Last week, while sitting at Starbucks, I overheard a guy tell his friend, "Making websites is so easy these days. You just buy a template and move text around." I joked with Georgy about asking the guy to do a Meet Content guest post on "Cut-and-Paste Content Strategy." Although most people don't describe the process as being that easy, many do have an oversimplified understanding of what is involved in creating effective … [Read more...]
Editorial Style for Inline Links
The power of the web is its ability to connect, or link, people with ideas and information. Inline links — links within a body of text — enhance usability and comprehension by enabling readers to find valuable information, made relevant by the surrounding content. However, links are not made valuable by "click here." Without an editorial plan for using inline links appropriately, your greatest usability asset can become … [Read more...]
The Bounce Rate Myth
For advanced web analytics users, bounce rate is quite possibly the most popular stand-alone metric — analytics evangelist Avinash Kaushik suggests it’s the sexiest web metric ever. It's certainly at the top of my list. Google defines bounce rate as "the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page." It’s great because it tells you right away that something is wrong … [Read more...]
Higher Ed Takeaways From Confab 2011: The Content Strategy Conference
Last week Meet Content attended Confab: The Content Strategy Conference. We joined web content professionals from around the world to talk content and eat cake. (Seriously, our host Brain Traffic was not kidding when they said the days of content and cake were coming — the subsequent sugar highs were not just metaphorical.) To our delight, higher ed was well represented (check out our higher ed Confab Twitter list). In fact, organizers … [Read more...]
ROT: The Low-Hanging Fruit of Content Analysis
Content analysis is an essential part of creating and sustaining effective web content. How do you know if your content is any good if you don’t analyze it? Yet the process quickly becomes complex as you evaluate content against branding, usefulness, relevance, usability, voice and tone, format, search engine optimization, delivery channel and many other criteria. Let's face it, quality content takes work. However, many content problems are … [Read more...]