Unsolicited Marketing Advice

Using "click here" is bad web writing style and should be eradicated from your Web site.

The primary reason why this common approach to hyperlinking should be avoided is that "click here" doesn't help users. In fact, it hinders users. As we all should know, users don't actually read Web pages. They use a unique skimming and scanning technique that searches for information rapidly. The user's eye is trained to jump first to headings, boldface words, bulleted lists, and underlined hyperlinks that can provide clues to the page's content and assist in the user's overall goal of locating desired information.

While they do this, their finger is poised on the mouse button, ready for the brain to command the nerve to fire that will execute a click and jump to another page. This process is not unlike touch typing where fingers more instinctively and seemingly without thinking to accomplish the production of strings of letters into words.

So here's the rub: "Click here" doesn't have any meaning. So at best the user must stop, back up and actually read the offending sentence to determine what is hidden behind the "click here" hyperlink. That takes time and effort, running contrary to standard Web reading techniques. Thus, the "click here" technique makes it harder for the Web surfer both to read and to understand your content.

"Click Here" and Search Engines
Another reason to avoid "click here" has to do with search engine optimization (SEO). This is the process of helping search engines like Google, Yahoo and others correctly index and list your individual web pages in their directories. Search engines have robots that prowl the internet clicking on hyperlinks, looking for material to add to their databases. As they click, they keep track of the words that are part of the hyperlink. These underlined words are called the anchor or link text. Search engines use these words to help understand, rank and organize your content. The less meaning your anchor text has (and "click here" has none), the less relevant your listing may be on these search sites.

A Better Way to Hyperlink
The better way to create a hyperlink is to look for a descriptive phrase that suggests the content that the hyperlink points to. The user needs to know what information to expect when they click on a hyperlink. An emphasis should be given to using unique or specific words in the anchor text. Including a verb can be useful to trigger the user's mind (Learn about Guerrilla Marketing) , but often isn't necessary; in Web reading users understand partial sentences, phrases or lists including hyperlinks in the same way that "you" can be understood as an unstated part of a sentence in English. So Guerrilla Marketing information can be just as good, or perhaps a better way to construct the hyperlink. On the other hand, situations where clicking creates a dialog (Register for Ragan’s Advanced Writing & Editing Workshop) can benefit from a verb because it tells the users what to do next in a sales sense. In genernal, the shorter, more succinct the anchor text, the better (unlike the last example).

Experts Comment on 'Click Here'
Yucca Korpela from Helsinki University of Technology has an excellent polemic on this topic entitled Why Click Here is bad linking practice. It provides further support for avoiding "click here" from experts including:

• Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0
• Tim Berners-Lee, director of the World Wide Web Consortium
• Jakob Nielson, of www.useit.com
  

Technorati Tags: Web Writing

Labels: Web

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© 2009 Warren Allan Johnson
Posted by Warren Allan Johnson @ 8:15 AM | Permalink | |

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Rumors of a Google health portal last week turned out to be more Googleulation, the technical term for excessive speculation about new Google initiatives. Nevertheless, Google did come out with a couple new tool toys that could be of interest to public relations managers both inside and outside heatlhcare.

1. Google Trends has applications for brand reputation management or crisis communication monitoring. It will undoubtedly also be a popular tool within the political arena as well.

The tool, which currently carries the Google Labs logo, was previously code-named Google Zeitgeist, but it appears that those Googleonians figured out most people could neither spell or pronounce zeitgeist.

In a nutshell, Google Trends allows you to see a chart of news volume on a particular term, with the peaks labeled and hyperlinked. Of special interest within Google trends is a nice feature allowing you to enter two or more search terms separated with commas that provides either a benchmark for your topic, or a view of how the two topics or terms may be interrelated. One can also see which cities are contributing to the overall volume based on Google’s best guess at IP addresses.

If your organization is in the news (and hitting the threshold for Trends), you’ll want to consider regular tracking of brand keywords like your name. This becomes even more imperative when bad news hits. See Google’s page explaining the tool for more information, or Philipp Lenssen’s Blogoscoped page of examples. The example below (click to enlarge) shows a search for Enron on Google Trends:

Google Trends can complement monitoring using Technorati charts (see details of Enron search on Technorati) as shown here:

Posts that contain Enron per day for the last 30 days.

Get your own chart!

Technorati has a more specific emphasis on the blogosphere as compared to Google Trends, which focuses on news. Thus, Technorati can give PR practitioners insights into how to enter into the overall discussion on a topic in a manner that recognizes the importance of social networking.

