How Your Web Developer Uses Website Content

by Elle Ray | Feb 6, 2019 | Agency Advice

Good Website Content Delivers SEO Results

Building a website from scratch takes time. Even a redesign is time-consuming, involving a number of necessary steps. The website designer and developer you hire require your timely input throughout the process. All website professionals strive to ensure that the style is right for you and that your site includes all the pages necessary to inform your visitors and rank you high in search results.

Your web designer creates a map of your site, called wireframes, before handing the design to a web developer for coding. You must sign off on each stage of development. Meanwhile, other ingredients of the site can be prepared. Web developers typically rely on you to provide the website content.

Why Is Website Content Important?

According to Techopedia, “Web content refers to the textual, aural or visual content published on a website.” Most designers include graphics specifically for your site, based on a chosen theme, which often incorporates your own company photos. The actual content, the text of your site, isn’t always included in your website package. But it’s that website content that’s critical to your site’s success.

The content not only drives search engines to your site, but it also tells your story. It encourages your visitors to contact you and buy what you have to sell. The content is your last chance to close the sale. it’s the last push in your sales funnel to help your website visitors make a final purchase decision.

Website Content and SEO

If your developer doesn’t offer content-writing services, the task of creating website content often falls to you as the business owner. Unless you have the time, talent and inclination to write all the content for your site, we recommend that you hire professional website content producers like Ray Access. If you have writers on staff, however, make sure they:

Understand the basics of SEO
Appreciate your company’s goals for its website
Know how to create compelling calls-to-action
Have a decent command of the language

Alternatively, you can hire an SEO firm to handle the content. But an SEO firm can cost thousands of dollars per month, even after the set-up charges, while an SEO-savvy writer costs a fraction of that.

The Inevitable Breakdown

As your web developer works to produce a beautiful yet functional website for your company, the deadline for your content looms. If you promised to deliver the content, you have to deliver on time, or your entire project screeches to a halt. Your developer needs the content to drop into the site’s pages before it can go live. And you can’t just use anything; your website requires written, polished and proofed text.

If you’re like most business owners, writing content is pretty far down on your to-do list. Even if you delegated the task, it still needs your final approval. What do you do if it doesn’t meet your expectations? What are your options if your deadline arrives and you’ve only just begun writing?

And there it is — the logjam that holds up many website launches. It’s called a content delay, and it frustrates web developers everywhere. Remember, they don’t get their final payment until the project is finished. If you wait too long to deliver, your project may get put on hold, where it will stay until the developer finds the time to devote to it. By then, the whole project has lost some momentum.

Consequences Abound

By this time, you have no timely alternatives. You may pull something together. You may find early versions of your marketing material and vision statement you can use. But what you end up with is a beautiful new site with sub-par text.

While you can ask your web developer to add newer content later, after your website launches, you’ll pay for the service. Meanwhile, who knows how many potential customers you’ll lose? Your best bet is to hire Ray Access to get it right the first time, on time. If you insist on doing it yourself, however, here are a few tips for you:

Write your text in a word processing program, one document for each website page.
Make sure to pass your writing to at least one other person for review. It’s best if this editor knows your company and what you’re trying to say. Your editor can catch errors and remind you of details you may have missed. You can always hire Ray Access to edit it for you inexpensively.
Sleep on it. Never send copy immediately after you wrote it. Even if you have to postpone your launch, you won’t regret a fresh read to find things that you could say better.
Include limited notes on each page about where you want the text to appear. A good web developer knows how to make the text work within the design. If the copy goes in a pop-up, for example, note that at the top of your document.
Be authentic. Your site must reflect you and your company’s personality — but to a point. You won’t do yourself any favors by including too much industry lingo or corny jokes.
Maintain consistency in all your pages. Stick to one style and tone throughout all your writing.
Provide the word count for each page. Many web developers know that 1,000-word pages get better SEO results than shorter 250-word pages.
Send pictures separately so they maintain their integrity and don’t get lost in translation. Make sure every image is yours to use.
Stick to your web developer deadlines as closely as possible to stay on track for the launch of your stunning new website.

