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If You’re Going to Make a Change, Make it for the Better.

There’s a website that I go to every couple of months for information and every time I do they’ve completely re-vamped the site. The problem is that every time they do, they make it harder and harder to find the information I’m searching for.

Now, I have no problem with ensuring a site is fresh, but in making changes you need to make certain that the navigation remains as clear as possible. Since we all have short attention spans, it only takes a few seconds to lose your viewer, so it’s all about providing the information needed in an easy-to-follow format.

Another thing to consider is the format that a user is accustomed to. I recently went to another site that was beautifully designed, but I couldn’t tell where to go from the home page. As a rule, people are used to left and to navigation bars. By adhering to this type of format, it makes it easier for the viewer to find what they need.

The bottom line is…you can make a site as creative and informative as possible, but if the viewer can’t find what they’re looking for, you’re going to lose them.

Keep It Clean!

Keep It Clean!

I recently presented a workshop for employees at the South Windsor Chamber of Commerce on proofreading. They thought I was going to talk mostly about typographical errors and misspelled words. But, really, proofreading is much more than that.

It’s about checking for typos and spelling errors, yes, but it’s also looking for grammatical mistakes, punctuation errors, and things that go awry in the layout and design stage. For example, inconsistent formatting of headers and sub-heads, words incorrectly divided from one line to the next, a two-line heading that’s broken in the wrong place, one word hanging out by itself on the last line of a paragraph, math errors in charts and graphs, and a host of other things that can go wrong.

I made a quick checklist for the workshop, so I thought I’d share it here. Use it to check your own marketing materials, to make sure they’re squeaky clean. You don’t want to risk your credibility by making careless mistakes.

Checklist for Print or Web Materials

Before printing or launching, ask yourself, “Did I double check…?”

__Spelling and grammar.
__My contact information.
__Member, client, sponsor, or funders’ names and contact information. __Newsletter volume, issue, date.
__Font: is it readable and consistent?
__Type size: no smaller than 12-point
__Heads and subheads: consistent layout? (italic, bold)
__Heads and subheads: do breaks make sense?
__Word breaks: have I hyphenated words correctly, and avoided ending more than 3 consecutive lines with hyphenated words?
__Widows: have I avoided the last line of a paragraph starting a new page or column?
__Orphans: have I avoided the last line of a paragraph being the end of a divided word or just a single word?
__Arithmetic errors in text, charts, and graphs
__Punctuation errors and inconsistencies (for example, serial commas or no serial commas?)
__Hyphens not used where I should have dashes
__Alphabetical or numerical sequencing
__Only one space between sentences and after colons
__No ampersands (&) in sentences; no “etc.”
__Punctuation stays inside quotation marks (in most cases)
__Abbreviations and acronyms avoided where possible

Submitted by Nancy Simonds
Writer, copy editor, proofreader

Using .tel for digital branding

There’s a new domain type in town and it’s different than the .com, .biz, .org and .nets domains that you probably know. The .tel domain is not attached to a website like all the others. This new top level domain (TLD) is an internet directory listing that gives you complete and easily managed control over your online contact information.

When you sign up for your .tel domain you’ll get a username and login.  With that you can login to your account anytime and update your contact information, address, and business information.  They are like an online real-time business card. It’s a low-cost way for a business to keep current information available online without having a business website or in addition to their website.

From the .tel website…

  • Join a global online directory that provides you instant worldwide exposure…
  • Integrate all your means of communication in a single place under your control…
  • Update and manage your contact information and keywords in real time…
  • Increase your search engine visibility through descriptive keywords…
  • Provide a fast way for your customers to connect with you in a single click from any mobile device…

Another take…

Top Ten Reasons to Buy Your .Tel domain

It’s a low-cost alternative or addition to a website and the new digital business card. Buy through your favorite domain seller – hopefully that’s cgwebhelp 😉

See a sample at cgwebhelp.tel

SSL certificates explained

What SSL Certificates Do:

Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology protect websites and make it easy for visitors to trust websites in three essential ways:

  1. An SSL Certificate enables encryption of sensitive information during online transactions.
  2. Each SSL Certificate contains unique, authenticated information about the certificate owner.
  3. A Certificate Authority verifies the identity of the certificate owner when it is issued.

Who needs an SSL Certificate?

If you, or your customers fit into any of the following categories, then an SSL Certificate is a must:

  • Operate an online store or accept online orders and credit cards
  • Offer a login or sign in on your site
  • Process sensitive data such as address, birth date, license, or ID numbers
  • Require compliance with privacy and security requirements
  • Value privacy and expect others to trust you.

How SSL Encryption Works

Imagine sending mail through the postal system in a clear envelope. Anyone with access to it can see the data. If it looks valuable, they might take it or change it. An SSL Certificate establishes a private communication channel between the browser and web server enabling encryption of the data during transmission. Encryption scrambles the data, essentially creating an envelope for message privacy.

