improve your web writing skills
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Editorial Skills for Charities Workshop
26 January 2012
www.charitycomms.org.uk
www.inkspiller.co.uk
Editorial skills for charities workshop
Improve your web writing skills
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Content © Anna McLoughlin : www.inkspiller.co.uk
www.inkspiller.co.uk
Hello.
� I’m Anna McLoughlin
� @AnnaInkspiller on Twitter
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www.inkspiller.co.uk
What will we cover?
� What people want from your website
� How to make web content easy to read and use
� Who you’re writing for
� How to write in a meaningful way for them
� How to move them to take action
You will leave with:
� A web copywriting blueprint for your website
� A web content framework for effective web writing
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People want content
They want to read as little as possible … and no more
Image from: www.trafficcoleman.com
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They don’t read more because….
� They are busy
� They want answers
� It’s not relevant
� They want to do something
�They want to grab and go!
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Good web writing is a conversation
“Think of your web content as a focussed conversation,
started by a busy person”
-Ginny Redish ‘Letting Go of the Words’
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Your side of the conversation…
Good web writing answers people’s questions:
- “How do I donate ?”
- “Where do I find out about getting some support?”
- “May I volunteer for you?”
- “Can you tell me more about what you do?”
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Good web writing lets them grab & go
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Where to start?
“Writing is a lot easier if you have something to
say”
- Sholem Asch
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Blueprint
The ‘Web Copywriting Blueprint’ is a set of golden questions
� It never fails to help work out what to say and how to say it
� Take this away and brainstorm the questions with colleagues
� Find your Blueprint at:http://tinyurl.com/6rmne6z
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The Blueprint covers
Stage 1: What you want to achieve
Stage 2: Talk to the right people
Stage 3: Talk about the right things, in the right way
Stage 4: For the right result
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Stage 1: What you want to achieve
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� What does your website do for you at the moment?
e.g. Help raise funds, raise awareness, provide support.
� What would you like people to do on your site?
e.g. Donate
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Stage 2: It’s all about the audience
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Stage 2: Talking to the right people
� Who are your audience?
� Are they male or female?
� How old are they?
� What kind of work do they do?
� What is their expertise and experience?
� What other sites do they visit?
� What are their hobbies?
� What are their values?
� What motivates them?
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Gather information
� Read emails; what are they asking?
� Talk to marketing
� Talk to Customer Service
� Conduct a survey
� Watch and listen in physical locations
� Interview people
� Do usability testing
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Use information to create personas
Photo credit: juliebee.co.uk
Persona developed at Be Good, Be Social.
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Put a face and name to your persona
Personas of people seeking aid information
Source: www.aidinfolabs.org
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Stage 2: What do they want?
When gathering information, pay attention to the words your audience use:
� Why are they coming to you?
� What are their questions?
� What are their problems?
� What key tasks do they have in mind?
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How easy are your key tasks?
In a study of 60 non-profit sites, the Nielsen Norman Group found:
“Giving money on charity websites is 7% harder than spending money on e-commerce sites. The top priority for non-profits is to write clearer content.”
- Jakob Nielsen, 2011
• It took 7% more time to complete a donation than in a separate ecommerce study
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Research findings
Nielsen asked people to complete key tasks:
Key Task Result
Choosing which charity to donate to Poor: Not enough information to
determine value or
trustworthiness
Making a first time donation 7% worse than best practice
Making a repeat donation Average rating of 5.7 out of 7
Non-monetary contributions Rated poor
Volunteering Rated good: straightforward
information provided
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Communicate value
The top priority is transparency about what a charity does, the impact and why it’s important:
“Non-profits must clearly communicate their value proposition if they want to attract volunteers and online donations.”
- Jakob Nielsen, 2011
• Report available to buy at: http://www.nngroup.com/reports/donations/
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Taglines
It should be clear what your charity does at first glance
� A strong tagline is priceless, e.g. “A Dog is for Life”.
� For inspiration, browse the ‘Non Profit Tagline Database’report at: http://gettingattention.org/
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What do you do?
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Can you help me?
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Emotional connections
� Do they have a personal connection to your charity?
� How are they likely to be feeling?
Anxious?
Frustrated?
Skeptical?
“Web content for people who are angry, frustrated, anxious or stressed has to be particularly clear and simple”
-Ginny Reddish
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Sensitive to children’s feelings
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Stage 3: Golden questions
� What’s the problem we’re trying to solve?
� Why hasn’t this been solved before?
