Social Validation: A Powerful Online Decision-Making Influence
While reading countless lawn mower reviews online researching which model to buy, I had one of those "What would I have done before the internet?" moments. My dad had a Lawn Boy mower growing up that is still running so that's a strong endorsement. I spotted two of my neighbors with Lawn Boys, so I would have talked to them to validate my dad's testimonial. If I still wasn't convinced, the Home Depot associate telling me that they sell more Lawn Boys than any other mower would have sealed the deal. This is what social validation looked like before the internet.
The Four Stages of Content Marketing
This month Chris Butler follows up January's article on content with one that methodically builds a long-term but comprehensive content marketing strategy. If your goal is to make it to the top, you'll need to learn how to successfully master each step in-between and maintain a slow and steady pace...
Emerging Technologies in Global Public Health
Today I had the privilege of speaking to a seminar on emerging technologies in global public health at UNC's School of Public Health. Needless to say, public health is not exactly my area of expertise, but I was asked to focus more on how the internet and mobile devices are being used so that the graduate students attending could begin to think about how technological progress affects their work...
Marketing as a Profit Center
Here's a light Friday afternoon video blog post on a topic I've been marveling at lately--making money both from and for marketing. Sounds odd, doesn't it? Hopefully I'm able to make sense of it in the video.
Avoid Media Miscommunication
Many agencies try to communicate with their clients about what kind of website they plan to build using absolutely any means possible other than the web. They make site maps and wireframes using sticky notes, PDFs, spreadsheets, power point presentations, binders full of paper
How Much Does A Site’s Information Design Matter?
To take a look at why a site
An Introduction to Lead Management and Nurturing
The Most Important Step in the Web Development Process
Information design is the neglected stepchild of web development. This is unfortunate, though, because the truth is that a site
My Original Expert Content
Agencies once had the luxury of being able to explain to a potential prospect what they did and how they did it either in person or over the phone. That first contact was one in which agencies could craft their message specifically for the prospect. Now, however, that level of control is gone. People constantly evaluate your firm based solely on your website.
When presenting these ideas to an agency recently, I displayed an agency site that had been quite successful as a marketing site. The creative director happened to be in the room, and he challenged me on the merits of the site I showed, saying that he thought the particular page I displayed was boring and certainly would not earn the respect of anyone coming to the site and vetting the agency on their creative merits. For me, one of the best parts of giving presentations is the participation from the group to whom I am presenting. The questions, challenges, and affirmations I hear usually end up being the highlights of the talk. In this instance, the creative director’s comment offered a great opportunity for me to speak about one of the most subtle, important, and misunderstood details of how the agency website works.
The page I displayed was a blog post, and, as an element of the site’s content strategy, its job fell neatly on the “inform” side of things. There will be pages on your site that primarily function to inform, and others to inspire. Agencies frequently believe that every element on every page must exude creativity so that a visitor to the site can admire how much attention they paid to every little detail of their site’s design.
The problem with this approach is that all those considered design elements can end up getting in the way of what the visitor is trying to do on your site. I am not saying that the design of your site does not matter. The point is that the site’s creativity should not get in the way of the ultimate goal of the site. I recommend viewing your site as a sparse and functional canvas upon which you portray only your best work and most compelling thoughts. Inspire your visitors by the work in your portfolio, but not necessarily by the creativity of the portfolio itself.
Content does not have to be aesthetically boring, does it? Take it as a design challenge to figure out how to make a blog post or a white paper beautiful without distracting from the content. Saying that “we cannot have content pages on our site because they are boring” is not a sustainable excuse.
Beyond the basic point that your site ought to inspire your visitors, it is not my place to tell you how to go about designing your site or its portfolio. The Content Strategy section details exactly how to create a site that excels at informing your site visitors about your firm’s expertise.
This post is an excerpt from my book, "A Website That Works."
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