Archives for September 2013

How to get website content from content specialists

September 24, 2013 by Jen

I built a website for a friend recently – Papadave: not your average clown. I’m not sure why I agreed to do it. Okay, it was to help him out, and we worked out a barter system where I’d do his website and he would do some handyman jobs around the house for me.

It was easy-peasy to create the website using WordPress but then I needed content to add to it. That’s where things stalled a bit. Plus, he’s an international clown and trips overseas took him away for months at a time.

I sat down with him and worked out what the aim of his website is, and what pages he might need. There aren’t that many.

Based on this I setup the shell of the website and sitting down with him, plugged in bits and pieces that we could do straight away. I showed him how to login to WordPress, open up a page and edit it himself.

This process would go back-and-forth for a while, we’d both get busy and then we’d sit down to get back on track again. When he wasn’t overseas that is.

His wife quietly reminded him to get on with it as well I think. And another friend of ours helped him out with some of the content. If I’d been doing this as an income earner and not as an adjunct to working, I would have been on his case a lot more and things would have progressed more quickly with a project schedule in place.

It finally got done and we turned off the old website.

Now I’m reminding him that his clown diary needs more than just one entry consisting of one line.

I know this is a common occurrence. Usually when people want a website they think of the design but unfortunately not so much about the content. When I’ve been asked to create websites for others since, I ask for a brief of what they want to include on the site. I’ve gone as far as asking for the content up front too.

Anyway, if you need a clown – not an ordinary clown either – in Adelaide, or anywhere you want him to be I can tell you that I’ve seen his shows more than once and I still get a kick out of them. And he’s scored a show at my son’s vacation care these upcoming school holidays.

What an interesting 16th birthday

September 19, 2013 by Jen

It was my nephew’s 16th birthday the other day.

He was on his way to get his driver’s licence. His mum, my sister was driving.

They had a car accident and wrote off her car.

It didn’t put him off getting his learners permit, which he got first time.

Luckily they’re both okay. My sister got taken to hospital by ambulance and had to stay there for a few hours with a neck brace on but she’s okay now apart from feeling a bit sore and bruised.

Thank goodness. It could have been so much worse. In the last six years I’ve lost two cousins to fatal car accidents. For a year after that, every phone call I got at a late or early hour of the day freaked me out because I thought it would be more bad news. Growing up in the country I hear all too often of people dying in car accidents.

The driver my sister crashed into pulled out onto a main road from a side road and should have given way. He mustn’t have seen her. She had her lights on as it was a grey, wet morning and he still didn’t see her. He was about 86 years old. Him and his wife are okay.

My sister knows it’s a notorious intersection and had slowed down a little bit from 100km. She saw him, then saw him pull out, hit the brakes so was doing about 60-70km. She didn’t want to turn to avoid him as she knew that would make them roll so she aimed for the front of his car away from the passenger door.

Apparently many other people have had near misses at this same intersection so my sister’s contacted the Council to see if they can do something about it. Hopefully they can.

And, again, thank goodness they’re okay.

I need to take more photos

September 18, 2013 by Jen

These were all taken at the Cairns Botanic Gardens. Yes, the bottom one is a bit phallic don’t you think? Even my son commented on it.

I need to use my camera more. I kind of miss my photo a day, and photo projects since then haven’t inspired me. I’ll say it again. I need to use my camera more. I love the new lens I got, a Canon 17-40mm, so there’s some good inspiration.

Linking up with Trish’s Wordless Wednesday.

Tone of voice guideline examples

September 16, 2013 by Jen

I’m working tone of voice guidelines as part of my job at the moment. I’d never written or used these before but now that I am I realise I’ve used tone of voice instinctively nonetheless.

Because the term it was fairly new to me I did a load of research on what tone of voice actually is and found quite a few examples which I’ll share here.

What is tone of voice, or brand language?

When you’re talking to someone face-to-face you use a certain tone of voice depending on who you are, and depending on the situation, and depending on who you’re talking to.

For example, you use a different tone of voice when you’re explaining something to your child as opposed to speaking to an interviewer for a job. You use a different register for a different audience and different language.

However, putting defining this for a brand and putting it into tone of voice guidelines to be used for digital communications is a different kettle of fish. It’s not what you say or write, but how it’s written. It’s recommended to use the same tone of voice across digital and all written communications for a brand, but mine will only be used for digital communications at this stage.

All the research I did said to define the brand’s personality first and think of this brand personality as the person you’re writing to.

