Words, Words, Mere Words...Writing Style for Print vs. Web

Print publications — from newspaper articles to marketing brochures — contain linear content that's often consumed in a more relaxed setting and manner than the solution-hunting behavior that characterizes most high-value Web use. Web content must be brief and get to the point quickly, because users are likely to be on a specific mission. In many cases, they've pulled up the page through search. Web users want actionable content; they don't want to fritter away their time on (otherwise enjoyable) stories that are tangential to their current goals. >>Full Story

Thoughts// Jakob Nielson has been called the "the king of usability" and I try and read his latest usability tips as much as time allows. His latest work on "writing style" for print versus online and the related research showing that web users are getting more ruthless and selfish when viewing online content is quite fascinating. According to his research, consumers are impatient when viewing content and many "simply to reach a site quickly, complete a task and leave".

He also cites a recent NY Times attention grabbing headline, Coping With the Tall Traveler's Curse; Neilson believes that while the headline might be "enticing and might draw readers in" on paper, the headline doesn't work online because of the headline lacks keywords to draw the user in.

While I wholeheartedly agree on the basic premise of abbreviated copy writing style for the web, I think the travel industry (DMO's in particular) are uniquely positioned to be a bit more free to express themselves online. Unlike banks, e-commerce or auction sites, we're in the business of selling dreams and fantasies; by its nature, vacation dreams are vivid, imaginative and alluring, thus freeing the travel marketer from being "robotic" in his/her writing style, even online! A few rules that our team follows at Travel Oregon are:

1. Whimsical, quirky storytelling style: Our online material, while brief and to the point, takes on a bit of a storytelling style; in our experience, a longer story peppered with rich keywords and appropriate bullets helps to sell the experience better and gets better engagement
   

2. Tell a better digital story by adding photos and/or videos. Our blog stories with video/photos get proportionally longer visits by consumers

3. Use descriptive text for links versus the generic "click here"

4. Write for people, not machines! This is by far my biggest pet peeve with web writing. Yes, definitely pepper your copy with SEO keywords but don't do it to the point where you're disrespecting your audience. Here is a good example (from actual hompage copy of a Portland hotel) of what I mean by a brand writing for machines versus people:
   
   Hotel XXXX is a Portland hotel where style and comfort converge. Situated in the heart of downtown Portland, the Hotel XXXX offers a unique alternative to all other Portland, Oregon hotels. Our guests enjoy the personalized service and lavish hotel amenities that have earned the Hotel XXXX Portland a spot among the world's best hotels. Inside, experience cutting-edge design and unsurpassed comfort. Venture outside and be at the epicenter of all Portland has to offer, including Portland attractions, Portland restaurants, tax free Portland shopping, art galleries and theatre.

Writer's Note: For more on "digital storytelling" checkout the YouTube video above; if you can't see it in your e-mail, please read this story on this blog.

All About Your 'About Us'

"About Us" is usually one of the most highly trafficked sections on a brand website. But if you looked at the brand experience in most, you wouldn't know it. Too often it's static copy ripped out of an annual report or some painful regurgitation of corporate responsibility programs. I'm not against it being static but we're seeing some brands really explore how to narrate their story in a digital age, without getting in the way of the shopping experience. >>Full Story

Thoughts// A good story from Ad Age asks why most of our 'About Us' sections are really not about us...from the consumer's point of view. It this age of digital storytelling and brand-centric everything (raise your hand if you are in the middle of a re-branding) the old, reliable 'About Us' section is simply cut and pasted together with a few paragraphs from various interdepartmental memos, mission statements and a faceless, blacked-out image of 'business workers' from Corbis (check!). As the story pleads, why are we wasting this valuable real estate with such uninspiring and non-brand building copy?

So, why is this important for a travel site.

1) Search engines find everything, so your About Us section is being indexed, bad copy and all, in Google.