Ray Access is a content marketing firm that delivers targeted words to empower your business. Contact us about your specific project to receive a quote or discuss your needs. We write website copy, blog posts, e-newsletters and more. Everything we do is thoroughly researched, professionally edited and guaranteed original.

Making Resolutions Stick

by Elle Ray | Jan 29, 2019 | Small Business Advice

Keeping Your Resolutions Requires Insight

The first step to making resolutions stick is writing them down

Whether you’ve promised to call on 10 new prospects a week, write a weekly blog post or take 10-minute stretch breaks every hour, making resolutions stick this year often befuddles many small business owners. But you’re not alone. According to U.S. News & World Report, nearly 80 percent of New Year’s resolutions are abandoned by the middle of February.

On January first, making resolutions stick seems like a no-brainer, especially when you’ve chosen promises you know are vital to your business and/or your health. You’ve got all the motivation you need (so you think) for making resolutions stick, right? You’ve learned from past mistakes, and you’re determined not to make the same ones again.

Then Time Passes

Part of the reason resolutions seem so intense once the holidays are over is in part due to guilt. If you took off more time than you’d planned or put on a few extra pounds, the remorse you feel naturally causes some pangs of guilt. Perhaps you spent more money than your budget allowed, so a resolution to save more in the new year sounds like a really good idea.

Guilt and shame usually aren’t the best motivators for making lasting changes. They are negative emotions that typically don’t lead to positive results. Top that off with unrealistic expectations of yourself, and making resolutions stick becomes harder still.

Sure, you were charged up with optimism and goodwill toward the future when you made the resolution. You trusted your ability to plan for a better tomorrow. It’s easy to get swept up in the frenzy of love and good intentions that so often swirl around the holidays. Just after the first of the year, gyms are full of eager faces signing up for a year of great workouts. Advertisers know this and sell, sell, sell gym memberships like crazy. But by the end of January, the parking lots have plenty of empty parking spaces once again for the regulars.

Do It Right This Time

If you started a business, graduated from college or landed a coveted promotion in your career, you know that when you set your mind to something, you can see it through. It’s that same level of persistence and self-discipline that serves you just as well when it comes to making resolutions stick — this year and every year.

To help you get back the edge that’s still alive inside you, try these tips for making resolutions stick and stay stuck:

Turn your resolutions into positive affirmations. For example, instead of losing 20 pounds, say you want to reach your best healthy weight. Instead of saying you’ll earn back the excess money you spent over the holidays, frame it to say you’ll exceed your financial goals from last year by 10 percent.
Find support in a friend or group with similar intentions. When you add accountability into the mix, you have another reason to stick to your plans: another person is paying attention! (On a personal note: I’ve started many businesses in my life, but none has been as successful as Ray Access, which I began with a partner, says Linda.)
Change your mind first. Real physical change always starts first in your brain. Just like the little engine who could, you can think yourself thin, think the new clients in the door and believe you are going to be successful in making resolutions stick.

Working with Copywriters

by Mark Bloom | Jan 21, 2019 | Small Business Advice

How to Get What You Need from a Copywriter

Despite our obvious bias — Ray Access is a company that performs copywriting services after all — we’ve learned a thing or two from our clients and our experience. Working with copywriters can be as easy as ordering a pizza … or it can be fraught with missed signals and unacceptable deliverables. How can you get more of the former and less of the latter?

make your business blog engaging

Copywriting is an art and a science. Give the exact same assignment to two different copywriters, and you may get two very different articles back. When trying to make sense of it, you invariably want to blame the writer:

You didn’t follow the directions.
This isn’t what I asked for.
How did you get this from my request?

The Blame Game

Whose fault is it really? You know what you want. The writer thinks she understands. And yet there may be a hidden chasm between the two of you. In reality, maybe both parties are at fault.

Working with copywriters is often less like ordering pizza — with a specific number of toppings, crusts and sauces. Instead, working with copywriters is more like designing a house. There’s an obvious foundation, but from there, the sky’s the limit. The more choices you have, the more differences there can be in the final product.

