Webmasters need expertise--technical, graphical and legal

It's not enough to be able to buy a domain, design a style sheet and know how to transfer your files to the internet.  As my friend Alan Norton, a writer for techrepublic reminds us, webmasters need to stay abreast of legal developments that affect their sites. 

His article Do Webmasters need to add lawyer and legal counsel to their job description? points out that a morass of legal issues lurks to bedevil innocent internet publishers, especially online retailers. 

Asked and answered, your honor.  The question Alan addresses in the article above is one that people are still grappling with, for example on LinkedIn, where someone recently asked "Does an ecommerce retailer have to file taxes in each state it sold a product in?"


Unfortunately, as John Selden wrote in the 17th century,

Ignorance of the law excuses no man: Not that all men know the law, but because 'tis an excuse every man will plead, and no man can tell how to refute him.

That means the short answer to Alan's question is, yes, webmasters do need to add legal counsel to their job descriptions, at least if they want to avoid legal hassles down the road and sleep easily at night.

All these heavy responsibilities on the webmasters' heads are one more reason why they should engage copywriters--lots of them.  After all, even webmasters can't be experts at everything.

Too bad I don’t lead a community foundation

The Pew Internet & American Life Project will present a media learning seminar about the information ecosystems of communities at the end of this month.

 

The new research looks at citizen experiences and attitudes in Macon, Philadelphia, and Santa Clara about local media and institutions. It explores the ways local news organizations, governments, libraries, and other anchor institutions are serving the information appetites of their communities.

Even though I’d like to be there, I’m not invited because I don’t lead a community foundation.

Still, from my own computer I get lots of information from the Pew Center, such as this report on the use of the internet in higher-income households :

• Higher-income households are more likely to own more internet-ready devices and to have broadband access than their less wealthy counterparts.  (Well, it's a good idea to confirm the obvious.)
• "79% of the internet users in the higher earning bracket have visited a government website at the local, state or federal level versus 56% of those who fall into the lowest-income group ."
• "Internet users in the top income brackets are more likely to search for medical information online, seek treatment information, seek material about doctors and medical facilities, and get data concerning test results."  (Speculation: Maybe that’s because lower household income correlates to lower likelihood to have health insurance? If your coverage is good, it pays to try to find the most effective treatment, rather than what your insurance company dictates or what you can pay out of pocket.)

 

The report separates out the internet use statistics for ultra-high income households.

 

 

Also, have a look at the Pew reports on social and demographic trends, because, as Benjamin Franklin said, "An investment in knowledge pays the best interest."

 

 

 

 

Site Templates Are Your Friends

When you start your first website, you probably don't need a lot of fancy features.  You need to get comfortable putting your message on the interwebs--you can always change it up later.

Templates are your friends.  They give you a variety of looks for your site--maybe not as much variety as you want, but still.  If you decide it's really not you, press a button and it's gone.

If you have a blog, you already know how templates work.  Was I surprised that setting up a "real" website is just as easy.

So find a template you like and concentrate on the more important issues: what you want to say, and your domain name.  I'm happy to help you with both, of course.  But I want you to learn how to update your site yourself, so that you can keep it fresh and keep readers (both human and search engines) coming back for more.

FYI, I created my own website, KatharineHadow.com, using a template. :)

Of course I read your source code

 
Of course I read your source code--you leave it visible.

 

The question is, why don’t you? If you’re taking the time to update the content, update your meta-information, too. As long as you’re already in the source code, add a few keywords. If you want to do a great job it can take longer, but a decent job takes two minutes a page. Just pick relevant search terms that match the text on the page. Even doing it by guess and by golly is better than

• leaving the meta-information blank
• using unrelated keywords
• or using the same ones on every page

The search engines don’t weigh the tags as highly as they used to, but they’re still important, and they cost next to nothing. Relevant tags stop gawkers like me from opening up your source code and asking, “What were they thinking? Were they thinking?”

More on organic SEO.

 

Three reasons why PR cares about copyright

Your PR department is probably the department most concerned about copyrights (outside the legal department, of course).

Here are three reasons.

Many PR people come from professional journalism backgrounds.  They’ve published or broadcast their thoughts and research.  They don’t want to see someone else casually benefiting from the fruits of their labors.

Even PR people without publishing or media experience are writers.  Humble and anonymous though the press release be, a PR person actually does write each one.  

Professional journalists and flacks, we all hope to produce a sentence, poem, paragraph, essay or book that lives on after us.  And when we do, we want our names on it, not the name of the person who hits the “copy” button or control-C.

