Daphne Gray-Grant

I subscribe to very few eZines these days. One of the select few is Daphne Gray-Grant’s awesome Power Writing eZine — Super fast tips to punch up your prose.

Daphne is a guest author here. (See her Five essential tips for better writing.)

A former daily newspaper editor, Daphne is a writing and editing coach and the author of the popular book 8½ Steps to Writing Faster, Better.

Check out her new (and very first) video here about why, when it comes to writing, it’s the thinking that’s hard. Then go to her website at Publication Coach to sign up for her eZine.

If you’re a blogger, chances are that you’ve heard of WordPress. According to their website, WordPress is a “state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability.” It’s basically a bunch of coding that makes it much, much easier for us bloggers to publish content. Okay, that sounds great, but is WordPress really the best publishing platform? Are any of WordPress’ competitors better than them? Read on to find out!

Why WordPress Is The Ultimate Blogging Platform | WPWebHost…

Mr Quincy Magoo is a cartoon character who was created in 1949. He is a wealthy, short-statured retiree who gets into a series of sticky situations as a result of his nearsightedness, compounded by his stubborn refusal to admit the problem.

There’s a little bit of Mr Magoo in all of us, especially once we start approaching our thirties and forties. That’s why it’s so important to have clearly readable text on your website, even if your 20-something year old designer thinks tiny text in this season’s colors is so much trendier.

You can’t just use any font in any size on your website and assume that it’s easily readable.

Choose a good font

There are only certain fonts that you can safely use on your website, and some of them are plain ugly and hard to read.

(Just because Courier is web-safe, doesn’t mean you should use it as your main font.)

Choose a good text size

The size and the color of the text can also make it unreadable, even to those with good eyesight. Text is hard to read when it’s too small or too large.

A good size for your main body text is 14px.

Play nicely with colors

Is the color of your text the most readable it could be? The most readable text is very dark text on a very light background. Pure black text on a bright white background can be a bit too jarring, so a dark gray on an extremely light gray/off-white background is a good choice for your ‘body’ text.

Other colors are good for headings, but not for the main body of text.

And white text on a dark background can cause eye-strain very quickly…

…and should be avoided unless done by a true expert.

Is that a link?

Is it obvious what is clickable and what isn’t? If you make text blue, and/or underline it, someone is going to click on it. Isn’t it frustrating that the word ‘clickable’ in this paragraph isn’t really a link?

Can your visitors easily tell at a glance whether something is a link or not? Do your links look clickable?

Avoid big blocks of text

Are your paragraphs too long? In print, paragraphs are normally 4 or 5 sentences long. But that is way too difficult to read on a screen. Break your copy into very short paragraphs of 3 to 5 lines each. Larger blocks of text are just too cumbersome to read quickly. Adding subheadings also helps your visitors to read down the page more easily.

Are your lines of text too long or short?

Does your line-length help make your copy easily readable? Every time you reach the end of a sentence, your eyes have to find the beginning of the next sentence. Do lines of text stretch across the entire length of widescreen monitors? Do people look like they’re watching a tennis match while they try to read your text?

If the average number of words in your main column is around 15 words per line, it’s easy enough to read. Any more than that, and you risk fatiguing your readers’ eyes.

Your sidebar (a narrow column of text alongside your main text area) should have a slightly smaller font size than your main text. You don’t want to have too few words per line, either, because that interrupts the flow of reading, too.

Remember Mr Magoo

So, next time you look at your website, think of poor Mr Magoo, and whether he can read your website.

A Personal Note

Tomorrow morning I’ll be on a plane with my family, flying to New Zealand for a family vacation. I’ll be back on November 9.

Sincerity: the “Secret Sauce” for Effective Marketing

A couple years ago, I was talking with someone who was, for me, a very challenging client. I’m all about cultivating relationships that result in opportunities to sell.

This particular client seemed allergic to cultivating relationships for reasons I never really understood.

I remember one such meeting, I was trying to explain to my client the wisdom of first creating trust and credibility before trying to get a sale. And my client was blocking me at every turn with reasons why relationship development would not work for their business.

It was maddening.

