaging website content
Privacy concerns over Google Earth's new "Street View"!
Retailers deny that internet shopping is a threat - yet
Creating engaging website content
1st June 2007
Homepage: the most important for your visitors
Homepage text is sadly overlooked by many website owners. It can too easily become crowded with lots of different subjects and no clear message. It's good advice to write the text for all the other main pages in the website before attempting the homepage. Then consider the message that the entire website speaks - summarise the message into 3 sentences: what is the website's aim, which visitors it is aimed at and what information (in summary) is available. These sentences can be used in the most prominent place on the page. Other suitable content for a homepage include: a small promotional space for e.g. a message of the month and contact details.
Get the tone right
Think about the websites in your sector that you admire, look again at their content and jot down the reasons why you like it. Generally the content will be engaging, up to date and worded so that most people can quickly understand it. You can re-use some of the ideas, but be sure to re-write the majority of the text so that it becomes yours and flows well. Also, you need to avoid copying anyone else's text to avoid copyright issues.
Use your own knowledge
You may not think you can write your own content, but you'd be surprised how much of the general knowledge you have about your business and your sector would be of interest to other people. Remember, not everyone has the same understanding and breadth of experience that you have.
Keep it simple, use short phrases
People are generally in a hurry and many only skim across the text to find what they are looking for before leaving, so keep the text short. Where possible use bullet points, or write very short sentences.
Write for your target audience
Look again at the websites in your sector that you admire and note the tone of voice that the text uses, is it friendly or formal? Which would appeal best to your target audience? If necessary re-write the text to match the tone you think will work best. It's important to use words that your target audience would use themselves. Don't baffle them with technical terms, unless provided in a separate clearly labelled way, e.g. "Technical details" page.
Use keywords
Look at your website traffic statistics to see which key phrases your visitors used to find your website. Then use a keyword tool, e.g. Google's External Keyword tool to find more suitable popular keyphrases. Make sure you use the most important ones within the text in your most popular website pages. Use these keywords also in link text, headings, image alt tags etc to re-affirm to your visitors that they have come to the right website for their needs.
Encourage the reader to take action
The following are good examples:
- Email us today to receive your free.!
- Download the report
- Complete the form to enter the competiton
- Read the next Fox Web Works newsletter to find out more.!
Published by Elisabeth Soffe, www.foxwebworks.com
Privacy concerns over Google Earth's new "Street View"!
1st June 2007
A new internet map service that allows users to "travel" through city streets via real images has raised privacy concerns after it captured people in a variety of compromising situations.
The new "Street View" feature on Google's Maps and Earth services gives a pedestrian's eye view of much of San Francisco, New York, Las Vegas, Denver and Miami.
The static street scenes are seamless compilations of photographs in which car licence plates, homes and people are visible. The images were captured by a van-mounted spherical camera which captured video footage in several directions. In the process, Google photographed various potentially embarrassing scenes that had been highlighted on the internet within hours of Street View's launch.
Google said it planned to extend the service to other urban areas around the world, but was not able to say when this will happen. Kevin Bankston, a lawyer at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group, said Google was "irresponsible" to launch such a product without also providing technology to allow people who had been photographed to hide their identity.
Apart from personal privacy violation, there were wider concerns about people entering or leaving domestic violence shelters, Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, fertility clinics and controversial political meetings, he said.
Greg Sterling, an internet maps expert, said it was getting harder for individuals to remain invisible as technology becomes more advanced. He said: "Relatively speaking, privacy has been eroded by all this readily discoverable information."
Google has described Street Level as a "rich, immersive browsing experience". The US internet giant Google, stressed that it only featured images taken on public property, adding in a statement: "This imagery is no different from what any person can readily capture or see walking down the street." The company said it would routinely review requests to remove "objectionable imagery".
Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
Retailers deny that internet shopping is a threat - yet
2nd June 2007
Garage sales have found a rival in internet auction sites. Getting up early for a garage sale is one of the great New Zealand Saturday pastimes. But garage sales, second-hand bookshops and even purveyors of new goods have discovered a real rival in internet trading.
Last year, Kiwis spent more than $1.5 billion on goods and services over the internet. And a recent Nielson Media survey showed 1.25 million of us now shop online - an increase of 400% in five years. This may be a relative drop in the bucket but, if overseas trends are a guide, traditional retailers may soon be shaking in their shoes.
Publicly, however, retailers deny the internet's a threat. Sue Tuia, of Cash Converters, says: "We don't see TradeMe as a major competitor." The chain, which sells second-hand goods, says it has seen no noticeable decrease in sales since the rise of Trade Me. Ms Tuia says that's because many of the chain's customers do not use the internet - or even have a credit card. But Cash Converters does use Trade Me itself, to sell specialised goods to a wider market and to auction abandoned goods.
"Bricks-and-mortar" retailers deny internet trading is hurting sales. Retailers Association spokesman Barry Hellberg says many outlets are using the web to supplement sales. Among supermarkets, "only one of the two big companies actually uses the web to sell direct", and the country's biggest retailer, The Warehouse, uses its website "only to promote its image".
He believes some consumers refuse to buy online because they fear their credit card details will be misused. But it's also easier to get faulty goods repaired, replaced or refunded from a physical store, he says. Yet Trade Me's success has spawned a raft of retail sites. Telecom's Ferrit sells new goods, while others provide search facilities which compare prices and guide users to deals and retailers.
Internet traders are betting on overseas trends which show that 5 per cent of shopping in the US and 10 per cent in Britain is done online. Software entrepreneur Rod Drury is certain the internet is the future of shopping. Already, music is downloaded, many hotel bookings are emailed, and Air New Zealand has "reinvented itself" using the web as a retail channel. But he agrees shopping is a social experience in New Zealand and doubts that will change.
"We have a lot more of the owner-operated stores which are probably a much more interesting shopping experience than the homogeneous stuff that you get in the States, where every mall is exactly the same. So I don't think the internet is necessarily the death-knell of retail because I think retail is more than just about buying stuff." What Mr Drury, a director on Trade Me's advisory board, does see is people increasingly doing their product research over the internet.
Internet shopping is also generating growth in associated areas, such as the courier industry. This is evident even in New Zealand, where NZ Post credits Trade Me with a strong growth in parcel mail when letters are on the decline.
Source: www.herald.co.nz