2. Google Notebook is a tool that will be of interest to online researchers and information brokers, as well as students. It allows you to create a clip list of your findings online – texts, images, links and so forth -- to be shared with others.

Related Links

• An overview of all four Google Press Day 2006 announcements from Barry Graubart at Content Matters.
• A more detailed review of Google Press Day topics from Google Blogoscoped.
• Initial Rumors of “Google Health:”
  Kevin Maney, USA Today
  Digg listing, comments and blog posts on topic
  Infomatic Nurse weighs in with useful background information including links to speculation, commentary and the Wikipedia entry.
• Google Press Day speakers available for viewing online (but awkwardly, not downaloadable in an iPod-friendly format the way items on video.google.com)
• Compare Google's testing of “refinement options" for search results on health care topics discussed by Garett Rogers of ZD net to Vivisimo’s clustering search engine or Kosmix.com
• Steve Rubel posts that the Google Coop application, a tool like Rollyo, may be the rumored "Google Health"
• Google Coop page
• One example of how Coop can be used to allow an individual or organization to assist users in their online searching, according to Google’s news release regarding Coop:

For example, a doctor can label web pages related to arthritis, and users who subscribe to that doctor's information will receive options at the top of the results for more specific information such as "treatment," "symptoms," or "for health professionals" when they enter a relevant query.

Technorati Tags: Marketing, Google, Google Trends, Google Notebook, Information Brokers, Crisis Communications, Branding

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© 2009 Warren Allan Johnson
Posted by Warren Allan Johnson @ 7:30 AM | Permalink | |

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Employee blogging – either officially or unofficially -- is a very timely and increasingly important issue for public relation departments. Here are some links that may help your organization create a formal blogging policy.

• Examples of blogging policies from The New PR Wiki
• Charlene Li's (Forrester Research) post on Corporate blogging includes a sample policy, examples of policies from other companies, and information on the topics of ethics and disclosure.
• Corporate Blogging Policies from corporateblogging.info
• Mentions of blogging policies on the For Immediate Release podcast by Shel Holtz & Neville Hobson:

The Hobson & Holtz Report - Podcast #67: September 12, 2005
32:15 The Delta Airlines fired blogger, Ellen Simonetti, files alawsuit; implications for
companies who don't have blogging policies

The Hobson & Holtz Report - Podcast #38: June 2, 200546:32
Boeing 777 blog - the test pilots start a conversation; thepersonal touch and motivating an employee; policies and guidelines

The Hobson & Holtz Report - Podcast #19: March 28, 200544:48
Blogging policies in the workplace - Thomas Nelson

Technorati Tags: Blogging, Public Relations

Labels: Web

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© 2009 Warren Allan Johnson
Posted by Warren Allan Johnson @ 6:30 AM | Permalink | |

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Belonging to an electronic mailing list for your profession can be a wonderful source of ideas and advice. Such lists, sometimes generically called Listservs (see Wikipedia entry), are systems that distribute a single e-mail from a member of the group out to all the other members. Typically, one or more people of group will respond to the first message, creating a multi-party discussion.

In a sense, electronic mailing lists are similar to threaded discussion groups, or bulletin boards, where one person posts a message and others reply. However, listservs take a “push” approach of sending out topics, whereas bulletin boards generally require you to visit a web site to post your message. Sometimes threaded discussion groups will include an e-mail notification feature, which lets you know that someone has replied to your posting and makes it convenient to return to the site to continue the discussion. This makes such a board somewhat more convenient, but it is hard to bet the ease of use and immediacy of an electronic mailing list.

An active list with hundreds of members can generate dozens of messages per day. You’ll want to organize this inflow so you can better take advantage of participating in topics that interest you in a timely manner. Here are a few tips:

1. Use Folders and Filters – This is one of the key steps to managing your inbox and is especially important if you belong to a list. You’ll want to create a filter (called a “rule” in Microsoft Outlook) that moves incoming messages from the list address into a separate folder. Place this folder where it’s still visible and convenient, such as under your inbox. Read Unsolicted’s previous post for full details about Managing Your E-mail Inbox through Rules & Folders.

2. Sort and Scan before Replying – Once all your e-mails are sorted into one folder, you can periodically deal with them throughout the day. Depending on your e-mail software, you can then click on the “Subject” heading to sort these by message topic rather than the default date field. This will help you quickly respond to the original sender, or delete messages that aren’t of interest (hold down the control key to select several messages at once, then click the delete icon, or hit the delete key).

