This guest post comes from Cal Evans (no relation that we know of), author of Avoiding a Goat Rodeo: How to get the website you want.

Image from sxc.hu user ba1969

I’m a lucky man. I get to talk with a lot of developers and web development shops. No matter where in the world I am, one constant refrain I hear is, “Yep, we are done with the site, waiting on the client now to write the content.” OK, so most of my European friends don’t say, “Yep,” but you get the idea. Consistently, content is the last part of the equation in a website and one of the speed bumps many developers hit in deploying a website on time.

Don’t be a speed-bump

No matter what type of website you have, your content should be part of the planning stage. By the time you and your developer finish the planning stage, you will have thought through every page in the initial launch and know what content goes on it.

If you are building an application, your content list may be light. You may need nothing more than “About us” page, “Contact us” page and any other window dressing in a standard website. If you’re building an e-commerce website, you need to know what initial products that will be in the system and what you need for them. Do you need pictures and descriptions from the vendor? Do you need to produce a video showing your products in action? Think through these questions and a hundred more that will come to you during the planning stage.

Your painters wait

Software development is like building a house. When you’re building a house, you don’t wait until the walls are up and the painters arrive before you select the colors to use. You meet with your architect and plan that out long in advance so that when the painting crew arrives, the paint is already there for them.

The same concept applies to your website project. The planning phase of your website is the time to determine what content needs to go on the walls of your website — not after your developers finish.  One of the things you should have when you finish the planning phase is a “content list.” This is a list of the pages on your website that require content.  The “About Us” page is a good example. Your developers will be able to create the page on your website called “About Us,” but you will have to write the content for the page.

Once you have your content list, get started. If you are responsible for the “History of the company” page, or the page containing headshots of all the partners, don’t wait until the week of the milestone to start gathering your materials or hiring a photographer, do it now. Surprise your developers by being ready when they come to you for your content.

Wordsmith is a noble profession

A good friend of mine just joined a mid-sized company with its own web team. She was telling me about all the cool people that she works with on the team.

“… and they even have their own copywriter,” she said.

It struck me that this surprised her. Then, I realized the sad truth. Most people assume that owning a word processor qualifies them for being a copywriter.

If you’re spending a good chunk of money to have your website professionally created, don’t skimp when it comes to the copy. Budget for a copywriter to create all the written content you need. If you need video, find a professional who specializes in video for the web.

You are the expert in your industry. It’s your job to give guidance and make sure everything stays on message. You need to hire an expert in content creation to work with you to make sure your content is as professional as your website.

Let the painters do their job

Professionally produced website and web-based applications don’t come cheap. Given the amount of work it takes to produce them, they shouldn’t be. Your content, however, isn’t the place to cut corners. Work with professionals to produce content that highlights your business.

Deliver the content during the planning stage before it’s needed to ensure your website goes live on time. Don’t let the painters stand around.

About Cal Evans: CalEvans is a professional programmer, writer and speaker. His passion in life is helping people do great things with technology. His latest book, Avoiding a Goat Rodeo: How to get the website you want does just that.

Cal is lucky enough to be married to the lovely and talented Kathy, a fact that both surprises and delights him daily.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

Because of my deafness, I rely on lipreading to listen. While I’ve worn hearing aids since I was a baby, I’ve always needed to read lips to “hear.” I do catch things from time to time without reading lips, especially a song I know by heart. I can follow it when I play it on my iPod.

Photo from sxc.hu user doc_

Listening Contrast

But it’s harder to follow a song playing it on the computer when there’s background noise. One cool feature in hearing aids is the T-coil. It blocks out background sounds so you can hear during a telephone conversation. It also works the same way for headphones.

This morning, Paul (the spouse) comes to talk to me. He stands right where the shades behind me reflected on his face turning it into a striped one. Although I could see his lips, the stripes distract me that reading his lips is as reading the mouth of an ostrich. So I ask him to move over a little so his face falls between the two blinds shedding the stripe look.

If you compare my lipreading skills with and without hearing aids, you can tell when I’m not wearing hearing aids because it can take a few “Huhs?” and “Whats?” before I catch something. “My mom needs the mop,” can easily be “My mom’s knees pop.”

I listen better when there’s a strong contrast between the words, visuals and sounds. A lighting issue, too much background noise or no hearing aid can all interfere with the listening experience. Just like on websites with little contrast between the background and the text. Poor contrast creates a more difficult online reading experience.

Reading Contrast

Online content requires a different style of type than print does. What works in print doesn’t always work online and vice versa.

In newspapers and magazines, what color are most of the words? What color is the background? Black words on white backgrounds, right? You may see color on occasion like in the print edition of USA Today, but usually the paper uses it for section names (green for money, red for sports, etc.), graphs, photos and other visuals.

Then why have we seen a bad trend of sites using a variation of gray text on white backgrounds? There’s little contrast. I have excellent reading vision (for now!) and it strains my eyes to read this. What of those with not so great reading vision?

Maybe web designers think black on white is boring because it has been used for so long. The first websites from my first foray on the Internet in 1993 all used white backgrounds, black text and blue links. It worked well.

