Is your website home page doing its job?

I’ve recently been scanning small business websites. And I’ve been struck by how little care is often given to home page content. Too often the intros rattle on about how great the new website is, what a marvellous job the designers have done and how it’s going to make life so much better for visitors.

Now you may be rightly proud of your shiny new site and want to show it off. But your visitors don’t really care about all that stuff. They’re short on time. They just want it to do its job simply and quickly.

So keep your home page simple and functional. Tell them who you are, what you can do for them or what you are selling. Use simple clear language and encourage them to take the next step by clicking through to profiles, portfolios or products. Those first words are your first impression. Make sure it’s a good one.

How one media dinosaur is evolving

Saw an interesting tweet by @themediaisdying about a new business model to drive down content cost and deliver relevant content online. USA Today is partnering with Demand Media to deliver thousands of SEO-friendly articles to drive traffic, then sharing the ad revenue. The article in Advertising Age is here.
It strikes me that this project illustrates the unstoppable unravelling of traditional media. But rather than being a disastrous end to a glorious era, it’s more a case of an industry evolving to stay relevant to the audience. As long as the new content providers maintain standards, I don’t see the problem.
News has always had to pay its way. Quality content will attract an audience and therefore revenue. Paywalls may work in some niche markets, but ease of access is important, particularly for traffic from search engines. And that’s where popularity counts. The media dinosaurs are evolving to keep up with digital change. Experimenting is key to find new sustainable business models. I welcome this one that makes a virtue out of good content.

What’s the difference between a blogger and a journalist?

An interesting point came up today at the Like Minds social media conference in Exeter. During a discussion on content, someone asked what was the difference between a journalist and a blogger. It created a stir. “They’re the same thing,” came one response. “It’s only a question of what you want to call yourself.”

Another: “A journalist checks facts and reports them. A blogger just writes their opinion.” So a journalist can be a blogger, but a blogger can’t be a journalist? What allows a journalist to claim the label? And where does “citizen journalism” fit in?

There isn’t an easy answer. Dictionary.com says a journalist is someone who carries out journalism – “the occupation of reporting, writing, editing, photographing, or broadcasting news or of conducting any news organization as a business.” So far so good.

It also offers this looser and more opinionated definition of journalism as: “writing that reflects superficial thought and research, a popular slant, and hurried composition, conceived of as exemplifying topical newspaper or popular magazine writing as distinguished from scholarly writing: He calls himself a historian, but his books are mere journalism.” Less helpful. Can “superficial thought” be journalism?

So a journalist produces news. But what is news? That’s a debate in itself. The popular consensus is that news is a fair, accurate and balanced presentation of facts to create a story. A blogger could do that as well. And “citizen journalists” are somewhere in-between, volunteers adhering to “journalistic” standards. But all these definitions are built on shifting sand as the media landscape changes and news organisations try to encourage more “user generated content”.

Ultimately, the label is irrelevant. It’s the content that counts. The most important lesson here is that the reader must question the source and context of what they are reading. They can decide how much to trust it. As long as there’s a clear distinction between facts and opinion, readers know what they’re getting. It’s not perfect, but it mostly works.

There’s also the issue of the authority of the person or brand delivering the content. The internet means that everyone is now a publisher. That may be a trusted and reliable local blog, or a trusted global news provider. Reputation is all-important.