Defining Your Choices

It’s the copywriter’s responsibility to tease vital information from her client. Every writing project begins, therefore, with some distinct questions that every copywriter worth her salt should ask:

Who is the intended audience of the article? Writers need to know gender, age, profession, and more. The more information you can give to a copywriter helps make the resulting article targeted and more effective.
What’s the purpose of the article? Is it rhetorical, to persuade the audience into action? Is it informational, to impart insight? Or is it entertainment, to delight the readers?
How will the article be published? If it’s a blog post, that specifies a particular type of writing. If it’s for a magazine, then it has to have a different focus. The media affects the message.

If you want to be successful working with copywriters, be clear about how you answer these questions. Still, copywriters need to keep asking questions until they’re satisfied that they fully understand the assignment. When there are too many choices, the results can vary widely.

Tone It Down to a Point

Once you’ve defined what the article is about, make sure your copywriter knows what tone to adopt. The tone plays a large role in how the article is perceived by readers. There are many, many ways to deliver the same information, such as:

Playfully
Dead seriously
Friendly
Factual
Formally
Humorously
Anecdotally

Ray Access spends the time to get the tone right, because only when your article is delivered the right way will it connect with your intended audience. We work with new clients to find the balance between professional quality and on-target effectiveness. Sometimes, it takes several back-and-forth efforts to get it right.

Know What to Expect

When working with copywriters, you generally want to avoid surprises. A surprise is getting an article, blog post, website page or press release that isn’t anything like what you expected. Just as journalists are trained to ask the right questions, copywriters know to ask for clarification when needed.

But assumptions still get in the way, most often unconsciously. Assumptions lead to unasked, and unanswered, questions. So become detail-oriented. Spend more time at the beginning of a project so you won’t have to use even more time at the end of it — on revisions, rewrites and do-overs. Take it from professional copywriters.

Get Your Readers Moving … with Words

by Elle Ray | Jan 14, 2019 | Writing

Power Up Your Writing with the Active Voice!

The active voice moves readers, while the passive voice gives them pause. So when you’re writing marketing content for your website, the last thing you want visitors to do is hesitate to contact you because they’re trying to figure out what you’re asking them to do — all while keeping their mouse pointer hovering over the Back button. Tell them what to do — buy now or contact us!

Active voice calls-to-action are powerful!

Active voice relies on action verbs rather than words that refer to something happening in the future — anything that takes place later. For example:

Passive voice: “You’ll be taken to task for not using active voice.”
Active voice: “I’m taking you to task for not using active voice.”

If your boss said one of these to you, which one causes you to snap to it? And which one gives you time to straighten up and even ponder the ultimatum? Or is it an ultimatum? We wrote it, and we can’t even tell!

Get ‘Er Done

Active voice supposes that the noun is doing something. Passive voice infers that the noun may do something in the future. And with that inference comes the possibility that the noun won’t even do that thing. For example:

Passive voice: Using this blog post as a guide for good writing can help you get more customers.
Active voice: Use this blog post as a guide for good writing to help you get more customers.

See the difference? When you use words like “can,” “may” or “might,” you leave room for interpretation that infers, “on the other hand, maybe not.” The active voice tells you that, yes, this is a fact to which you should pay attention. There is no ambiguity to active voice.

You’re the Authority

Perhaps one of the reasons so many writers use passive voice goes back to their upbringing: they’re taught to not act up in polite society. Don’t be pushy. Don’t assume that everyone agrees with you. Don’t tell people what to do; ask them nicely.

But marketing — and in particular, content marketing — is the exact place to define and exhibit your authority. Readers and clients want to believe you. They need to believe you. When visitors to your website and readers of your blog see the indecisiveness of a wishy-washy passive voice, they wonder just how much you really know about a subject.

You know your industry. You know your company’s offerings. So tell your readers. Give them the facts. Establish your authority by using the active voice in all your writings. For example:

Passive voice: Ray Access may be able to help you improve the conversion rate of your website.
Active voice: Ray Access improves the conversion rate of your website.