Most pragmatically, PR people need positive relationships with media people.  Media people count on royalties or higher payments based on how many people read or see their work. 

What if I were a journalist and I discovered that the website of a company that was wooing me contained reproductions of my copyrighted work?  I’d be indignant.  I probably wouldn’t give that company good coverage. 

Unauthorized reproductions happen all the time.  A well-meaning and unsophisticated person scans a magazine article and puts the PDF up on the website.  Or the person exceeds the “Fair Use” doctrine and plagiarizes.  This happens in print, too, but it’s harder to spot.

If I were a journalist, I’d know that the job of the PR person at that organization was to cozy up to me.  I’d expect her or him to defend my copyright on my behalf, to stay on my good side.

Sometimes, as the PR person, I’ve noticed shocking plagiarism.  One example is a news site in a developing country reproducing entire articles without attribution.   I’ve pointed those violations out to the reporters whose words were stolen.  I didn’t do it to be righteous.  I did it because I wanted to strengthen the bond between the reporter and me.

As a PR pro, then, I occasionally make myself unpopular pointing out that, no, we can’t just reproduce copyrighted material.  I do it because it’s important in media relations.  But I also do it because I hope, one day, to write some immortal words.  And when I do, I don’t want Jim Bob’s Blog ‘n’ Bait Shop to take credit for them.

New Year’s Resolution, part 2

To follow up on yesterday’s post: yes, you do want to update your site frequently in order to woo (or wow) the search engines.

Not everyone has the desire or facility to come up with something fresh and witty every day.  As Gene Fowler once wrote:

Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead.

 I don’t digress when I say that yesterday I grew tired of looking at all my excess labels.  If you scroll all the way down to the bottom of any post, you’ll see a few labels, words that I thought applied to whatever I was writing about that day.  They help bloggers organize their posts, and, yes, they help the search engines find the posts.

In the beginning of this blog, I was label-happy.  I made up new labels every time I mentioned new subjects, which is why I only had one blog entry labeled “food pyramid.”  It was like setting up a filing system with paper files that only contained one sheet of paper.  After a while all those files get in your way.

I did something about those extra labels, deleting a lot of them.

Here’s the funny thing: that was good for my search engine optimization as well.  The search engines can’t really tell if I’ve just added important and timely news to my blog (only you can do that.)

To a search engine “spider” a deleted label is as much an update as is a trenchant blog post.  So’s a deleted comma.  I could edit my site every day, deleting a comma tomorrow and adding it back in the next day.  The search engines would think I was making serious changes and would think my blog had hotter news in it than the completing blog at the next IP address, which didn’t make daily minor tweaks.

I’d rather add new and interesting blog posts, but even when I do something dull like administer my labels, it’s nice to know that even that may help one more reader find this blog.

Off-the-wall idea for churches and houses of worship

 

Houses of worship of any religion should always be looking for ways to attract new members.  Here’s one you may want to try.

Distribute a letter to recent arrivals and neighbors.

• ·        For neighbors, use church volunteers and door hangers.  Target the houses and apartments nearby.  The more volunteers you have, the farther afield you can go.
• ·        For new arrivals, check municipal records for property transfers and mail out the letters.

The letter:

Welcome to (community name)!   (Or “Hello, neighbor.”)  If you’re interested in joining a house of worship, the congregation at (house of worship name) invites you to visit us at (address). 

(House of worship) is special because (unique selling proposition).

Our services are at (day and time).  If you have questions, please visit us on the internet at (URL) or call us at (telephone number).

Whether you decide to join our congregation or not, if you visit us we’d appreciate your honest and anonymous feedback about how you felt when you visited.  Here’s an anonymous survey.  If you care to fill it out, please send it to (PO Box number/city/state/ZIP)

We hope to see you soon.

Sincerely,

(Religious leader name)

(Religious leader title)

PS If you’d like more information, please do call us at (telephone number).  We promise no sales pitches!

The survey

Thank you for visiting us at (house of worship).  Your anonymous answers to this survey will help us understand how new visitors feel when they visit us.

Why did you visit (house of worship)?