Each SSL Certificate consists of a public key and a private key. The public key is used to encrypt information and the private key is used to decipher it. When a Web browser points to a secured domain, a Secure Sockets Layer handshake authenticates the server (the website) and the client (the web browser). An encryption method is established with a unique session key and secure transmission can begin. True 128-bit SSL Certificates enable every site visitor to experience the strongest SSL encryption available to them.

How Authentication Works

Imagine receiving an envelope with no return address and a form asking for your bank account number. In the case of organization- or Extended-validation certificates, every SSL Certificate is created for a particular server in a specific domain for a verified business entity. The validation process for EV certificates is quite extensive and provides fuller information about the website owner than a standard certificate. When the SSL handshake occurs, the browser requires authentication information from the server. By clicking the closed padlock in the browser window or certain SSL trust marks (such as the VeriSign Secured Seal or GeoTrust True Site Seal), the website visitor sees the authenticated organization name. In high-security browsers (IE7/8, Firefox 3.0+, Safari 3.2+, Chrome and Opera 9.2+), the authenticated organization name is prominently displayed and the address bar turns green when an Extended Validation SSL Certificate is detected. If the information does not match or the certificate has expired, the browser displays an error message or warning.

A Matter of Trust

At the end of the day, SSL Certificates are all about trust. If you want to develop and instill a sense of trust with website visitors, an SSL Certificate is the way to do it. An SSL-protected site gives users the confidence to share personal information without having to worry about whether that data is safe as it travels around the Internet. And, the SSL Certificate provides further peace of mind to web users by offering verification that those in control of the web server are who the web surfer thinks they are.

If trust is important to the end users of your customers – and I’d venture a guess that it is – then they need to know that one of the best ways to build that trust is to secure their websites with an SSL Certificate along with a prominently displayed site seal that end users recognize and trust.

This information provided by OpenSRS.  cgwebhelp, llc is a reseller for OpenSRS.

Watch Your Voice!

Watch Your Voice!
by Nancy Simonds

Tweets and IM notwithstanding, sometimes you have to communicate in complete sentences, especially in your marketing materials.

People often fall into the bad habit of using passive voice rather than active voice in their writing. Active voice simply means that the subject of the sentence acts rather than is acted upon.

(Remember those awful grammar lessons back in seventh grade? This is when they have a real-life application.)

In marketing materials, I prefer active voice because it’s more direct and has more authority. Passive voice is often clunky and wordy.

For example~

PASSIVE VOICE:
Your lawn will be affected by the quality of the grass seed you plant.

ACTIVE VOICE:
A beautiful lawn depends on quality grass seed.

See? Active voice is simpler and more to the point, and creates a stronger image. Use active voice in your newsletters, postcards, brochures, and Web content to add spark and interest.

NotMyMothersWedding.com Launched

I launched a new website for the authors of the book  Not My Mother’s Wedding last week.  The book, written by Maureen Chapdelaine and daughter Kate Chapdelaine Brennan, takes a comical look back on their different perceptions as they went about planning Kate’s wedding.  The book will be available this May and can be ordered on the website.

Return To Creativity

Admit it. You lose contact with your ability to be creative sometimes. Or, maybe you think you’re not the creative type. Truth is – everyone’s creative. Truth is – everyone sometimes gets stuck regurgitating tired ideas that put even themselves to sleep. Here are some ways to return to the creativity to your business.

  1. Read The Unrelated.

    Creativity isn’t discovering something new. It’s making new connections between old things. Pick up that teen magazine and an idea on how to write about that IT seminar may jump into your lap. Read U.S. News & World Report in search of an idea you can connect with your ad for your new hair styling product. I once based an insurance product sales brochure on something from the National Enquirer.

  2. Have Fun.

    Loosen up. Life’s too short. Take a break and do something you enjoy. You’ll get a fresh perspective and start new ideas flowing. Remember Archimedes in the bath tub. (I didn’t think you’d remember him. Archimedes, a great ancient Greek mathematician, physicist, and inventor, was stumped. His ruler wanted him to devise a way to tell whether a crown was pure gold or alloyed with silver. Solutions avoided him like cockroaches avoid light. Then when he took a break to take a bath he had a brainstorm. As he stepped into the water and watched it rise, Archimedes realized that a given weight of gold would displace less water than an equal weight of silver because it’s not as dense. Legend has it that in his excitement about his discovery he ran home naked shouting “Eureka! Eureka!” (“I have found it!” “I have found it!”))

