Writing the words for your website

March 8th, 2010

writing the words for your websiteWRITING THE WORDS FOR YOUR WEBSITE

Great News! It’s actually very easy to write good text for your website. You just need to follow a few simple rules:

  1. Nobody Cares About You
    You get to pay for the website, but realise that it’s not actually for you…it’s for your customers. Visitors to your website don’t care about you…they care about themselves. Visitors don’t care how many years experience you’ve got, who you’ve worked with or how you started out. If they want that information they’ll click on your “About Us” page.
  2. Everybody is Selfish
    Visitors do care about what you sell, how it will help them, what it costs, how soon they can get it, what guarantees they get. You know…stuff that matters.
  3. Everybody is in a Rush
    It doesn’t matter to your visitors if you are not great at writing long wordy sentences full of business speak and jargon. In fact, they’d prefer it if you didn’t anyway. Our golden rule is say what you want to say in as few words as possible. Bullet points and lists are ace. Big long boring paragraphs are not, because you will be the only one reading them.
  4. Don’t be Self Centred
    Try to use the words “we” and “I” as infrequently as possible. Try to use the word “you” as frequently as possible. Following this rule helps you to connect with your customers. Not following this rule means you are going to bore your visitors (potentially to death). If you find struggle with this, go ahead and write your “About Us” page first. Let it all out.
  5. So What?
    Remember the old marketing adage “Benefits, not Features”. Every time you talk about a feature of your product or service, try and turn that sentence into a benefit that your customer will understand. (simple example: using a particular materiel is a feature, a smooth finish is a benefit)
  6. Take a Bullet!
    The easiest way to write any web page is just with bullet points. It makes you focus on what’s important and stops you getting distracted by wording and style. Once you have a bullet list of all the things you want to say on that page, put them in order of relevance and then you can flesh out each point into a sentence or short paragraph.

SERVICES

The best place to start writing is for the Services page*. This is where the bulk of the information needs to be, and you can focus on what your products and services are.
Writing your Services page should help you to get a good idea of the aspects of your service that you really want to focus on. Whether it’s a particular product, your style of working or your prices, identifying what makes your company different will help you with the next stage – writing your Home page.

* If you have “we & I” syndrome as per rule 4, start with your about us page.

ABOUT US

The About Us page is the place to really focus on your business, the experience, skills and qualifications you have that make you able to provide your fantastic products and services. This is the page to tell people about how long you’ve been established, the story behind your formation, or your firm’s ethos.

HOME

Think of your home page as a magazine cover or a product on a shelf in the supermarket. Use as few words as possible to articulate the MOST IMPORTANT messages about your product or service. Customers will on average spend 3 seconds reading your home page, before deciding whether to click “back” to Google or to stay on the site.

Your Home page should never have more than 1 – 4 short paragraphs (preferably sentences), ideally with headlines, which briefly explain what your company can do for your customer.

Try to structure your paragraphs a little like this:

“You need X because of Y, and our service helps you with this you because of Z”

ANY OTHER PAGES

Follow the simple rules listed above and you should be just fine to create the pages from herein.

(I should point out that our copywriter Hannah wrote most of this content!)

thomas copy writing , ,

Edge of the Web client features on BBC

March 2nd, 2010

worlds smallest engravingIt’s always nice to hear from a past client, particularly when they want another website, but we also love this kind of communication too:

Since you designed my website at the beginning of January I have received press, radio and television coverage http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8540058.stm. The interest from the media started as soon the website was up and running.

Can’t thank you enough for your expertise.

Kind regards

Graham

I highly recommend you take a look at the video clip in the above link. The Graham Short Engraving website was built in just one day by Edge of the Web, Graham’s skills however have taken 48 years to perfect!

thomas customer feedback , ,

Where to start when writing your site

February 25th, 2010

The beginning isn't always a very good place to start

The most useful trick to writing is learning how to order your essays. Chronological writing from introduction to conclusion usually leads you to meander through points and doesn’t focus on the important issues.

The easiest way to construct an argument, essay, experiment or website, is to split it into three stages; an introduction, an explanation, and a conclusion.

And the best place to start writing it is in the middle.

The middle is where all the meat of your arguments are, it’s where all the important details are kept. And in a website, the middle is your Services section.