• ·        I received a letter.
• ·        A friend or neighbor invited me.
• ·        Special occasion:
• ·        Holiday service
• ·        Special service such as a funeral
• ·        Other ___________________________________________________________________

• ·        When you visited us, did at least one person greet you with a friendly smile and an introduction?     Yes/No
• ·        Did anyone invite you to return?  Yes/No

•  ·        Was the building itself welcoming?  (Were there any physical barriers that made it difficult for you to participate in the service?) __________________________________________________________________

• ·        Have you visited a (denomination) church before? Yes/No
• ·        Was it difficult to follow the service? Yes/No
• ·        If it was difficult, why was it difficult to follow the service? ________________________________________________________________
•  
• ·        What did you think was the best thing about our service or our welcome?  ________________________________________________________________
• ·        What did you think was the least positive thing about our service or our welcome? _________________________________________________________________ 

Please answer the questions below on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 meaning “completely untrue,” 3 meaning “neutral,” and 5 meaning “completely true.”

                                                

                                                  Untrue           Neutral           True

                                                          

I felt welcome at the service        1         2        3          4          5

I might return to (house of

                                 Worship)         1         2        3          4          5

• ·        Is there anything else you'd like to tell us about your time with us?   __________________________________________________________________

                         

Thank you so much for filling out this survey!  We’re always trying to ensure that (house of worship) is as welcoming as possible.  Your opinions will help us.

Please mail this survey to PO Box number/city/state/ZIP

A special note from (religious leader): Thanks again for visiting us!  We hope we’ll see you again at (house of worship).

(Signature)

I can’t think of any congregation that wouldn’t benefit from feedback from visitors.  You’re welcome to use this idea, and if you do, I’d appreciate your opinions!

Happy new year.

My Cringeworthy Website

Please don’t visit KatharineHadow.com. 

Whenever I visit it I tell myself that it looks disorganized and unprofessional.  Then I do what anyone else would do.  I close the tab.

I started my site for two reasons:

1. as a portfolio for my print work, so I could send URLs instead of attachments
2. to show that I could produce and maintain a website

 It serves those purposes, but it’s unwieldy now.

It needs to portray a bold, confident marketer who can size up customers and bang out compelling copy on tight deadlines.  It, well, doesn’t.

But, ugh, the thought of rewriting all that copy from scratch, finding the perfect USP and call to action feels so overwhelming.

And yet, I do it daily in my pitch letters.  Pitch letters are easier, probably because I can tell myself that no one reads them anyway.

My project for today is to cull the best lines from my pitch letters and refashion them into exciting web copy for KatharineHadow.com.

About perfection—It’s actually good if the web copy isn’t perfect.  If the site were perfect, I’d never change it.  Then the search engines would assume that I’d abandoned the site, and eventually my rankings would slip.

So, in web copy, as in life, the goal is

Progress, not perfection.

Who's David Foster Wallace?

I heard a piece on Weekend Edition about a site called IWriteLike.com. You put in a sample of your writing. The site parses it and tells you which writer your writing style resembles.

I submitted this entry and IWriteLike told me I write like David Foster Wallace.

Who's he? Hee hee.

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Organic SEO in a Nutshell

The quote below about search engine optimization appeared in Mentor Solutions LLC's newsletter for plastic surgeons. The article gives some concrete ideas for attracting internet visitors by focusing the search engines on your website.

(I)f you are not appearing on a SERP for the keywords related to your business, you are missing out on a huge opportunity. You are doing business on a street that isn’t on the map and that might as well have road blocks at all of its entrances.

Get 'em now before the price goes up

I'm embarrassed to mention this idea because it's so basic, but I'm surprised how many website owners don't do it: put the keywords your potential visitors will be using into domain names. Buy those domain names and link them back to your website.

For example, if you sell material handling systems in New Jersey, buy "NewJerseyConveyor.com"

One of the things the search engines look at is the names of websites. Sites with those names usually have useful information for people looking for those topics. Plus, it helps to have other websites linking back to your website. So people looking for material handling systems are likelier to find your website, just when they're researching, and, I hope, buying.

Compared to keyword ads, buying domain names is remarkably inexpensive, about $10 a year. But prices are poised to rise 7% on July 1, so if you plan to do this, you might want to do it now, especially if you want to buy a lot of domain names.

And if yours is a personal business, buy your name as well, for example, katharinehadow.com. Someone may not remember what you call your business, but they may recall your name. Make it easier for them to find you.

Is 3M Ashamed of the Post-it Weekly Planner?

You can’t get there from here.

I wish I had the kind of life where I made lists of tasks and delegated them to someone else. I do make the lists. And then I end up delegating the tasks back to myself.

Sometimes when there are too many, the tasks grow hard to prioritize. That’s why this week I went out and bought myself a new Post-It® Weekly Planner.