  3. Look Under The Hood.

    Maybe your creative engine is starved for fuel. You may need more information about the project or the audience. Ask your client or source more questions about what you’re trying to accomplish. Set up an informal focus group. Call in your management team. Creativity often requires a sea of research. The writers for John Hancock’s award winning “Real Life” ad campaign got several of their ideas by spending long hours hanging out in a bar listening to people discuss their financial worries. (“No, boss, that’s not a beer, that’s part of my research.”)

  4. Seek Inspiration.

    We all have a place or person or book that never fails to inspire. Make contact. Spend some time relaxing with that enthusiastic presence. Good things happen when you’re in a good place or with a good person or in the mind of another creative. Whose brain do you like being around? Who always seems to be working on something wacky? Go see them. I have a few books that always offer me nourishing food for thought whenever I pick them up. Mind Your Own Business! by Murray Raphel and The Wizard of Ads by Roy H. Williams are two.

  5. Create Something Awful
    Want to ruin good creative people? Go through their trash. The best creatives create awful Frankenstein-ish things. They realize that’s usually the only way to do their best creative work. First create the monstrosities; then come the beauties. Writers in particular work like sculptors. To develop a great 500 words they may write a terrible 2,500 words. Then, like sculptors, writers begin to chip away and polish, chip away and polish, chip away and polish.
  6. Do the Opposite
    Let’s say you want to come up with the five greatest reasons why people should shop in your store or why your product is superior to the competition’s product. Take the opposite point of view. Brainstorm about all the reasons why your store stinks. Write a list of negatives about your cherished product. (This is not for the faint of heart.) Then, just flip the arguments upside down to get your creativity right side up. For example, if you want to promote your one woman interior design business, a nasty negative might be, “no staff, no associates, no backup.” Turn that around and say, “You always deal with the business owner and get immediate decisions.”

Creativity is key to business. It’s creativity that helps invent the new killer product. Creativity makes your stand out from the crowd and get noticed. Creativity finds a way to cut production costs by a third. Creativity opens your eyes to new ways to get your customers to buy again. So, get creative. It’s good business.

Chris Amorosino is the president and founder of Amorosino Writing LLC, a communications firm in Unionville. You can reach him at 860-673-0089 or chris@amorosinowriting.com.

Stimulate Your Economy: Give Freely

Yesterday, Katie Couric featured Denny’s on the evening news. Denny’s is more Main Street than Wall Street and the CEO wasn’t showcased for multi-million dollar bonuses but for giving away breakfasts.  It made a great “feel good” story.

Denny’s CEO plainly stated that the free breakfasts were a promotion to get more business.”It was just a couple of pancakes, eggs and bacon,” he said.

But amidst the nightly gloom-cast of unemployment and Wall Street bailouts, Denny’s was portrayed as humanitarian for giving back to the unfortunate in their communities.  The reality was that it was a successful campaign that has since brought in more than enough customers to cover the costs of the free breakfasts  because the promotion expanded it client base.

Free is good. It makes good press and helps develop a client base.  It’s one of the building blocks of tremendously successful online and traditional businesses. Google was a free search engine long before it began collecting revenue.  Craigslist, Facebook and Twitter are all examples of websites whose successes are not yet matched by revenue.

It may seem counterproductive to give something away–possibly even before you’ve established a steady stream of revenue.  But any business owner who is trying to attract new business should consider offering something free.

What can you offer? Three simple ideas:

  1. Information. It may be the most cherished and sought after commodity on the web. Give it freely — on your website, through social media, blogs, etc., and you will develop your market. Develop your market and you will sell products and services.
  2. Free shipping.  If you’ve got the goods use free shipping will help close the deal.
  3. Free samples. Turn prospects into customers by letting them try a free sample.

Give freely.  It pays.

Random Facts About Twitter

I’ve had a Twitter account for over a year now but have truly only been active for about four months. 

Here are some things I’ve discovered:

 

1)      There are ways to lengthen the conversation.  It’s hard to carry on in-depth conversations with only 140 characters per tweet.  Many Twitterers overcome this by posting their messages over multiple tweets.

2)      Some people tweet about really stupid things.  People who don’t use Twitter scratch up their faces and say, “why on earth would I want to know that my friend is standing in line at the checkout counter or that their dog just pee’d on the carpet?” …  And they’re right.  Those are inane conversations

3)       Some people Tweet about really interesting things.  Think of the Twitter-sphere as a worldwide bar or bistro, if you’d like, where the noise level is high, and many people are posturing to make a “score.”   Imagine what you might find:  two college kids are blathering on at the bar about nothing.  But you may also find that there’s a couple in the back booth who are engaged in a fascinating debate about one of your passions.  For all the stupid dialogue there are so many other intelligent conversations going on. 

 

Discerning the Inane from the Interesting

 

The trick is to find the compelling conversations.  That’s where search.twitter.com comes in so handy.  This simple tool allows you to search for the conversations that matter to you and find the kindred spirits who have your passion who share your passion. 

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