� What is different now we’ve come along?
� How do we know?
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Stage 3: Talking in the right way
� Avoid the “we we” effect; don’t talk about yourself, talk about your cause
� Don’t make yourself the reason to give, e.g. “Help empower them” rather than “Help us change this”
� Show why what you’re doing is important or relevant to your audience
� Demonstrate outcomes, e.g. “20 homeless people now have jobs” rather than “we trained 20 homeless people”.
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Stage 4: Strong “calls to action”
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What we’ve covered so far…
Now you should have a clearer idea:
� Who you are talking to
� What they need from you
� How to talk about your charity in a meaningful way for
them
� What you want to achieve
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Finding your voice
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Remember it’s a conversation:
� So, who are you?
� What are your values?
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Tone of voice exercise
Try contrasting values:
� “Professional, not academic.”
� “Confident, not arrogant.”
� “Clever, not cutesy.”
� “Savvy, not hipster.”
� “Expert, not preachy.”
Exercise from Kristina Halvorson’s “Content Strategy for the Web”
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This, not this
Less Like More Like
Contact us Get in touch!
Our content offers many unexpected benefits More than good web writing. Way more.
Our writers have a myriad of creative skills and
substantial technical expertise
Our writers aren’t just well-trained. They’re
seriously talented.
We have an enthusiasm and passion for content
that shows in all we do.
Everyone here loves content. A lot.
Adapted from Kristina Halvorson’s “Content Strategy for the Web”
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Create a word bank
Created at wordle.net
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Use the word bank to write
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A simple content framework
Give your content the best possible chance of being read
� Find your content framework at: http://tinyurl.com/6sj4w2p
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How people scan web pages
� People read in a rough ‘F’ shape
Eye tracking research from useit.com38
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Help them read your content
Image from http://www.internetmarketinginc.com/
Using the ‘Inverted Pyramid’ style will help people read and use your
content
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Headlines are critical
CareLogger: 32.2% increase in sign-ups just by changing the headline
Source: Abtests.com
Focus on what’s important to your audience
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Be clear and concise
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Explain the offer
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Appeal to emotions
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Arouse curiosity
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Before After
Get Seen, Get Heard with MTV and
Oxjam!
Wanna be the next Kaiser Chiefs, Kasabian, Hot
Chip? Want stardom, to play to adoring fans and
the chance to make a difference? Now you can
(but you better move quick).
Film yourself playing an Oxjam event in
October and you could be one of four new acts
playing alongside Britain’s biggest bands at a
major fundraising gig next year. It’s a real
chance to change lives, including your own!
October is going to be jampacked with music
madness.
See the Oxjam Timeline
Want to Play a Stadium & Help End Poverty?
- It all starts at Oxjam & on MTV this
October!
Film yourself playing at an Oxjam event this
October and you could win the chance to play
alongside the UK’s biggest bands at a major
fundraiser next year.
What next: Oxjam Timeline
Now: Register at MTV Flux and Oxjam
Oct: Go, play and film your gig
Oct: Upload your video to MTV Flux
Dec: Top videos play on MTV
Jan: Viewers pick the finalists
Apr: Winners get to play at Help Make Poverty
History
Use subheadings, lists & links
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Testimonials and stories
WikiJob: Adding testimonials increased sales by 34%
Source: abtests.com
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Use stories
People want to help people
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Calls to action
Make calls to action about the audience, not you.
e.g. “Fight for good” not “We need your donation”.
Campaign Monitor:26.6% more people responded to ‘Give us your best ideas!” Source: abtests.com
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“On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely.”
- Jakob Nielsen
� Reduce your word count by half
� Can you reduce it in half again?
� People will get more information with less content
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Perfecting your copy
� Use the checklist on the Framework
� Let it sit overnight
� If it bothers you; cut it
� Read aloud
� Get someone else to read it
� Don’t rely on spell check alone
� Read from the bottom of the document to the top
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To conclude
� Good web writing is like a conversation
� Understand who you are talking to and their questions
� Provide what they want to know in a way that’s relevant
� Establish a tone of voice
� Structure your copy so they can ‘grab and go’
� Write in an inverted pyramid style
� Edit ruthlessly
Take-away tools:
� Blueprint: http://tinyurl.com/6rmne6z
� Web Content Framework: http://tinyurl.com/6sj4w2p
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Thanks for your time
Feel free to ask questions:
Anna McLoughlin
anna@inkspiller.co.uk
Twitter: @AnnaInkspiller
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