Instead of either
a) feeling sure that this task was so important that I would remember it—no need to write it down (oops!) or
b) writing it down in my daily planner--and then reproaching myself at the end of the day when it was not done (oops!)
the Post-It Weekly Planner lets me jot down every task on a “Super Sticky” Post-it. Once they’re written out, I can shuffle them around.

The Planner comes with a weekly grid for me to lay out the chores; I put the most urgent or the most important ones first. But if those jobs don’t get done, well, I just move them to the next day on the grid and try again.

The Planner does wonders for my peace of mind. But even after my description, you may be wondering what it looks like. So I thought I would provide you with a link to a description and a picture on 3-M’s website.

I can’t find it, and I’m a good Googler. You try it. Type Post-It Weekly Planner in your search engine. By the end of the second “e,” your auto-complete will fill in the entire name for you. “What’s so hard about this?” you’ll say.

At the top of the search you’ll find 3M’s Specialty Notes page. “It must be here,” you’ll say, “probably near the easel notes or the bulletin boards.”

But it’s not. You can’t get there from here.

3M just does not want you to find their Weekly Planner on their website. You can’t even search for it by part number (46-0001-4108-8).

I’m sure glad I know where to find them offline. Otherwise I might still be saying to myself, "Oh, yeah...I needed one of those Post-it Calendar thingies..."

Is This the Future of the Media?

A friend of mine's story is troubling me. She said she sent a press release to a trade journal this week. She received an email back telling her that the publication was no longer accepting press releases. If she wanted her release to be published, she would need to become an author on the publisher's new site. Then she could submit her press releases.

She needs the 46 industry journals the publisher represents more than they need her. Ergo, she became an "author" on the site. Then she was told she would need to create her own "topic" under which she could submit her press release. It took her an hour to create the topic, she said, because she needed to devise a slogan and a mission statement, and she needed to choose a few articles from the publisher's archives to populate the topic. In essence, she was creating a mini-website for the benefit of the publisher.

I think I understand the point of view of the publisher. Ad revenues are falling, and with email it is easier than ever to send press releases, so the publisher is deluged with material. For search engine optimization, the publisher needs unique content. But because ad revenue is flagging, the publisher can't afford to pay reporters to turn those press releases into fresh thoughts and insights. "I know," the publisher proclaims. "I'll have those overpaid PR people do it instead. And if I give them each their own bylines, they'll take professional pride in their work, so they'll give me original content. And, eh, maybe some of them won't take off. That's okay, because the same people who aren't shelling out for advertising are still paying their PR people to do things like this."

My friend glumly reported that she was proposing titles for topics such as "Database Management Journal." "Actually, I would love to be an editor," my friend said, "but I want to edit something I know about. I don't want to be forced to edit a topic just so I can submit a few press releases."

Let me assure you, when my friend edits the DatabaseManagementJournal.publisher.com because the publisher can't or won't pay an editor, we are all in trouble. She knows little to nothing about databases. Any application that depends on her advice may very well fail.

Put editing back in the hands of professionals.

I Don't Need a Website

Not everybody can hop in the car and cruise down the highway to the big-box store. I am lucky to live in a community where children, senior citizens and disabled people can walk to local merchants. Even if patronizing local businesses were not so convenient, this would be a good reason to support them.

Small business owners are busy keeping afloat. Some of my favorites tell me they do not want to worry about websites, which they probably believe are time-consuming and expensive.

If they do nothing else, I urge them to register a domain. What a shame it would be if Jim's Friendly Bakery finally decided that it wanted to build a site called JimsFriendlyBakery.com, but someone else had already taken the name. Even worse, what if Larrys Surly Bakery next door took the name, and used it to redirect visitors to its own website? More about registering domains on my website.

Just Say No to Flash

I remember when CPU time was so precious that researchers at Stanford and Berkeley had to eke it out on shared servers. Now I marvel that I can carry a gig around in my pocket. A terabyte if I wear cargo pants.

Still I’m shocked when a site tells me that it has to install Flash or ActiveX. Usually I navigate away. I have a modest computer. I try not to store much on it. If I allow you to install QuickTime or Flash or ActiveX, I might have to give something up, either speed or memory.

I don’t want to sacrifice space on my computer so that some kid fresh out of college can show off what she learned in programming class. Don’t ask me to slow down my computer so that your site performs better.

But, hey, I’m the woman who refuses to carry a drugstore discount card. I refuse to make my wallet fatter so the store can track my purchases. (Sometimes I give them my ex-husband’s phone number if I’m buying lipstick and hygiene products, just to confuse Big Brother.)

If you’re marketing to me, don’t ask me to inconvenience myself on your behalf.