And It’s Just Plain Easier to Read

Besides providing the ultimate calls-to-action without actually sounding like sales-speak, sentences written in the active voice flow better and are easier to read. According to the Writing Center at the University of Wisconsin, passive voice sentences usually rely on excess words, and they’re very often vague. Typically, using the passive voice leads to a jumble of prepositional phrases that sometimes require two or three passes to digest.

On the other hand, using the active voice leads to active buyers, not further contemplation and confusion. Read the difference:

Passive voice: We can be contacted online through the contact form.
Active voice: Contact us online through the contact form.

Read it and do it!

Why Ray Access Hires Generalists

by Mark Bloom | Jan 7, 2019 | Content Provider

And Why Your Business Should Hire Ray Access

For the purposes of this generalist vs. specialist article, a generalist is a person who knows a little about a lot of things. A specialist, on the other hand, knows a lot about one thing. The most-used analogy has to do with medical practitioners. A generalist may diagnose or recognize a condition, but he still sends you to a specialist for treatment.

What’s the difference between a generalist vs. specialist? They both look the same.

It’s common to think about specialists in this way, no matter what the industry. A generalist accountant may be able to handle all your finances, but it may take a specialist in estate planning, for example, to really get the most out of your wealth.

While specialists often do things that generalists can’t, they have disadvantages when comparing generalist vs. specialist. Typically:

Specialists cost more.
Specialists only perform the narrow-band service of their specialty.
You often need a generalist before seeking a specialist.

The Generalist vs. Specialist Debate

And so the debate goes on. For the past decade, business experts (i.e., specialists) encouraged businesses to specialize to gain a professional advantage, differentiate their services, or better target a niche market. And it has always made sense. You can potentially serve your clients better — as well as make more money — by specializing.

But in many industries, the business trends for 2019 point to the opposite side of that debate because generalists’ services are still very much in demand. And, very often, generalists offer services that specialists can’t perform.

Advantages of Being a Generalist

The most obvious advantage is sheer numbers. You can serve many, many more clients as a generalist than you can as a specialist. The generalist vs. specialist client list may exceed a magnitude of 10. But the advantages don’t stop there. Many opine that there are a number of valid reasons to remain a generalist, including:

It’s better to be competent in many areas than to be an expert in one.
Generalists can still develop a trusted brand identity, and one that connects with a wider audience.
The world’s commercial environment is changing as the 21st century develops. Your niche may eventually disappear.
When it comes to being a generalist vs. specialist, you’re less likely to be pigeonholed by your clients, who may think you can’t handle their changing needs.
A specialist works with the same tools, doing the same things every day. A generalist gets to work in promising new areas.
The changing gig economy means you’re more likely to be paid per project instead of per hour. Generalists get more projects.
Versatility is an asset to many clients. A fresh set of eyes can deliver both remarkable results and new insight in a niche market.
As the work paradigm evolves, informal business partnerships tie related skills together, meaning specialty services are tied together in ways that weren’t possible before.

Why Ray Access Aligns Itself with Generalists

The Ray Access team has written many medical websites — enough so that it made some sense to rebrand as a medical writing enterprise. But that’s far from the only types of projects we handled. If Ray Access became a medical writing-only firm, these exciting projects would have gone elsewhere:

Blog posts for an Internet of Things (IoT) business
Websites for plumbers, roofers, landscaping services, window-and-door manufacturers and accounting firms
Product descriptions for a prominent pet supply store
Writing website content and blog posts for website developers, SEO firms and social media companies
Helping a client in Singapore rebrand its identity and redefine its messaging

Debate all you want about a generalist vs. specialist, it’s just better being available to a wider range of clientele. It’s more fulfilling to be able to help a more diverse set of clients. And it’s more rewarding to work across industries.

2019 Website Trends

by Elle Ray | Dec 31, 2018 | Website Content

Tips to Keep Your Website Relevant and Vital

Ray Access has always advocated for user-friendly website design and content. If your readers can’t find what they’re looking for, or what you promise, they’ll look for answers elsewhere. It’s just too easy to click away. It’s much faster and usually more efficient to keep clicking than to keep looking. Readers click until they find a site that provides answers.