All the important details a customer needs about what you provide will be on those pages, and getting them written first will force you to think hard about what your business provides and what makes it exceptional.

Once your services section is written, you’ll have a far clearer idea of what your company’s USP is, and that’s the point to move on to the introduction – your Home page.

Your home page needs to trumpet your USP, it simply needs to push your visitor to find out more and to drive them on to your services page.

The last and easiest page to write is your conclusion – you About Us page. Like any good conclusion, your About Us only needs to reiterate the USP you set out on your Home page, and backed up with evidence throughout your Services pages.

So, start with your Services, then write an introduction that builds up to them on your Home page, and then wrap it up with a concluding About Us.

Simple!

hannah copy writing

Merge multiple PDF files in PHP using shell_exec() and Ghostscript

February 19th, 2010

I had a problem earlier in the week where I needed to merge multiple PDF files together so they could be printed in one long run. I thought it was going to be one of those tasks that caused me to have a serious headache, but to my surprise it was rather easy.

Lets say you have 5 PDF files named “doc_1.pdf, doc_2.pdf, doc_3.pdf, doc_4.pdf and doc_5.pdf” and you need them to be merged into one file called “docs_joined.pdf”. All you have to do is use the following function:

shell_exec();

This function executes a command via shell and in this case the Linux command you want to call is ‘gs’, which is Ghostscript, a PostScript and PDF language interpreter and previewer.

So using both shell_exec() and ‘gs’ we would do the following to join the PDFs together:

$output = shell_exec(‘gs -q -sPAPERSIZE=letter -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=docs_joined.pdf doc_1.pdf doc_2.pdf doc_3.pdf doc_4.pdf doc_5.pdf);

And you’re done. Simple!

mark development

5 things you really should know about websites and the internet

February 18th, 2010

We’ve been doing website “stuff” for years. Consequently we can’t remember what it’s like not to know the basics. So I decided to write a post about the basics, so you don’t have to feel embarrassed about asking us.

Enough waffle here we go:

  1. Domain Names
    Our domain name is “edgeoftheweb.co.uk”. Domain names can be used for email (i.e. test@edgeoftheweb.co.uk) and for your company website (i.e. www.edgeoftheweb.co.uk). Without a domain name, you can’t have a website (or branded email). We include these free for 1 year with all web packages.
  2. Hosting
    You need hosting for any website, otherwise it wont appear on the internet. Your website lives on one (or more) computers as a bunch of files in a folder. The computer(s) on which your website (files) reside, must be switched on and connected to the internet in order for people to be able to see (access) it. We include hosting free for 1 year with all web packages.
  3. Content Management System (CMS)
    A tool that allows people to edit their own website without any sophisticated technical knowledge. You visit a special page on your website and enter your private login details to gain access to the program that lets you update your site. Very useful if you want to regularly change the words on your website (i.e. company news). We include a Content Management System free with most of our packages.
  4. Logo
    A logo is the visual identifying mark of your company. Your logo should set the brand, trend and tone for the entire design of your website (and other marketing materiel). Sometimes your logo is a simple graphic, sometimes just your company name in writing, and sometimes a combination of the two. Avoid clipart, complicated or fussy designs and don’t let your friend do it for you, and you can’t go far wrong!
  5. Search Engines
    A search engine is a tool that tries to guess which website you are looking for, based on the keywords you type in. Google is the most popular example of a search engine. Websites acquire most of their visitors through  search engines, although social media channels such as twitter and facebook are gaining credibility as sources for acquiring website visitors.

thomas random , , , ,

How to write about yourself

February 18th, 2010

Cheesy does it!

Lots of people like to have a “Meet the Team” section on their website, so that their company isn’t simply a faceless organisation.

However, writing about yourself can be harder than you think. Whether you try to focus on professional qualifications or convey your personality, keep an eye out for these 4 common mistakes:

1.) Classic clichés.
‘Likes socialising with friends’ is another way of saying ‘isn’t really a bad-tempered, introverted hermit’. If you want to include some personal information, make it interesting. No-one’s so boring that their only good quality is that they’ve found at least one person in the world who isn’t repulsed by them.

2.) Getting too personal.
There are some things people just don’t want to know. If it’s not the sort of thing you’d share with your gran’s friend from church, keep it to yourself!

