Articles
Tag: optimizing content
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Why Some Content is Deliberately Complex
Sometimes, we are fools for complexity. When we hear complex language we can't help but be impressed, even when we don't understand what's being said.
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Hidden Power of Content
Content influences offline purchasing behavior in profound ways. Its online influence is even greater. "People say, I don't trust my own experience, but I trust those numbers," Christopher Hsee told Time Magazine in December 2008, when commenting on how people can be unduly influenced by product descriptions.
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Avoiding Search Engine Optimization Madness
Optimize for the searcher, not the search engine. Focus on your customers, not on the technology. It is incredibly important to get found when your customers search. However, it is even more important for your customers to find what they are looking for.
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Web Content Migration: Disastrous Strategy
There is probably no worse strategy for an intranet or public website than content migration. It is doomed to failure from the very start.Joe the manager picks up a jug. Inside that jug is milk that is curdled, sour and foul smelling.
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The Business Case for Deleting Content
The more you delete, the more you simplify. The more you simplify, the more you increase the chances of your customers succeeding on your website.I recently worked with an organization that had managed to delete a substantial quantity of content from its website. It was not an easy process.
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How Reliable is Your Customer Feedback?
Listening to customers is not enough. You must listen to the right ones. Is the feedback you are getting for your website truly reflective of the needs of the majority of your customers? Too often, websites get feedback that reflects the 'squeaky wheel' syndrome. (The squeaky wheel gets oiled.
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10 Keys to Success with Web Analytics
Web analytics has become increasingly mainstream. And with advent of web events vs. pages, video analytics and now the surge of mobile content metrics, the field has become a rather complex one. I'm sitting in the one of the many workshops kicking off the JBoye 2008 conference here in Arhus,
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Is Web Content Localization a Race to the Bottom?
It often seems that the primary purpose of localization is to create unreadable English that is cheap to translate into unreadable German.A great many organizations do not believe content has any real value. They see it is as a cost, a necessary evil.
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Hidden Costs of Self-Service
A self-service website can only be effective when people can complete the tasks they came to complete. The toll booths on a motorway I regularly use were removed recently. In their place is an automatic system called Eflow that captures your car registration.
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Obsessed by Technology
It's time for a more realistic view of technology. Human input is still useful, and in some situations essential.
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Choosing the Right Classification Words
Climate change or global warming? Pandemic flu or bird flu? Learning or training? Should we choose the 'correct' words or the words people actually use?According to Google, every month an average of 300,000 people search for climate change, while 2.2 million search for global warming.
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Block Reading: How We Read on the Web
We don't scan a webpage. Instead, we scan a particular block or section of it.I was working with a company who, based on research, had discovered a top intranet task.
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How to Market to the Information Rich
The Internet thrives in information-rich societies. Traditional communications and marketing thrive in information-poor ones.The job of marketing and advertising was much easier in the Twentieth Century. It could inform people of genuinely novel things like cars and soap powder, microwaves and computers.
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Writing Website Headlines that Connect
Headlines can be extremely effective tools to engage your online visitors and entice them to gather more information about your products, services and business.Following are three guidelines to help you create headlines that connect: 1.
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