Website trends point to good content

Website trends in the past have sometimes done more to confuse visitors than to help them. The user experience (UX) gets muddled when designers go for flashy or cute. Remember the days when websites screamed at you with all caps, blinking headings and obnoxious graphics? That was a turn-off even when it was popular. And readers don’t feel respected or valued when content writers rely on industry jargon or high-falutin’ language rather than down-to-earth common sense.

UX Content

We’ve written about website trends and blogs that seem to talk down to readers or are seemingly more interested in showing off the writer’s extensive vocabulary rather than getting a simple message across. Fortunately, 2019 website trends seem to be heading more toward pleasing readers and visitors rather than boosting the egos of creators and writers.

Users want to trust what they see on your website. Friendly websites and blogs are not only more attractive, understandable and easy to navigate, they’re also authentic. According to Core DNA, one of the most important website trends you can count on in 2019 is a call for authenticity: “…if your content doesn’t accurately reflect your brand’s voice, the mission your company stands for, and the value you hope to bring your target audience, … you might as well not create it in the first place.”

Content Marketing Is Crucial

As fewer customers in every field and across industries rely almost exclusively on the internet for information, content marketing is becoming more crucial than ever. In fact, for many companies, the only place you’ll ever see marketing dollars spent is on their websites. These website trends make it all the more important for you to make sure your website, including your blog, reflects your business accurately.

Tell your story clearly. Provide your contact information prominently. Let your visitors know where to find current deals and ongoing specials. Plainly spell out who you are, what you do and how you fill their needs. Read your own website regularly to make sure your site is doing all those important things!

Interaction, Please

As the majority of consumers become more comfortable interacting with the internet and more experienced with its basic capabilities, they will want more. Website marketing company Blue Compass predicts that interactive additions to websites will lead the pack of 2019 website trends, giving visitors more options for talking back, providing feedback and asking questions.

They claim that as visitors are given more options to interact with companies that they believe are responsive to their needs, those businesses will excel, both in perception and in sales. Automated interactive website designs, again, are not just for show or to highlight your web team’s talent, but should instead provide added value to your visitors that leads to more sales.

Visitors Beware

As content marketing continues to play an important role in making sales, so search engine optimization (SEO) also will be undergoing its own fine-tuning that you can’t neglect. It’s wise to keep up with the changes if you want to continually rank well with the major search engines, where Google still dominates. (Some say more than 90 percent of searches occur on Google.)

Search engines are so hard to predict, though, as they seem to make annual changes to their algorithms. You can, however, expect high marks for websites that:

Provide exceptional quality and value — in other words, useful information, especially on health and financial websites
Are approachable and well-organized
Present well on all mobile-friendly devices
Load quickly, as speed is another factor that isn’t going away — the faster your site loads, the better SEO you achieve

At Ray Access, we believe valuable content will win the marketing race in the end. SEO tricks come and go, but people arrive at your website for one main reason: to get answers. Whether they find them on your site is something that’s within your control. Contact us to learn how we can help your company website.

Media Literacy for Websites

by Mark Bloom | Dec 24, 2018 | Website Content

Tips to Help You Find Online Truth for Yourself

Learn media literacy from websites so you can better discern the truth

It’s a 21st century concept, but media literacy is a real discipline for studying and evaluating communications as propagated within any form of media, from print to digital. In this era, we’re all bombarded by more messaging than at any time in history. Media literacy is a way to cope, sort and manage all that information.

Advertising’s purpose is to influence your behavior — to buy something, usually. Similarly, marketing is meant to promote a product or business. If you study media literacy for websites, therefore, you’re better able to interpret the messages coming at you as you venture onto the internet.

You Don’t Need Another Degree

To study media literacy for websites, you don’t necessarily have to return to school, although such a degree program is likely available. But that’s not what we’re advocating. Instead, pay attention and learn what to look for in the messaging on the websites you visit.