Finally, I cried with exasperation, “Well, why the heck do you want to keep working with me since my approach doesn’t work for you?”

“Because you’re sincere,” the client replied.

“Who cares” I thought to myself since it didn’t seem to be to helping my client grow their business.

Since that time I’ve changed me mind about the quality of sincerity. I think it’s impossible to have sustainably effective marketing without sincerity.

The Importance of Being Sincere

The word, “sincere” is derived from the Latin word, “sincerus,” meaning whole, pure, genuine.

When you think about today’s business climate, sincerity isn’t a quality that comes to mind. But it’s a quality human beings need to perceive to be willing and able to buy.

The Place of Sincerity in Your Marketing

First, it’s important to remember the real role of marketing in your business.

Marketing is NOT about making a sale. Marketing is about creating a relationship based in trust and safety so that a sale can occur.

Regardless of public sentiment towards business, people and companies still have problems that need to be solved and stuff that has to get done. Your prospective customers still need to buy stuff.

They want to be able to trust you because they need to buy what you sell.

The marketing you do is all about establishing visibility and credibility so that there’s enough trust for the purchase to happen.

For example, if you regularly keep in touch with prospects via an ezine, you’re not doing it to “bug” your customers. You’re sending out that ezine because:

• You can remind them that “Hey, I help people just like you solve these kinds of problems.”
• You can offer examples and helpful information about the kind of problems you solve (“Here’s an example of how I helped a customer”)
• Or you provide helpful information for your prospects to better understand what they need to do to improve their situation.

Once prospective customers feel accepted for where they’re at and trust you can actually help, they can then take the next step.

It’s About Sustainable, Effective Marketing

Now there are also some relatively good-hearted entrepreneurs out there who use hard-sell tactics in their marketing. You subscribe to their ezine and get barraged with multiple emails every day telling you about some amazing program you “just gotta check out.”

Here’s what’s important: there is no rest with this kind of marketing. You must work very, very hard to generate this level of noise.

And if you’re spending so much time and energy with your own marketing, it’s tough to put much time or effort into where — in my opinion  — we should be making the difference: helping clients and customers get results.

That, to me, is why hype-centered marketing with or without a good heart fails. If you want to market your business in a way that brings in a steady stream of ideal customers without burning yourself into a crispy critter, sincere, heart-centered marketing is the way to go.

Keys to Developing Sincere, Effective, Sustainable Marketing

#1. Ask yourself, “what’s my highest intention for my business?”

What’s the best possible outcome for you, for your business,  and for your customer?

Example: the highest intention for Highly Contagious Marketing is when we help clients create marketing that grows their client base and their bottom line.

When that happens, satisfied clients send us referrals which helps Highly Contagious Marketing succeed financially and there are more successful businesses in the world making a positive difference.

#2. Look at how your intention is reflected in your marketing?

Thinking of the many different ways you market your business, how is your intention showing up?

Example: In all the activities to promote Highly Contagious Marketing, I want to:

• Provide information, a how-to, or a resource that gives the person who gets the marketing a little added value
• Provide an offer and a clear call to action for anyone wanting to take the next step and get more help from us.

#3. Ask what one change can you make to your marketing to express your sincere desire to serve customers and make a difference?

Some specific actions you can take to show more sincerity in your marketing include:

1. Make your marketing message truly focused on your customer and their current problem. The first half of your message should be about your customer and their situation. If you’re talking about yourself–your solutions and qualifications, your marketing is not focused on the customer.
2. Look for ways to leave anyone who encounters your marketing a little better off than they were before the encounter. Marketing that informs, coaches, inspires, even entertains all leave recipients a little better off.
3. Make sure your marketing reflects your values and if not, make changes. If you loathe hype in other marketing but use hype because “that’s what everyone says I have to do,” stop using hype. Create marketing that gets results without making you feel like you sold your soul.

Bottom Line

Remember, marketing is all about cultivating trust-based relationships so prospects can buy. And sincerity is a critical factor which enables trust to grow.

Can you market your products and services without sincerity? Sure. But you will have to work a lot harder to sustain sales because you won’t be creating the quality relationships that give your marketing real momentum.