2) Consumers look at these sections. While I don't have any official 3rd party studies confirming my suspicions, I will assume that a lot of users tend to skip right to the bottom of sites they are unfamiliar with. Knowing full-well that the above the fold content is marketing fluff (stop it, you know it is) and looking for the site map, about us or FAQ pages (all of which are great for SEO). For example, the site map page on arizonaguide.com...located at the very bottom...is consistently the 5th or 6th most visited page.

Another interesting quote from the article points out that 'but those sections do lay out the basics for someone comparing against competitors with two browsers open.' Ah, competition. Now we are talking.

Some examples:

(some page content was longer than others, so at the risk of making this post too long, we just clipped the first paragraph)

Michigan:
(listed as 'About Michigan')
Michigan is a state blessed with the riches of unspoiled nature: the world's longest freshwater coastline, lakes that feel like oceans, shimmering beaches, miles and miles of cherry orchards, glorious sunrises and sunsets, daytime skies of the deepest blue, nighttime skies scattered with stars.

Oklahoma:
(listed as 'About Oklahoma')
GENERAL INFORMATION
• Oklahoma's current population is 3,450,654 ( 2000, estimated).
• Oklahoma is comprised of 77 counties.
• Oklahoma covers 69,919 square miles.
• Guthrie was the first state capitol of Oklahoma.

Tennessee:
(list as 'About Tennessee)
Traveling to Tennessee makes sense. We have natural beauty, southern hospitality, serene weather, and something for everyone. And, we are within a day's drive of 65 percent of the United States population. What more could you want in a travel destination? Tennessee welcomes you to explore everything we have to offer.

Nevada:
(listed as 'About Us')
Nevada’s tourism department is responsible for promoting and marketing Nevada as a tourism and travel destination. This includes editing, publishing and distributing publications that promote the state of Nevada. A director appointed by the governor directs and supervises all tourism department operations. An 11-member commission advises the tourism department.

Minnesota:
(listed as 'About Minnesota')
There's a lot to know about Minnesota. Here you'll find plenty of facts, figures and informational tidbits about the state's history, geography and climate. Everything from the prehistoric carvings found throughout the state to the 7,326 square miles of water found within its borders. Not to mention, practical travel information like the average low and high temperature throughout the year. One thing is for sure: the more you know about Minnesota, the more you appreciate all that it offers.

As you can see, some of our counterparts are beginning to tell the 'insert state name here' story via the 'About Us' section, not to mention, start to differentiate themselves from other states in the consumers mind.

To put a very simple spin on it, consumers just want to be told why I should do X vs. Y, state A vs. state B and the 'About Us' section is a great place to start.

Of course, there are some states, Arizona included, that simply do not have an 'About Us' section on the site. Which is fine, if there was a rational decision to leave the page off the site, rather than just not being able to write more than 3 lines about yourself.

And not to be out done, after reading the article, we decided that the Travel 2.0 'About Us' section (or About Travel 2.0 as it was called) could us some help as well and provide another example for how you could start re-branding (love that word!) your 'About Us' section.

Old version:

About Travel 2.0:
The Travel 2.0: Interactive Trend Report was originally created to provide insight into the interactive marketing and travel fields for the Arizona Office of Tourism.

In an effort to broaden the scope and reach of the report, the Arizona Office of Tourism invited Travel Oregon to contribute and collaborate on the Interactive Trend Report.

This partnership will present additional views and opinions on the ever-changing interactive marketing landscape, including the latest travel trends, online (and offline) advertising campaigns, Google, user-generated content.

New version:

Why Travel 2.0:

Because...

...we know the travel industry.

...we read hundreds of blogs…usually far too late at night.

...we can’t get enough technology.

...someone had to do it.

...you need insight about social networking for a big presentation.

...we blog even while on vacation.

...your peers are reading it.

...there are too many experts who are not really experts.

...travel trends are constantly changing.

...analytics is hard.

...it's free.

Ah, I can feel the Travel 2.0 brand becoming stronger every day.

