Content Writing Strategy – Part 1 by Guest Author on December 15, 2011

 0 Comments

This is a guest post by Ashish Nandwani.

This is a series of posts about content strategy, how useful it is for us to take care of it? 

From how long we have been building websites and talking about user experience, website designing, testing, and content-management systems? Who cares? Who wants to spend a hell lot of time with respect to search engine’s priority? It’s possibly called search engine optimization; those people will take care of it, No? The process is hectic and confusing; someone will take care of it. Above were some myths and common understanding among people who pretend to know it all. As a whole community we haven’t been talking about the ‘content’ itself. Writing and understanding content is a different thing altogether. But we need to know it (as people exploring web), a designer should be saying ‘I cannot provide SEO but I will use the best practices which would help the project’s process. Everyone is a part, part of a process.

What do you do on web? Today, I looked at some books on ‘flipkart’, read some of my favorite blogs, compared prices of two BB phones. What about you? Did you have some goals in your mind or your journey was vague (Or vogue? Not talking about the fashion magazine here). On a serious note, Almost 90% of us come on web just to find something specific. Let it how to plan a birthday bash, how to put on ---, weight? (What did u think) or maybe you are trying to impress your girlfriend. You have something specific in your mind. You come /visit websites for content, Hell yes. Users try to find an answer to their questions and as a content writer/strategist try to answer questions (not only in the FAQ’s). The content must be accurate, easy and friendly.

Do we really have time while looking for our answer? How much do we navigate? How many results do we click on? Do we like to wait and read? Not really. Most of the web users skip read and run all at the same time. We want our answers (information) as soon as possible; this makes our stay ‘hurried’. What everyone has to understand is that, they are trying to do a task what they find sometimes is not relevant or rather is very clumsy and lengthy. Not anywhere close. If users don’t like it at the first few seconds, they are out of here. It’s a very user centered approach we have to follow (Let it be design, content, whatever.) After –all, the website is made for users not for your client. Write in a way such that busy people find content pretty easily.

We relate and think as we read and that can differ enormously among different set of people. We understand and take it differently. How can one identify the audiences? Demographics? First of all, listing the major set of people identifying the business is very important. Are they travelers, browsers, lookers, bookers or hookers? The very next thing is to know more about them. Assumptions may not always work. Like, if you have to write for a travel website, meet some of the users who will use your website, Make them fill forms on your website, Talk to marketing, think about your Mission. You can ask people when they (time) visit the site. You can go on to list these different people with different keywords. Experienced Traveler, Amateur, Occasional? All of them look at content differently. We have to write in a way that leaves everyone happy at the end. What matters to your users will help you write the best content. You can make portfolios of different users, Paste them on the wall and start thinking. What do these users want? How do they look at Web? Emotions, technology, demographics all play a major role here.

(P.S-More on home page/navigation pages design and content later)

Read more...

Small mistakes get hyped, no mistakes (read work) get hyped too! by Rahul on December 11, 2011

 0 Comments

In the professional world of the corporates, there is an invisible network of thoughts that is spread all across. The wavelengths from different individuals, each uniquely different from the other, cater to it’s ever-growing richness and complexity. You ought to be smart enough to get a feel and sense of the wavelengths that are invisibly travelling right under your nose. Sounds familiar? Well, it won’t if you are a newbie or you remain always focused in your machine all the time. It’s the sixth sense that prevails.

The sole reason you were hired is for accomplishing the work assigned to you. This is the basic activity which must be performed. Your supervisor will see your work, and accordingly gather an impression of you with time. This is the after activity when you finish your work. The tricks of the trade lies from the end of the basic activity till the end of the after activity. Let’s say you are a brilliant coder, your other team member is a brilliant photographer. He sees creativity and art in everything, and loves to stay updated with the latest cricket scores. When Sehwag hit 200, he was the first one to update everyone.

You tried to get the message across to him many times, but failed. So you get back to work, glued to your monitor. But your friend continues to keep a shadow update of the progress of the assigned task. The smallest of your mistakes, is blown out so much out of proportion, that everyone suddenly feels “What the hell are you doing! Your friend is so much more better at doing the same stuffs! Why don’t you just damn hand him over the responsibility?? Are you nuts?” You start to feel guilty. And try reassessing yourself.

This scenario to an observant onlooker, will become clear as crystal. You should be reassessing your surroundings instead of yourself. The sad part is, your supervisor isn’t always an observant onlooker, since he has lot of responsibilities on his shoulders, and can hear only the louder of the noises a team or different teams. Your friend has successfully played his game which he is best at. With one shot, he down-played you, as well as up-played himself. You are left to ponder over your shortcomings like a needle in a haystack.

Read more...