There’s nothing to commit to memory. You won’t find any tests to pass. Media literacy for websites isn’t a cut-and-dried exercise. It’s not something you learn and forget. On the contrary, when you’re media literate, you approach information a little differently.

Why We Care about Media Literacy for Websites

Ray Access writes website content. We’re very good at it, and our clients benefits from the words we craft. In the course of our research, we’ve read and examined thousands of websites. Believe it or not, not all of them tell the truth. Worse, some give half-truths, incomplete information or misleading data. By applying the principles of media literacy for websites, we can read between the lines to discern this “fake news.”

We at Ray Access strive to better the internet by writing high quality content and alerting our readers of the dangers of lazy writing. When you can find factual information on a website, presented in a way that benefits the site’s target audience, then our work is done. Sadly, not everyone agrees that it’s important to “stick to the facts, ma’am.”

How to Become Media Literate

When it comes to websites, you can’t simply read for comprehension, as if the website were a reputable newspaper. You have to learn to recognize the tricks, and you have to find the right questions to ask yourself. In 2019, in the age of fake news, it’s more important than ever to be able to determine what’s real and authentic.

You need to have some tools to help you as you venture out in the wild landscape of the internet. You need to know what to look for and how to spot the markers that may indicate less than the full truth. So here some tips to can help:

Adopt a curious attitude. You can no longer accept whatever you read — or even see — as the truth. Be curious about what you see. Question what you read.
Consider the source. Here are several examples:
- It’s possible that an orthodontist is telling you the truth when he recommends that the only way to fix an overbite is to get braces. It’s also possible he just wants to sell braces. Does his website even list alternatives to braces? If not, you have to check out the options for yourself.
- It’s possible that a news site is presenting all the facts about a recent political scandal. They happen, sometimes with regularity. It’s also possible that the site makes its money by exaggerating the news so you keep coming back. Look to see if other sites are reporting it. Real news isn’t exclusive, even if one media outlet first breaks the story.
Look for language markers. The English language presents readers with a slippery slope of truthfulness. It’s easy to slip into half-truths or worse. A website that touts restorative creams, for example, will use the word “can,” as in: “This cream can give you relief in 10 minutes.” That’s not the same as writing that it will give you relief. “May” is another marker, as in: “It may take three treatments to resolve your issues.” That doesn’t promise anything.
Double-check the facts. Never take the word of one website, especially when it’s so easy to double-check, with the whole of the internet at your fingertips. Media literacy for websites means adopting a skeptical outlook.
Look for links to corroborating sites. Every reputable website should have links to external sites that offer objective facts that back up the assertions of the first website’s claims. Did you know that if you hover the mouse pointer over a link, the URL displays in the bottom left of your browser window? That’s useful.

If all this seems too difficult, then stick to reputable websites. But even the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post make mistakes. Don’t let your guard down just because you’re reading a well-known website. When you develop media literacy for websites, it’s always “buyer beware.”

How to Get Your Blog Published

by Elle Ray | Dec 18, 2018 | Content Marketing

How to Increase Your Reputation and Your SEO

The term “blog” has expanded right along with the technology that gave it birth. Once upon a time, a blog was just a rambling of your thoughts as in an electronic diary or a vehicle to dispatch coupons and deals via newly sprouted social media channels. Today, a blog post is much more akin to an article published in a magazine.

Get your blog published in a magazine

Magazine articles, both online and in hard copy, are usually longer than quick marketing blurbs, and they’re much more professional than personal journal ramblings. Articles are closely edited. Articles serve a distinct purpose — to educate or entertain a specific publication’s audience. To get your blog published in a magazine, it must read much more like an article than a blog of the past.

Write with Authority

Online readers have become sophisticated. Today, they expect blogs to contain at least some useful information, backed up by references, or funny anecdotes that they can pass on or use to better their lives. When you post a thoughtful blog on your website and social channels, readers appreciate your efforts and hopefully pass along your words of wisdom on their way to becoming loyal customers … or at least loyal readers.

