New year, new copyright date

Don't forget to update your copyright notice from 2007 to 2008.

What an ad hoc alliance can do

When clients need services I can't provide, I try to connect them with someone who can. In the case of my new client, it was Mary Beth Sanders of Metography Visual Communications.

I had never worked with Mary Beth, but an SF IABC colleague highly recommended her for web design work, and that was good enough for me.

Thanks to Mary Beth's incredible talent and dedication, we delivered all new marketing collateral -- from taglines to templates. Check out the website before and after:

Before:

After:

Of course, the client deserves a lions share of the credit for doing the heavy lifting -- articulating the company mission and vision so we could communicate the message in text and images. Well done, Hokura.

Write persuasive links

Grokdotcom gives some sage advice on how to write persuasive links, in response to a recent MarketingSherpa test of "click to continue," "continue to article" and "Read more" (none of which appeal).

They say a persuasive link joins an imperative verb with an implied benefit. For example:

"Steve found an investment secret that changed his life. See how you may be able to double your income in one year."

This is a great concept that is, in my opinion, poorly executed. Cut the copy in half: Learn how you could, too. Not ideal, but shorter.

Whenever possible, I start link text with a verb to give a command: Get help. Donate now. Read an excerpt. Download pdf. For the test case above, Continue reading.

No more happy talk

Jakob Nielsen's latest Alertbox, titled "Blah-Blah Text: Keep, Cut or Kill?" chastises copywriters for filling home page intros with meaningless blather.

Instead, we should cut the crap and deliver actionable content. Orient users to the website (what's it about). And tell them what to do next (e.g., download product sheet). After we draft the copy, we should cut it in half before publishing.

I'm going to keep this alert on my desktop while I draft content for a client's new website. Keep it real.

Using tabbed menus

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, "Tabs, Used Right," gives tips on how to use tabs correctly. His premise is that you should only use tabs to present alternating views of similar information -- for example, stock market indices for North America, Europe and Asia. He points to Yahoo! Finance as an example.

Oddly, the Yahoo! Finance site also uses tabs "incorrectly" by Nielsen's standards, because the tabs across the top of the home page include drop-down menus, and each tab selection presents a different type of content -- news, personal finance, portfolio, etc -- and you can't select the tab itself.

Have you seen a good example of hybrid navigation that presents clear and consistent choices?

Web analytics definitions

The Web Analytics Association (WWA) has just published standard definitions for 26 web analytic metrics covering the areas of site visits, content and conversion. This initiative attempts to standardize the way we measure and report Web site traffic so that we can compare our results to industry benchmarks.

Having written about this recently, I can tell you that marketers are confused about what the various traffic statistics mean and how to tell if they're achieving their goals.

Jason Burby, co-chair of the WWA Web Standards Committee, explains how the new definitions will affect marketers in his ClickZ column, "The Importance of Web Analytics Standards." He concludes:

"Web analytics has left the hands of the über-technical folks and [gone] into the hands of marketers who can act on this data. These aren't Web analytics experts, they're Web strategy experts ... who may run a specific portion of the Web site. They must understand site performance is key, but they won't spend all day using an analytics tool. ... They must understand analytics basics so they can act on data and change the site accordingly."

Download the report for these very straightforward definitions.

Stopping content thieves

ClickZ Network Editor-in-Chief Rebecca Lieb gives us step-by-step instructions for tracking down and deterring the sploggers and other content thieves who make money by swiping stuff off other websites. She admits, though, they're hard to stop.

Here is one of the splogs ripping off my content, which I found doing a Google Blog Search on my name. There where others, but Blogger must do a good job of policing splogs, because they're now MIA.

In my case, the publisher owns the copyrights, and this particular splog appears to have been tested and abandoned, so it's not worth pursuing. But others are actively racking up Google AdSense revenue by padding their sites with keyword-rich articles not their own and without permission.

Here are the steps Lieb recommends taking:

1. If it's a website, identify the owner using WhoIs or Alexa.
2. Email a cease-and-desist order that documents the transgression, sets a deadline for response and threatens legal action.
3. Engage in polite dialog to reach a satisfactory conclusion.
4. If it's a splog, notify the blog host that the site violates the terms of service.
5. Report the AdSense policy violation to Google.
6. Report search results that include stolen content to Google and Yahoo.

The best outcome is getting these thieves kicked out of the search engine indexes, which Lieb says "renders them invisible."

Thanks for these great resources, Rebecca!

Conversion goals and funnels

I started using Google Analytics in May and am overwhelmed by how much you can learn about web traffic patterns (I just wrote about this very topic).

For example, Google Analytics enables you to select up to four conversion goals for your website and define the funnel pages leading up to each goal. My goals are simple. I want visitors to:

1. Read my blog.
2. Review my portfolio.
3. Contact me.

I structured three "funnels" to see if my site visitors clicked through the way I thought they might. They didn’t. But here's what I did learn:

• 46% of my website traffic is generated by an organic Google search.
• 51% of my visitors review my portfolio after reading my blog.
• 100% of the visitors who review my portfolio first go on to read my blog.
• 0% contact me.

That last one is disappointing. But the truth is, because the "contact me" option launches an email, Google Analytics can't track it. I need to set up a web-based contact form if I want to track visitors all the way through the conversion funnel.

The reports are highly detailed, if also a bit confusing, but I did discover that freelance writer portfolio is my top keyword. About once a week, someone finds me by searching that phrase. Pretty cool.

Google Analytics

The free Google Analytics tool has been upgraded to help you learn more about your website visitors. Watch the video about how it works.

Meta tag word counts

I recently refreshed my memory on how to write meta tags for a volunteer website project. Turns out, meta tags have gone out of fashion on the SEO scene. But two tips I found did help:

• Meta Description Tags: Google displays up to 160 characters (including spaces) or about 25 words
• Meta Keyword Tags: Search engines that support meta tags index up to 1000 characters (including spaces)

It's worth noting that SEO guru Danny Sullivan has said he no longer writes meta keyword tags and doesn't think they are worth the time. But, meta description tags are still very useful SEO tools.