Usability is Worth Rappin' About....

How do you improve the usability and customer experience of your site? Forget attending conferences or reading blogs. Just check out this awesome usability rap video! Enjoy.



And if you're craving more, check out m0serious' take on Paid Search and Link Building.

Word of the Week - Google PageRank

Google PageRank is an algorithm used by Google to determine the weight of a set of linked (or hyperlinked) web pages. It is one of the (assumed to be) primary pieces of the larger Google Search algorithm which determines order of appearance in a keyword search.

A larger number of quality links from high PageRank sites will increase your PageRank.

Of course, that is the condensed version, for a complete and technical explanation of PageRank, I would recommend the PageRank article on Wikipedia.

More FREE Ways to Track Your Web Presence

Due to the popularity of our post last week, 'Easy and FREE Ways to Track Your Online Presence...Plus, See What California is Up To', I thought we would mention a couple other online tools that can help you track and understand you presence on the web.

Not to mention kill off a few hours at work obsessing over your Google Page Rank.

Google Trends: Speaking of which, Google Trends is a good (and fascinating) look at trends relating to keyword searches via Google. For example, you can enter two keywords...such as 'ski resorts' and 'cruises'...and be presented with a graphical representation of the number of searches for those words. See the chart above. Of course, very granular or specific keywords might not show any results, but it is an interesting way to determine search volume, on a timeline, from a high level.
http://www.google.com/trends

Microsoft adCenter Labs: Ah, probably my favorite, not to mention the (at times) most confusing, free stats / SEO tool out there. While Microsoft commonly gets overlooked by Google and Yahoo! in the ad sales space, the adCenter Labs offering is a great look into some of the data available from search engines (not to mention a scary look into how much Microsoft and Google know about your search patterns). Stats available include basic information such as Ad Text Writer, which automatically generate text ads for an input URL, and Keyword Group Detection. However, if you have a computer science degree from Oxford (or a lot of free time) you can investigate topics such as 'Entity Association Graph' and 'Context-Based Acronym Resolution.' In all seriousness, adCenter Labs is another great free tool.
http://adlab.msn.com/

Quintura: Our final example is the 'visual search engine' Quintura, which displays your results as well as a related keyword cloud. The cloud results provide an interesting (and slightly addictive) view of your key search terms as well as some insight into other keywords that you might have been unaware of.
http://www.quintura.com/

Back-to-school SEO

It's that time of year again when the kids head back to school and the air begins to hint at the coming of fall. I'm sure the first few days of school are spent doing a little refresh to get all the kids back up to speed after the summer months. Of course SEOs don't get summer breaks and the learning doesn't ever really stop or even slow down. But that doesn't mean that a little SEO refresher every now and again isn't useful or is any less valuable.

Here are 10 important elements that should always remain top-of-mind with every SEO. >>Full Story

Thoughts// As an e-marketer, it's easy to get inundated and lost in the plethora of tools currently available at our disposal to tell the brand story. While blogs, RSS, widgets and Twitter may give us additional hooks to tell the story and build relationships with consumers, let's face it, organic search is by far the overwhelming traffic driver to most destination sites. And yet, sadly, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is often an afterthought in many marketing budget line items.

This 101 on SEO is a timely and much needed refresher course on some basic SEO tactics. Additionally, here are some "must read" articles for SEO:

• Top 15 SEO tools - http://www.seoposition.com/the-top-15-free-seo-tools.html


• Top SEO mistakes by newbies - http://www.jenniferslegg.com/2007/09/09/top-mistakes-newbie-seos-make

Finally, if you're looking for proof that SEO matters, look no further than the NY Times. The Times last week figured out that there was more value in opening up its entire archives to the public versus locking them up behind a subscription site. Vivian L. Schiller, senior VP of NYTimes.com stated, "What wasn’t anticipated was the explosion in how much of our traffic would be generated by Google, by Yahoo and some others."