To create marketing in which sincerity shines through, take some time to remember what your business is in service for and take action so that your marketing better reflects what matters to you.

Contagious Marketing article ©2009 Judy Murdoch, all rights reserved. Reprinted with permission. Over 30 free articles and other free resources and tools available online: www.judymurdoch.com

Five essential tips for better writing

School has changed a lot since Sister Mary Rosa taught me to read in the 1960s — but one thing doesn’t seem to have evolved. The teaching of writing. Most schools don’t do much of it.

Sure, they teach little kids how to hold pencils to form the letter W and they grade the papers of pre-teens and teens with lots of red X marks for spelling and grammar mistakes. Better teachers even render little check marks for thoughts and ideas that are well expressed. But how many of them teach kids how to come up with their ideas and how to make a reasonable point? Precious few.

On the day after Labour day, when most North American kids are returning to school after a summer break, let me share with you five essential tips for how to approach writing. Learn them yourself, to improve your own ability and most of all, teach them to your kids.

Make a schedule.

When you get an assignment — whether for school, your boss or a client — immediately write down a realistic assessment of how long it’s going to take you to finish it. Don’t think “oh that’s not due for three weeks — I can plan later.” Do it right away. Furthermore, don’t just think about your plan — write it down. This is important for two reasons: (1) it increases your commitment, (2) it gives you a track record against which you can measure your performance — useful for future planning. Being realistic is also extremely important. There’s large evidence that if you are a perfectionist you seriously underestimate the amount of time it takes you do anything. Be aware.

Spend more time on prep than on writing.

When you prepare your schedule, remember to allow for a significant amount of planning time. There is nothing worse than sitting in front of a computer with a mind that’s blanker than your screen. In other words, in order to write, you need to have something to say. Writing takes preparation. It frequently requires research but it always involves thinking — and almost no one I’ve ever worked with has allowed adequate time for thinking. One of the best ways to think is by creating a mindmap. When you signed up for this newsletter, you’ll have received a little booklet on mindmapping. Get it out now and re-read it. Then do it!

Write in dribs and drabs rather than in one big chunk o’ time.

I can’t tell you how many people regularly carve off an afternoon to write a report. Then they embarrassedly report to me how little they accomplished during this huge chunk of time. Don’t make a big deal about writing. Write a little bit whenever you have the chance. Say you’re waiting for a meeting to start. Start scribbling some thoughts in your notebook. Say you’re waiting for a call to be returned. Start typing. Take those dribs and drabs of time and make them useful. When you next sit down to write you’ll be thrilled to discover you’re no longer facing a blank page.

Separate your writing and your editing/re-writing.

This is the single most important piece of advice I give. Do not allow yourself to start editing while you write. The two tasks are completely different and use different parts of your brain. When you write, write. When you edit, edit. Don’t confuse these very different jobs. As I say in my book, trying to edit while you write is like trying to wash the dishes while you’re still eating dinner. It really doesn’t work.

Forgive yourself.

Guess what? You’re going to screw up and make mistakes. Your schedule will be inadequate. You’re prep will be incomplete. You may not find enough dribs and drabs of time and you may find yourself sneakily editing when you should be writing. Worst of all, your written work may not be perfect! So take a deep breath and tell yourself: “I don’t have to be perfect. I just have to get this done. I will have the chance to edit later. Moreover I will have future writing projects.”

The more you write, the better you’ll get. Just do it mindfully and with planning.

A former daily newspaper editor, Daphne Gray-Grant is a writing and editing coach and the author of the popular book 8½ Steps to Writing Faster, Better. She offers a brief and free weekly newsletter on her website. Subscribe by going to the Publication Coach.

If you are on Twitter, invite your website’s visitors to follow you. The best way to do this is to put a link to your Twitter profile in your sidebar, and on your Contact page.

Here’s how I’ve done it on this website:

In my sidebar…

And on my Contact page:

There are hundreds of free Twitter icons available online, if you know where to look.

Here is a great set of 50 free Twitter icons that you can use, created by Webdesigner Depot. The image below is a preview only. Please go to Webdesigner Depot to download the set.