3.) Forgetting who you are.
A lot of people will start writing in the 3rd person, but slip into ‘me’s and ‘I’s before the paragraph is even over, and if you can’t remember who you are, your customer certainly won’t!

4.) Too much information.
Your entire personal history could probably fill the pages of a small novel – but this is a website, keep it short and sweet. People want to that your company is staffed by real people, but they don’t want to write your biography.

Remember, your “Meet the Team” section should provide your visitor with an honest reflection of your company’s style and personality – and the easiest way to do that is to just be yourself.

hannah Uncategorized

Recently built websites

February 15th, 2010

Additions to our website portfolio over the last few weeks include:

bhups Uncategorized

How to be the best (part 2)

February 11th, 2010

Sorry, you can’t be the best.

Because we are!

Edge of the Web has been voted the Best Business Provider in Warwick for 2010!

Thank you to everyone who recognised our hard work & high quality service, and voted for us or left a testimonial (bribes will be delivered in unmarked brown envelopes*).

Now Tom, Bhups, Mark and myself will have a celebratory muffin, and get back to what we do best – building awesome websites.

And that’s not just our opinion; it’s the judgement of the people!

*Actually we’re going to have to stop bribing people. As the Best Business Provider in Warwick we feel that shady dealings are probably beneath us now.

hannah marketing, random

Newspaper advertising is more effective than a website?

February 8th, 2010

think simple!When you advertise in print, the competition for attention means you’d better dumb down your message and make it big, bold and obvious.

When you advertise in print, the restricting nature of the medium forces you to use only static text and few (if any) colours for basic images.

When you advertise in print, the cost of the space forces you to restrict the number of words you write.

Then along came the internet and everything changed. The problem is… it didn’t need to change.

The problem is that we all forgot that one thing remains consistent in all forms of advertising:

“the audience time is precious, and you can’t afford to waste it”

So, I love your new website with it’s flash animation and tasteful colour scheme, and technical data, and story about how you started your business in a damp shoebox you found in a bin, and how you put customers first and you put value and quality above all, and that you say you are number 1, and your glowing testimonials, and your pictures of the team, and your news feed, and your twitter feed, and your facebook page blah blah blah.

But you (yes YOU) forgot that my time was precious. You got so carried away in what you thought was “marketing” and “branding” that you forgot to tell me what you sell and why I should buy it in as few words as you could articulate it.

You were so busy trying to word “professional” sentences telling me why you are so good, and honest and customer focussed, that you forgot to just tell me what I want to know…do you have what I want, and what does it cost.

If you can do that, I might (MIGHT) have a browse through your site and make my own decisions about how good  you appear to be. (Hint: writing “We pride ourselves on XYZ” will not make me beleive it).

Just because the medium of advertising changed, didn’t mean that people suddenly couldn’t get enough of your advertising. People didn’t suddenly develop an inclination to go hunting for company profiles and cheesy animation.

As a new business owner (or new to the internet) it looks good when you see your name up in lights (or pixels). You felt all posh and businessy when you found that profound quote, or the metaphoric picture of the sapling (acorn, puzzle, cog, piggy bank, smiling team). It looks good to you…but I see Apple, and Coca Cola and Marks & Spencer advertising all the time. That means I’m unlikely to be impressed by it unless you have done something truly EXTRAORDINARY.

Of course I’m not saying don’t have a good looking website, don’t have any animation, testimonials, company history, quotes, stock photography. Of course I’m not saying that!

What I’m saying is let me access the cheese when I choose. Treat me like a print reader, and that is to say communicate with me like your life depends on it, and I might just taste your brie.

thomas marketing , ,

1001 ways to make your business better

January 28th, 2010

  1. Cut out the other thousand things you were doing.

Why provide seventeen mediocre services when you can provide two that are fantastic?

Why have five processes for each order when you do it in three?

Why use ten web pages to say what you could say in two?

When you start a business, it’s common to lose focus. Your ideas and plans for the company often change and shift when you’re just starting up, and as a result, things often get overcomplicated.

At every stage, you will save money, time, and energy by keeping things simple.

Don’t try to do everything adequately.

Do one thing, and do it brilliantly.

hannah Uncategorized

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