Websites are for PEOPLE
There is much debate in our industry about usability, findability, functionality, and a hundred other ilities. The debates typically stem from looking at the same problem from a different perspective, and the things we love to argue about are usually easily settled. There is a solution, and I will share it with you here!
Identify WHO the site is for.
This is the first critical step, whether you come from marketing, IT, development, design, data analysis, management, etc. In every discipline you need a clear picture of who the site is for. I recommend defining your audience, getting a picture of someone in that specific audience and hanging by your computer screen (not even joking).
One of the local boise “findability” companies (Cendesic) bases their value proposition on helping Jane Thompson meet you. It is a novel concept and ultimately, assuming you have a reasonable business model, should be a primary goal of your company’s marketing efforts (not just web). If you aren’t convinced yet, take a look at Web Trends’ website. Same principle of knowing your market, but in this case Web Trends is saying: You are found, now get to know Claire.
Practically speaking, this is the most difficult step in website optimization. It requires thought, serious thought, and then resolve that ALL actions from this point on, will be focused toward meeting your visitors’ needs.
This becomes particularly challenging when you have multiple audiences, and not only that, but they can be very different. I did some high-level consulting for the City of Boise with regard to their web analytics implementation, and the most challenging thing there is the multiplicity of audiences. My first observation was that the site is very internal focused, which leads to the next point.
Internal focus website might get you a raise, but….
The great thing about internal focused websites is that they grow organically (to astronomical sizes if you aren’t careful), they make the culture of your organization immediately apparent (I hope that is good), and they will probably make your boss happy (particularly if there are no success measures for the website). The problem is, they may not support your business goals, and worst case they undermine your business. The exception is when the site IS primarily for internal use.
Back to the City of Boise, the problem is that the site is internally focused, and the only people who know where the real gold nuggets are on the site are the individual departments. There is no doubt that the information available on the site is highly valuable, and the look and feel is okay, but a real person would be hard pressed to find anything specific. Your best bet is to search Google (http://www.cityofboise.org/Departments/PDS/NewsReleases/page17058.aspx is ranked #2 on Google when you search “city of boise jobs,” but it is 5 clicks deep in the site if you know what you are looking for). And that brings up a final topic.
Search Engines are not people, but keywords might be
If you find yourself significantly altering your website for search engines, to the point that it will not be fantastic for your audience, you should ask yourself WHY?! What is the point of having a high traffic site if it doesn’t create value for the visitors (ie. the PEOPLE). There is always a balance between writing for search engines and writing for website visitors, the scale should always tip to the people. As a comforting note, if you write about relevant topics and use good writing skills you will be just fine. Writing for the web is slightly differently than creating content for other mediums (they are all unique), but good basic technical communication skills will pay off with people and search engines.
Guidelines for writing people-focused website content
Web readers are more often web scanners, and headlines and headers play a critical role. Your site should be scannable. Can people read your headers and get the gist of what you are saying? If not, try re-writing your headers. Pages should have a consistent narrow theme, paragraphs should have an even more consistent narrow theme. In short, follow the basic rules of the 7C’s of good business writing and you will get rewarded (by search engines and people).