Thoughtful blogs also set you up as an expert in your field. To get your blog published in any other form or on anyone else’s website, you must present yourself as an industry expert. That means you have to know your stuff, while researching and quoting the other experts. Guest posts on other blog sites serve as links back to your site, and that’s one of the cornerstones of search engine optimization. So it’s worth writing with authority to get your blog published on another popular website.

Editors Seek Quality

Magazines, whether they’re online or strictly in hard copy, have high standards. They’ve either been operating for decades and already have a stellar reputation, or they’re new on the scene and want to build that kind of reputation. To get your blog published in a highly-coveted spot in a prized publication, you must follow a set of guidelines and protocols.

Those rules and regulations typically are either posted on the magazine’s website or they’re available through other sources, such as Freelance Writing or Writer’s Digest.

Other basic guidelines that apply to most media when you want to get your blog published include:

Follow the publication’s submission rules strictly and to the letter.
Get your writing edited by at least one other set of eyes. Even though they have their own editors, don’t submit work with blatant errors.
Read a number of issues of the publication to get a sense of the tone and style they prefer.
Submit your blog in the format requested.
Start small and get a few clips under your belt in local freebie magazines. Their writers’ policy is going to be less strict than that of national publications.
Attach a brief resume so editors know that you aren’t a total amateur, especially after you’ve got a few clips.
Proofread your queries and introductory emails. Consider these your cover letters to get your blog published. They must be as error-free as your article.
Address your queries and emails to a specific person. Never send it to an impersonal “info” address if you can help it.
Prepare to get rejected. It’s part of the package.

Eventually, You’ll Get Your Blog Published

If you don’t have an agent or marketing staff sending out your queries, requesting backlinks and introducing your writing to magazine editors, the process can be extremely time-consuming. It can get frustrating too.

But keep in mind that it takes only one “yes” to get you noticed on a national level. Remind yourself that there are readers who specifically want what you have to sell and are interested in what you have to say. In fact, write to those readers as if they already are your customers, and they’ll appreciate your expertise and believe that you know just what they need.

What’s on Your Website?

by Mark Bloom | Dec 11, 2018 | Website Content

A Website Content Assessment Can Tell You

How do you know if your business website is effective? The proof is often right in front of you. If you keep tabs on the flow of traffic coming into your website and the numbers keep going up, it’s doing well. If potential clients are contacting you through your website or mentioning your website in emails to you, you’re doing something right.

What's on your website content assessment report?

When your website persuades visitors to contact you, that’s a win. After all, the ultimate goal of any business website is to:

Attract attention
Educate visitors
Generate leads
Make sales

But what does it mean if your website isn’t doing any of that? How do you know what’s wrong? How can you determine what steps to take? Our answer: get a professional website content assessment.

Many Factors to Success

A website can be a single page or hundreds of pages. It can include e-commerce, videos and links to other resources. Websites involve complex source code, design elements, graphics, content, navigation aids and other factors that contribute to the success or failure of your site. What do you look at first?

A website content assessment, as performed by Ray Access, examines everything but the code, page by page. It’s a visitor’s view of what’s on your website: what some call the “UX” or user experience. It’s an examination of what works — and what doesn’t — on your site. Our website content assessment takes into account:

How welcoming your site is, including an overview of the design elements
Whether you answer common questions about your company and about your industry
If the language of your website connects and engages visitors
How easy it is to find basic information, such as your address or office hours
If your contact information is prominently displayed
Whether visitors easily can navigate to find the page that interests them most
How well the graphical elements work with the content
If your site is complete in and of itself (i.e., nothing is missing)

A Thorough Report

Know your content works with a website content assessment In the end, a website content assessment from Ray Access is chock-full of useful information about your site. It gives you not only a sense of how effective your website is, but also an idea of where to start to address any shortcomings. The report, which can be 10 pages long, depending on the size of your website, is extensive and thorough. Because it also highlights what’s currently working on your website, the report instills a desire to fix the problems, not obsess over the failures.

Ray Access makes this an affordable standalone service. We’ll do it for you as a starting point for your redevelopment effort or as a check-in after your site’s been live for several years. There are many ways to use the website content assessment report and just as many valid times to order one. While we’re often hired to assess a dysfunctional website, we’ve assessed our share of excellent sites as well. It’s never all bad news.

