Seth Godin recently blogged the article “Powerpoint makes us stupid” – these bullets can kill.   See, the Powerpoint revolutions has created some casualties, not the least of which are organizations (like the US Army) bogged down with ambiguous and overcomplicated presentations and, possibly worst of all, the common trend to write content using bullet points.

People like bullets (not all people, but more on that shortly).  They like bullets because:

• Bullets are an effective way of organizing content.
• Bullets summarize important points for quick and easy understanding.
• Bullets are easy, reading online is hard.
• Content developers can use bullets to explain key points rather than explain them with language.

It didn’t escape me that I used a bulleted list, I did it to make a point.  The list above is easy to read and it gets a point across, but it’s cold and impersonal.  It conveys information, but my tone of voice is completely lost.

So, like, think of it this way.  When I write for this blog, I tend to write  – more or less – how I actually speak.  If we were talking about bullet points over coffee (because bullets are cool), the conversation would be a lot like the one I’ve started above – though the live version would be decidedly less one-sided.  If I were writing for a rack card or brochure I might change my tone to sound more poetic.  If I were writing for a corporation I’d use formal language and speech.  This is all tone of voice, matching the language of the reader.

Using bullets is the absence of tone.  Bulleted lists are to writing what paint-by-numbers are to art, the effect without the inspiration. So why are they still used so frequently?  The answer, not surprisingly, lies in the problem of a slightly misogynist web.  Stay with me while I ponder…

The internet was and still is a field where men hold most of the key positions (That’s why cracked always makes the front page of Digg).  I’m not suggesting that women haven’t contributed as much, quite the contrary, but I’m suggesting that the web wasn’t (and isn’t) built for women.  This doesn’t jive with modern marketing ideas, we know that women make most of the household buying decisions – well over 90%, so why don’t websites target that?

There are rules that govern design and communication, most of those rules defined by previous theories.  Phrases like “above the fold”, “bullet points” and “call to action” are all things to look for in “effective” web content.  Not so plainly, notice how they all have a decidedly military feel to them?  It’s all very manly, the web, or at least it was.

Social media is about sharing and connecting, and in this – women rule.  They are more likely to share content and connect with other people like themselves, (men are more interested in creating content).   Women want to connect, to hear stories and to get long term value, men just want glory and status.  Some companies are successfully marketing to women, but most are still failing and it’s because while their design and brand has changed, they’re still writing and building for men.

I have some theories about how some old rules are dying, or should die, and they lead to how to write better content.

The first old rule I want gone is bullets.  No more, please?  We all have big monitors now, nobody is surfing in 800 x 600 and, unless there’s something we won’t understand unless you explain it in point form, or your audience is exclusively men, we just don’t need them anymore.  Women don’t like bullet lists, I don’t like them either.

Then I want to see people craft content to make the most of new resolutions.  Turn to the website on your left.  Now turn to the website on your right.  Both of them were likely designed for 1024 x 768 resolution or less.  Did you know that ol’ 1024 x 768 (finally) is the third most used resolution with 1600 widths topping the charts?   Well, it is, and it’s a great landscape to craft awesome content.

Once I’ve knocked that small feat out, I want the whole world to start using contractions.  This rule of formal language (sans casual commentary) is old and I’m really tired of people writing “did not”, “was not”,  “is not”, etc…  Remember the old Star Trek: TNG Episodes?  Remember Commander Data?  Remember the unusual habit he had of NOT using contractions?  They did that specifically to make him sound less human.  When we don’t use contractions, it sounds as though we’re scolding our visitors through a robotic box.  Using them makes us seem more human and helps bridge the gap. Interestingly, I’ve discovered that a main reason for a lack of contractions is that apostrophes break source code.  As a marketer though, I’d say that’s the programmers problem.

And last (for now) I want the world to fix their error messages, notifications and confirmation messages to be more human, because I don’t like it when a web page gets angry at me for making a mistake.   I know this happens because web pages are made by programmers, and notifications are made to explain exactly what went wrong.  I fondly remember arguing with a developer friend who always wanted errors to be structural and informative.  I wanted to say things like “Whoops! We don’t recognize that email format, please try again”.  He wanted to say “That is not a valid email address”.  He never grokked that his would subtly treat people as though they were incompetent where as mine takes the blame onto the company.

The test I always run with web copy, or copy of any kind, is to read it out loud as things look very different on paper than they do when you say them.   Once you’ve tried to read a bulleted list aloud, you’ll probably never use one again.  Once you start writing naturally, not based on old methods, you’ll find your copy suddenly more appealing to people.

No dice, it’s not in the libraries (probably cost prohibitive).  UBC has a copy apparently, but you have to be able to log in to their archives to get it. (Any UBC students out there wanna make $50?)

It’s tough to find Canadian consumer data, after digging deep though I was able to find a report from Neilsen (the ratings and ranking company, you know the ones) that places Canada in the top 10 rated countries for overall consumer confidence.

What’s consumer confidence?  It’s how good or bad you feel as consumers about the state of the economy and your personal finances.  It’s measured, in part, by the things we worry about – like global warming and the economy.  It’s also measured by tracking where our money goes, and our thoughts on the future of the economy.

So, what are we worried about?  In a nutshell – our health, global warming and increasing bills.  We’re worried about other things too, but those three are all well above the global average. We’re not as worried about the economy either, a stat that’s confirmed when you look at where our money is going.