Then you need to define how your tone should sound, for example, whether its formal or casual. It’s good to include examples of what your brand’s tone of voice should sound like using before and after examples to show what you mean.

A lot of it boils down to good writing principles like using plain English and not using loads of jargon that readers don’t understand, for example, but infusing the brand language at the same time.

It’s not a clear and easy process, but I can see how it’s useful if done, and implemented well. And by implemented there needs to be people who have the time to know how to write for digital platforms, which unfortunately, is often not the case.

One website where I think it’s done really well is Vinomofo, and this carries over onto the email communications as well. Using the ‘mofo’ in their name, and shortening it to ‘fo’ gives them licence to be quite cheeky and I’m sure this has helped increase sales. It certainly for has me anyway. From the homepage to the explanations of wines, the tone of voice is consistent and really adds to their brand. Here’s one example:

I don’t really get art, but I am a fan of a good doodle. It helps pass the time and gives me something to do with my hands when a glass is not within reach. Thankfully this one is.

Tone of voice guideline examples and how tos

Some of the guidelines are quite lengthy and some are very short. It really varies.

Voice, Tone and Style: The Whys, Wheres and Hows – a great practical guide on how to create your voice, tone and incorporate the style guide too.

Mailchimp voice and tone guidelines – an easy to follow how to for Mailchimp communications.

British Council tone of voice guidelines– includes what their tone of voice is and isn’t, talking as the brand, and writing for different channels.

Lloyds Brand Language guidelines (PDF) – includes what to do and examples of what they mean.

University of Wollongong tone of voice guidelines – not that much info and is part of the brand guidelines.

University of Leeds Tone of Voice Guidelines (PDF) – quite a comprehensive guide with lots of tips.

How to develop your website’s tone of voice by Six Revisions – defines tone and voice and how to work through the process to develop your own guidelines.

Wordtree – Working the Words blog – their tone of voice category with many day-to-day examples.

Finding your tone of voice by Smashing Magazine – takes you through how to find your tone of voice.

Tone of voice 101: How to write copy that people can connect with by Copyhackers – an explanation of what tone of voice is and some great examples.

I wonder how many organisations use tone of voice guidelines for their communications. And if you know of any other examples please add in the comments.

Glimmers of his younger self, and what he will become

September 13, 2013 by Jen

I see the maturity coming out in him quite often.

He knows when one of his mates are having a bad time and asks them about it. He’ll ask a couple of times and they’ll either tell him to back off or fill him in on what’s up. He does back off, or listens sympatheticallly and keeps it to himself. I tell him that’s important, the keeping to yourself bit in situations like this. Nobody likes a tattle tale.

He asks me what’s life about? Wow, I say. That’s the million dollar question. Lots of people want to know the meaning of life. He asks what’s the point of getting up, getting ready, going to school, coming home, doing homework, eating dinner, then going to bed. Why do we do it? Good question I think. I often wonder the same thing when I’m stuck in the day to day drudge.

Then I see him trying to hold onto his childhood when he asks for a tickle every night. I never do it properly. I don’t make him laugh but he still wants me to do it.

He also loves the game of ‘Where’s JJ?’ He says this as he’s in bed hiding under the blankets. He remembers the first time I went into his bedroom asking where is JJ, and then pretending to be cross that he wasn’t in bed when of course he really was in bed trying to stay still and pretending not to be there.

I see the teenager that he’s not far from becoming. He’s stubborn. He sometimes has trouble reconciling the fact that I’m the parent and the disciplinarian. I’m learning loads too and it’s not easy. Not easy for either of us I suspect.

I came across this article – an exerpt from a book called Masterminds and Wingmen. It’s about:

In a changing world, proactive parenting can be the key to steering your child around the many impediments towards young adulthood. In “Masterminds and Wingmen,” Rosalind Wiseman helps parents navigate the inevitable tests that they and their sons will face.

It talks about what to do if they do something wrong. It talks about discipline and effective punishments. Note: grounding doesn’t work. I think I’ll buy it.

I like the fact that he’s strong-minded and has a mind of his own. I sometimes hate the fact that he’s strong-minded and has a mind of his own.

He’s as tall as me now. Soon I’ll be looking up to him. Sometimes I look up to him because he’s teaching me something. I like that.

The first step in a website content refresh – the content audit

September 5, 2013 by Jen

You’re a web writer/editor and you’ve been given a website to update, and it really badly needs it.