This Is Not a Sales Pitch

At Ray Access, we really try not to use our weekly blogs strictly for self-promotion. At the same time, we’d be remiss if we didn’t offer our services — especially for those who don’t have the time, resources or know-how to do it yourself. In our blog, we offer small business advice, writing tips, content marketing news, among other topics.

These are areas in which we excel. We provide our thoughts and expert advice freely, week after week, for you to use in your own business. We share our secrets so you can prosper. But if you feel you can’t or don’t have the time to do it yourself, then sure, we’re here if you need us.

In this case, we believe it’s a valid question to ask whether your website is working for you. The answers may lead you to question what you need to do to fix it. Don’t feel pushed to hire Ray Access to do a website content assessment for you. But if your site is dysfunctional, consider the advice in this blog and do something about it, with or without Ray Access.

What Is Your Tone of Voice?

by Elle Ray | Dec 4, 2018 | Writing

And Does It Matter on Your Business Website?

Studying the art of communication, you learn that about 55 percent of communication between people occurs through body language. Only an average of seven percent of meaning is achieved through the actual words you say. That leaves 33 percent left over, and that’s where your tone of voice communicates your intent.

Your tone of voice comes through your writing

Tone when speaking includes the pitch of your voice. You can be screeching or high-pitched, as if you’re excited or nervous. You may be a “low-talker,” which may infer to others that you have secrets or lack much confidence. When you’re speaking, the wrong tone of voice can cause misunderstandings and mixed signals.

Write with Tone

Writing too has a tone of voice that very often portrays your message even more forcefully than the words you choose. According to the Nielson Norman Group, a UX research and consulting firm, your tone in writing is just as valuable as the tone you use when speaking. How you feel about the subject you’re writing about comes through in your tone of voice.

Tone of voice in writing also lets your personality shine through. It tells your readers subtly whether you have a sense of humor, you’re bored with your work or you’re truly passionate about the subject matter that’s bubbling out of your fingertips. Your tone lets readers in on your cynicism or irreverence. Especially important in business communication is whether you’re more formal or casual in your approach. And that comes out in the tone of your writing voice.

Your Tone of Voice Is Personal

One of the aspects of writing that slows down amateur writers is a belief that their tone in writing should differ from the tone they use when speaking. As a result, their writing comes across as stilted, awkward or full of words no one would use in everyday speech. Formal writing, like that used in academia or grant proposals is not based on everyday language. That’s why we encourage writers of all levels to write like you talk.

And how you speak is very personal. It betrays your regional origin and education level, as much as it does your thought process. The personality that comes through in your written voice is an integral part of your message — so much so that how you say something is just as important as what you say.

Why Worry Now?

Writing blog posts and website pages should play an integral part in your overall content marketing and messaging strategy. It’s one of the main reasons that business owners and marketing firms are so hesitant to hire outside writers. They’re afraid of losing their “voice” — the intangible thing that makes them unique.

Tone of voice, also referred to simply as tone or voice, is just as important, however, to professional content providers like Ray Access. When we write for you, we want to keep your voice, not give you ours. So before we begin your project, we like to see something you’ve written or at least listen to how you talk about your company.

We often hear clients tell us that what we’ve written sounds just like something they would say. We don’t always have to be that spot on, but we get close enough to make you feel comfortable putting your own name to the words. As professionals, we leave our voice at the door. No one should be able to tell that you didn’t write the words on your site.

In the Final Check

Editing plays a big role in maintaining a consistent voice on your website. Editing also can help soften the blow of poor grammar or less-than-fluid thinking. You can keep your voice while maintaining proper punctuation and grammar. One does not preclude the other, no matter how much slang you use in your everyday speech.

Editing also ensures that a consistent voice flows through your words, even when different writers contribute to your site’s content. An editor who respects and understands the value of voice and the tone you want to portray is more valuable than all the thesis writers at Harvard combined. So write like you speak … because you connect with people that way.

« Older Entries

Next Entries »