When we look at the data, we can learn that while Canadians are lower than the global average  in luxury spending, we are not quite as debt focused as the average American.

A corresponding study in the Neilsen report indicates that an overwhelming number of Canadians believe the recession will be over in a year.

Our language has turned from ‘recession’ to talks of ‘recovery’, which shows that the average Canadian feels confident with their financial status, job futures and the state  of the economy as a whole. Source: Neilsen Ratings: Canada breaks into the top 10

In the internet world, what does it all mean?  Possibly that internet properties will make efforts to target Canadians (and their wallets) more aggressively, and new Canadian startups are more likely to be profitable in the near future.

On the web, you are your website.  Your website (you) communicates with visitors, who in turn try and communicate with it (you again).  As in real life, sometimes there are breakdowns in communication, and the message doesn’t come across clearly.  Here are some things to watch for…

Too much wewe talk.  Not talk of small or diminutive things, or anything inappropriate – it’s talk about you.  Your company.  What you have done.  Why you’re great.  Why I, if I was smart, would buy from you.

This type of copy is a killer.  People respond more effectively to copy that talks about them, talks to them, solves their problem.  Copy that lacks a strong customer focus will lose visitors quickly.  If you mention your customers (you, your, yours) at least 2 times more than you mention yourself (we, I, company name), you’ll be doing well.  Don’t hurt yourself by checking manually though, use the We We Calculator from Future Now.  I scored 65% customer focused (alright, enough about me).  I challenge all of you to do better!

Too much jargon and meaningless corporate-speak.

Yes, we all get it. Your company is poised on the edge of several strong vertical markets, and ready to leverage new media and web 2.0 technologies to blow away existing old world dynamics and surge forward with new synergies and exciting, action driven initiatives.

Except nobody (except for looney tunes executives who don’t know what they actually want) really talks that way, and nobody likes being talked to that way.  You would be better off to say “We like all the new technology out there and are looking forward to incorporating platforms like Twitter and Facebook and using audio and video on the web to allow us to communicate with our visitors better.”

Fight the Bull is an extension for MS Office (works in Open Office as well) that analyzes your content for heavy jargon and meaningless speech.

Too many typefaces.  There can be only one.

I’ve been reading about type lately, two good books – one is called “Stop Stealing Sheep and Learn How Type Works”.  The other is called “Designing with Type”.  I like fonts and typefaces, both are important to communication as some typefaces convey trust while other can convey doubt.  Without getting into it too deeply (because I will later), conventional wisdom tells us that we should use no more than three typefaces at a time.  One typeface for the main headline; one for the copy; one for sub headings.

The colours, ooooooh the colours.

Your main font should be one colour, something close to black or dark gray.  Your background should be slightly off white.  Line spacing and letter spacing should make your copy easy to read.  If you must use colours in your fonts, or on your website, use them sparingly.  It’s not a circus tent, after all, it’s your business and unless your business supplies flashing coloured lights and tie dyed clothing, you should probably keep it toned down.

If you can’t write, hire someone who can.

Some people are great writers.  Some people write by smashing their fingers on the keyboard in rapid succession.  At least, that’s what it seems like when I read some of the copy out there.  I’m always amazed by the care and attention people pay to the graphic properties of a website and to what lengths they’ll go to get something ‘perfect’ and how little they seem to care about their copy. Don’t spend $4000 on a website and follow it up with amateur hour copy.  A great writer will work with you to craft your site’s copy, perfect a tone of voice and attitude and, most importantly, make sure grammar and spelling are consistent and correct.

Coming soon = Leaving now

If you have a page that says “coming soon, please check back later for updates”, that tells me one of a couple of things.  First, that you wanted this great website and maybe underestimated the time an effort it takes to write copy.  If the “coming soon” persists, I’m going to assume that you no longer care about your website.  If that’s the case, why should I or anybody else care?

These leaps in logic may be fallacious, but perception is everything.  If you can’t finish them, hire someone to. If you can’t do that, unpublish them.  If you don’t want to do that, believing that the “content helps for search engine rankings”, I’ll be blunt and say, all you’re doing is showing people what looks like a strip mall with half the stores empty.  Empty pages, optimized or not, aren’t going to help you.

Anything else?

Plenty, stay tuned during communication week at Harbour City SEO for more communication tips and tools.  Ciao for now!

It’s a massive oversight on my part, something I should have done as soon as I set up a contact form and launched a newsletter signup form.  If you collect information from your visitors, it’s never too late to put a policy on your site.  If you don’t know where to start, there are plenty online.  You could even link to this one, or copy mine and edit it to suit your needs.

Harbour City SEO: Privacy Policy

In an interview with Techcrunch, Zuckerberg answers a question about privacy by saying “People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people. That social norm is just something that has evolved over time.”

If Facebook is to pay its investors, it has to focus on growth and monetization, but neither of those are conducive to improved privacy protection for the users, who have undergone changes to the privacy policy twice in the last year.

It matters to me, I believe strongly in protecting and safeguarding personal information because I’ve seen the lengths people will go to to get it (and what they’ll do with it), but I wonder how much it matters to others who seek a louder voice in the crowd or, in Facebook’s case, a direct link to all the voices.

Here’s the video from USTREAM.