Please go to Webdesigner Depot to download the set.

(Need help putting a Twitter icon on your own website? Please contact me. I only charge US$20 to do it for you.)

When I’m about to do something that could potentially make my design look ugly, I slip my website into Maintenance Mode. Then, if someone happens to visit the site in the 10 minutes or so that I’ve taken it down, they’re greeted with a splash screen explaining what’s going on, and when things will be back to normal.

I’ve been using the Maintenance Mode plugin for a long time. It’s very plain – here’s what it looks like when you put your site into Maintenance Mode…

It does the job, but today I discovered a much more attractive option…

It’s called !Wartungsmodus and it comes with a range of different styles for your Maintenance page. Here’s the one I’ll be using, because I have a thing for cute cyber monsters…

But there are others. Here are a few more:

(Yes, it has a German version, but the same style has an English version.)

And even a plain Jane version…

It’s quite simple to use – here’s the interface…

So, if you want an attractive way to cover up your maintenance work on your WordPress site, just install !Wartungsmodus and enjoy!

And if playing with plugins isn’t something you find fun, why not hire me to install it for you? For just US$20 I’ll install it for you and show you how it works. Just contact me if you’re interested.

If you have any questions at all about Maintenance Mode plugins, just ask me in the comments or contact me privately.

With the speed of technology moving so fast, it can sometimes be overwhelming and embarrassing to feel like the only kid on the block without a website. But – honestly – it doesn’t have to be such a big deal.

In this article, my intention is to de-mystify the whole website thing, so you can get your head around whether you really need one, and if you do, then – honestly – why and how fancy does it really have to be?

Read the rest of Yollana’s article from the Soul Business blog…

Are visitors coming to your website, but you aren’t getting as many new clients or customers as you thought you would? Are you scratching your head over why more people aren’t signing up for your mailing list?

Are you wondering why your competitors’ websites are more successful than yours? Do you really want to know why too many of your website’s visitors don’t end up doing business with you?

It’s all a matter of trust. People always prefer to do business with people they know, like, and trust. And unless your website shows your visitors how trustworthy you really are, you are going to lose business. Do you need to improve your website so that it inspires confidence in your visitors and helps them trust you enough to buy from you?

Who would you trust?

Imagine you urgently had to hire a salesperson for your business, and only two people have applied for the job.

One of them is very well-dressed, but she mumbles so much that it takes a lot of effort to understand what she’s saying.

The other candidate is very well-spoken and communicates very clearly, but he showed up to the interview unshaven and wearing his pajamas.

Which one would you hire? Could you trust either of them to be an effective salesperson for your business? Of course not!

Does your Website work for you?

Now, what does this have to do with websites? Well, you need to think of your website as being an employee of your business. Your website can be a salesperson, a customer service operator, and a cashier or checkout operator for your business.

Have you thought of your business in that way before?

Your website is representing your business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And it’s either working for you or against you, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Now, many people don’t realize that their website can actually work against them. They think that their website will either bring in more business, or it will have a neutral effect on their business. They don’t realize that a website can have a negative effect on their business.

Better than nothing?

The truth is, a poorly presented website can actually lower your visitor’s perception of your reputation, your image, your credibility and your trustworthiness. And people simply don’t want to buy from people they don’t trust.

It’s actually better to have no website at all, than a poorly presented one. But having a well-presented website can do wonders for your business.

How are you being judged?

When the average visitor comes to your website, how do they judge how credible and trustworthy you are?

Stanford University did a large study on this called, “How Do People Evaluate a Web Site’s Credibility?” The 2,684 participants of this study were asked to visit two random sites from a list with 10 categories, then rank which site was the more credible of the two, and share their comments. I’m going to share with you some of the results of this research.

Is your Website dressed for success?

Now, have you heard the saying that “Content is King”? You’d probably expect that most people judge your trustworthiness by the content on your website.

Well, surprisingly, that’s NOT what the study found. It turns out that people really do judge a book by its cover, or in this case, a website by the way it looks.