3. Turn on the Digest Feature – Most electronic mailing list systems have a way for you to receive a daily or weekly compilation of messages, rather than receiving messages individually. This “digest” setting can be a good way to still stay in touch with the list but avoid overload. However, some people find that this feature inhibits their active participation, which is an important part of participating in such a group. Your original e-mail message when you joined the group will often tell you how to use the digest setting (you saved that message, right?). Listserv and Majordomo systems are automated, command-based systems. So what you usually do is send a message with certain words to a special e-mail address in order to change your settings. The computer recognizes the e-mail address you are sending from and the command that is included in the subject line or body of your message. It then makes the requested change to your profile. Some systems are tied to a web site where you can log in and change your profile yourself. PRSA’s e-Groups is an example of this approach.

4. Unsubscribe if You’re on Vacation – If receiving too many messages will fill up your inbox or give you too much stress while you’re on vacation, you can unsubscribe and the messages will stop. Again, each system is somewhat different, but there is often a command or setting change you can make to affect this with the computer. No human feelings will be hurt by leaving the list for a while. Make sure to make a note to yourself with the e-mail address needed to resubscribe yourself upon your return so you don’t miss out on the wisdom and value of belonging to your list.

Technorati Tags: E-mail

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© 2009 Warren Allan Johnson
Posted by Warren Allan Johnson @ 6:30 AM | Permalink | |

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One of the first steps in taking control of your e-mail inbox is to begin using filters and folders to sort incoming mail.

This is fairly simple to do in Microsoft Outlook, and will help you better handle the smaller number of messages remaining in your inbox. You can accomplish this by creating filters (called “rules” in Microsoft Outlook) to automatically move certain types of messages into separate folders where you can deal with them as a group.

If you’re not using the folder view in Outlook, you’ll want to start doing so. In Office 2003, select Go/Folder List to make the folder list appear on the left side of the screen. You can create new subfolders either under your inbox, or within your personal folder hierarchy. This tutorial will show how to create a subfolder within your inbox, where it is convenient to shuffle incoming mail. In a network environment, this may mean messages are still taking up mail server space, but you can apply these same concepts to creating a subfolder within your personal folder, which generally lives on your hard drive or on a separate network drive.

Next, create a new folder by right clicking on “Inbox” in the folder list and selecting “New Folder…” In this case we created a new folder called “Newsletters” that we’ll use to collect e-mail newsletters and such.

At this point it’s helpful to have a sample of a message that you want to filter into the new folder. The quick method is to highlight the message in your inbox with a single click, then click on the “create rule” icon in the toolbar. This icon looks like a piece of mail going into a folder (You can also highlight the message and right click to reach an option for “Create Rule…”).

Now, select a way to uniquely identify future messages. This may be by e-mail address or name (if you don’t get other, non-newsletter mail from this person), or perhaps unique words used each time in the subject line, such as “XYZ Company Newsletter.”

On the lower half of the dialog box, where it says “Do the following” check the box for “Move mail to folder:” and select the “Select Folder…” button to navigate to the folder that you created. Select OK twice and you’re done. Future messages will be automatically moved into the new subfolder once they arrive. You’ll still be able to tell when there are new messages in the subfolder since the folder name will be bold and new message number will appear in parentheses.

Once you master this quick method of creating rules to filter messages, you can experiment with the advanced “Rules and Alerts” tool. This gives you even more control and options for handling incoming messages.

Besides sorting out newsletters or listserv messages from your inbox, you can use the rules tool to do such things as:

• Sort messages from the boss for quick attention
• Sort messages from your wife or family into a separate location from your work e-mail
• Move your eBay or other automated messages into a storage location.
• Shuffle read receipts or messages which you blind copied yourself into a folder to handle later.
• Enhance your spam handling by filtering into a “Spam” folder that you can delete from later (this works especially well if your ISP labels messages with Spam confidence information in the internet header section or if your software inserts something like “[Spam]” in the subject line.

The instructions in this article describe how to use rules in Microsoft Office 2003. Older versions or other e-mail systems will work somewhat differently. Here are some additional links that may help with filtering of your e-mail:

• Microsoft’s Tips for managing your e-mail using rules
• How to use the Rules Wizard in Outlook 2000
• Filtering Your Email Using Outlook Express (about.com)

Technorati Tags: E-mail, Productivity

Labels: Productivity

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© 2009 Warren Allan Johnson
Posted by Warren Allan Johnson @ 6:30 AM | Permalink | |

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