You want to jump right in and edit those pages. You want to get rid of those ‘click here’ links and break up the large chunks of text and make it look and read brilliantly. Hold on. Stop. Take a step back. You really need to establish what’s there first.

Figure out what’s already there – do a content audit

You need to get an overall picture of the existing content by reading what’s there. You also need to document existing pages, and documents (PDFs, Word docs etc).

I know, it’s a boring process, and quite time consuming, but very satisfying. Or maybe that’s just how I feel once I’ve done a content inventory.

I’ve tried to use existing site maps and build from those but the best way is to go through the website page by page and link by link.

It won’t hurt to access the content management system as well because this will undoubtedly have orphaned pages sitting there which need to form part of the content audit even if they will be permanently removed. Although hopefully part of the content strategy takes care of old files. In my experience, though, this doesn’t happen and a CMS is littered with old images, documents and webpages that are no longer used.

To document the content, I create a spreadsheet.

Things I’m thinking of while doing it are:

Who’s the audience for the site?
Is the content up-to-date or out-of-date?
Does the content need removing altogether or updating?
Does the content belong to this area? For example don’t repeat information that belongs to another agency or group, link to them instead as they’re responsible for updating the website.
How many page views has the webpage had? Hopefully you can get access to website analytics.

On the spreadsheet, add columns for Page name, URL (you can use conditional formatting in Excel to highlight duplicate values so you don’t go around in circles), Group or person responsible, who the audience is, and my initial thoughts about the page. For example it might be really obviously out of date, really lengthy and I can immediately see that text can be cut. There might be no headings to split up the content for ease of reading. Or, you might find that the really important information is only in a Word doc containing FAQs.

I’ve seen so many instances of PDFs containing important information that should be webpages, but they’re not. It really doesn’t take that much time to make it web-friendly. And by web-friendly it usually needs editing.

Example of a website content audit spreadsheet

Click on image above to view a larger one.

Once you’ve done the content inventory you’re in a really good position to meet with the content owners to discuss where it goes from here.

The spreadsheet is not something I give to the content owner as their eyes would glaze over, but I certainly make notes from it to run through at the meeting. What you can do however, is ask if certain pages and/or files are still needed. For example, do you want the media releases from ten years ago that have links to really old information that are now broken?

At the top of my list of questions is what’s the main purpose of the website and who do you see as the target audience or audiences?

Then I’m able to say that this section, or this page doesn’t meet the objectives of the website, or the needs of the target audience if I think that’s the case.

Hopefully after the content audit and the initial content owner meeting you’re in a good position to start editing and rewriting.

Next I’ll cover how to keep the relationship going with the content owner. This can be the tricky bit.

Our day trip to Cape Tribulation

September 3, 2013 by Jen

I’d had plans to update this blog more frequently while we were away and we even had ‘fast broadband’ in our apartment. Except it wasn’t fast broadband. It was more like dialup speed so uploading my photos to Flickr took FOOOOREVER so I just didn’t do it. Also I was usually knackered by the end of the day when I had a bit of time to do it.

The above photo was taken on our day trip to Cape Tribulation. These trees are really interesting and you see a few of them up in that area where the original tree has been taken over by another plant to make that criss-cross pattern.

I didn’t really have a plan for our Cape Tribulation day trip so we did a stop on the way when we felt like it and did a walk through these mangrove swamps. The water really was that green.

The plant-life near the beaches is so different to our beaches down south. I like that you could go to the beach and have this shade so handy. The weather wasn’t really beach weather so we didn’t stop that long.

We ended up booking a jungle surfing trip. Jungle surfing is a fancy name for zip-lining through the rainforest canopy. You get harnessed up, then hooked up and zoom over to another tree to do it all over again.

My little adventurer loved it and I enjoyed it too once I got over the fact that we were fairly high up. On the last tree you can hang upside down if you want. JJ had been on about wanting to do it and I thought there’s no way that I would. I got hooked up and the guy asked me if I wanted to hang upside down. When I hesitated he encouraged me so I thought what the heck, and let go of the green rope, flipped over and hung upside down while going to the last tree. JJ couldn’t believe I actually did it, and neither could I. Unfortunately the person who was supposed to be operating my camera stuffed it up and I got no photos.

We dropped into the Daintree icecream factory on the way back and had a taste of their offerings before heading back to the Daintree River ferry which we had to wait for this time. There was a fairly long line but quite a few cars fit on the ferry so it didn’t take too long.