According to the study, when judging how credible a specific website is, the participants commented on the ‘design look’ (which means ‘the appearance of the website’) more often than any other website feature. In fact, 46.1% of the comments were about the way a website looked. This included comments about the layout of the website, the fonts used, how much white space was used, the graphics, and the colors, and so on. In other words, nearly half of all site evaluators used visual cues, such as the site’s overall design or look, to assess a site’s credibility.

Looks can kill your credibility

Did you find that surprising?

Here are some of the comments that the participants made about different sites. Some of these comments are positive, and some are negative.

“This site is more credible. I find it to be much more professional looking.” 38 year old man from Washington.

“More pleasing graphics, higher-quality look and feel.” 52 year old woman from Tennessee.

“Just looks more credible.” 24 year old man from New Jersey.

“Actually, despite the subject of the Web site, it looks very credible. This may be due to the subdued color scheme and the font used on the left-hand side of the page.” 29 year old woman from California.

“I know this is superficial, but the first thing that struck me is the color difference. The site is a soothing green (sort of like money) while the other site is a jarring purple.” 56 year old man from Virginia.

“The design is sloppy and looks like some adolescent boys in a garage threw this together.” 48 year old woman from California.

“Not very professional looking. Don’t like the cheesy graphics.” 33 year old woman from Washington.

“Looks childish and like it was put together in 5 minutes.” 25 year old woman from Maryland.

Is your website wearing pajamas?

So, from these comments, you can see how having a website that doesn’t LOOK professional is like having a salesperson who turns up for meetings dressed in her pajamas. No matter how well-spoken she is, or how persuasive her argument is, her pajamas are screaming ‘You can’t trust me! I’m so unprofessional I can’t even look clean and tidy! And you’re not worth getting dressed up for!’

Now, I’m going to quote a few paragraphs from this study…

One of the overall findings from this study is that our participants relied heavily on the surface qualities of a Web site to make credibility judgments. Our result about the prominence of design look was not what we had hoped to find; we had hoped to see that people used more rigorous evaluation strategies.

However, our result is consonant with findings of other research that describes typical Web-navigation behavior as “rapidly interactive,” meaning that Web users typically spend small amounts of time at any given page, moving from page to page quickly.

If such rapid navigation is indeed the norm for most types of Web use, then it makes sense that Web users have developed efficient strategies, such as focusing on the design look, for evaluating whether a Web site is worthwhile.”

Our results about the connection between design look and perceived credibility suggests that creating Web sites with quality information alone is not enough to win credibility in users’ minds. In most cases Web site designers need also to focus on the impression that the visual design will make, creating a site that achieves what many of our participants described as “a polished, professional look.” …

Based on the comments we’ve read from this study, we speculate that once a site is above a user’s personal threshold to qualifying as having a “professional look,” then other aspects of the Web site come into the credibility equation. In other words, the visual design may be the first test of a site’s credibility. If it fails on this criterion, Web users are likely to abandon the site and seek other sources of information and services. (page 24, 26)

It’s important to note that looking good is often interpreted as being good — and being credible. Since at least the 1940s, social psychology research has shown that physically attractive sources (usually people) have been perceived to be credible sources (Benoy, 1982; Berscheid, 1981; Berscheid & Walster, 1974; Dion, Berscheid, & Walster, 1972; Eagly, Ashmore, Makhijani, & Longo, 1991). This basic human processing bias— “looking good is being good” —also seems to hold true for evaluating the credibility of Web sites, especially since design look is highly
noticeable. (page 58)

(You can find the entire report online here)

Does your Website pass the first test?

So, according to this study, the first test of your website’s credibility for many of your visitors is the way your website looks. And if it looks unprofessional enough, your visitors may leave your site without even reading your content.

So, it’s vital that you not only have great content. You also need to present your content professionally by having a well-designed website. Remember to think of your website as one of your employees. You need your website to be ‘dressed for success’.

And I’m not talking about looking stuffy and corporate. Your website can look friendly, helpful and approachable without looking unprofessional and amateurish.

It’s essential that your website has a polished, professional look, not just high-quality information. Both are vital, but a badly designed site can turn away your visitors before they read your content.