Gray text challenges our scanning abilities because we have to work harder to distinguish the gray from the white. This doesn’t mean to avoid gray on white altogether. Some gray — just like some italics — is okay, but not when they show up in lots of paragraphs.

Granted, I’d rather read gray on white than black on hot pink or blue on red (red does NOT make a good background for a lot of content). The key is to have enough contrast without harsh colors. I don’t follow some people back in Twitter because I can’t read their content. One person uses yellow for links on a white background. Couldn’t see them at all.

Do you struggle to read online content because of poor contrast? Why do you think many sites continue using gray on white? How does a light contrast between words and background affect your reading?

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

Woot knows how to entertain us with its content. The company — located within a couple of miles from me (!!!) — sells one product per day. Every product comes with smile-inducing descriptions. Since then, the company has added Woot-Offs! (selling one product until it runs out of stock, then selling another product, repeat until it feels like stopping or servers crash when it offers the Bag of Crap), Wine Woot, Shirt Woot, Kid Woot and deals. Even its newsletter cracks me up.

Humor + Products = Impulse Purchases

And it works. I bought a couple of things that I should not have — and I take care to shop for needed items… most of the time. How can you resist a company that puts the following on its about page:

Woot.com is an online store and community that focuses on selling cool stuff cheap. It started as an employee-store slash market-testing type of place for an electronics distributor, but it’s taken on a life of its own. We anticipate profitability by 2043 – by then we should be retired; someone smarter might take over and jack up the prices. Until then, we’re still the lovable scamps we’ve always been.

I look forward to its Woot-Offs even though it could mean making poor decisions. Good news, I’ve gotten better about what I buy. In fact, I don’t think I’ve bought a Woot-Off item in the last few runs. (Woot-Off happening now and so far, I’ve been a good girl.) Its FAQ explains the flashy thingy happening:

I see some orange flashing lights on the main page – what do they mean?

No, you aren’t seeing a side effect from your allergy medication. You have found a Woot-Off, a short term frenzied mutation of our product posting procedure.

Can You Guess What 6dollarshirts Sells?

I need to hush up about Woot already. It gets enough attention and I don’t want to turn it into a spoiled brat. Besides, some other children deserve attention, too. An shipment notification email from 6dollarshirts compelled me to write this. A bit from the email:

Our amazing staff has inspected your order and even contemplated stealing it since you have such FABULOUS taste in design and color combination… <3

Our shipping specialist lit a candle and a hush fell over the crowd as she so gently packaged and so carefully placed the shipping label containing the following request from the ever-so-talented ThreadPit Crew…

Ooh, chills. There’s more…

We all had a wonderful celebration afterwards, and the whole crew marched down the street to the post office, where the entire town of Gainesville, Fl  waved “BON VOYAGE!” to your package, already on its way to you.

We also want you to practice precautions while waiting on the arrival of your order. Please keep this in mind: Strange, unexplainable things will happen when you wear our shirts. You will no longer feel the urge to rob old ladies. If you’re bald, your hair will grow back. Random members of the opposite sex will come up to you and start “grinding ‘dat [bleep]“. Most importantly, your friends and family will start laughing with you instead of at you. I hate it when that happens.

In the last newsletter, Woot bragged… err … mentioned an article by 37signal’s Jason Fried (I’ve had the pleasure of attending his presentation and meeting him in person) about awful business writing. Jason mentions Saddleback Leather and Polyface Farm, so you know where to go for more captivating content inspiration.

What other business websites charm you with its content?

The day before a state-wide math assessment test, my husband humorously asked our oldest who took algebra at the time, “Do you remember how to add, subtract, multiply and divide?”

“I don’t know. When I do a math problem now… if the answer is simple, I think it’s wrong because it has to be more complicated than that,” she said.

That’s how many adults think. We never believe the obvious and forget that it’s possible for the answer to be a simple one.

Simplicity in Writing

A former client contacted me about a new web content gig for a company that sells products outside of my expertise. However, one of my kids LOVES this category of products. So it was an exciting opportunity to step outside of my comfort zone. She asked me to write a sample. I went to work in writing a story around the product. I studied the other products to see how much technical information to provide in an attempt to get in customers’ minds of what they want to know.

In reality, all I needed to do was capture highlights of the products and the experience of using them. After all, the web site had detailed information elsewhere. The client was delighted with the sample as well as the content that followed.

Simplicity in Quoting Projects

How are you with giving quotes to new clients? Is it a struggle? It has gotten easier for me, but I wish I had John Hewitt‘s formula when I first started freelancing. His World’s Simplest Freelance Rate Formula is a simple yet effective process that works with new and experienced freelancers — no matter what you do.

For those in freelancing careers outside of writing, substitute “per word” with “per page,” “per design,” “per call,” “per marketing project” and so on. Meet John’s amazing and powerful formula:

1. Start at $20 an hour or $.20 a word. This is a fairly low level. Feel free to start higher.
2. Increase your fee by 5 ($25 an hour $.25 a word) with each successful gig.
3. When your prospects start telling you that you charge too much, don’t raise your rates for six months.
4. Try raising it again.

I won’t begin to quote the many articles I’ve read that recommend avoiding a per hour charge. Some cases may call for it — and I do work per hour for several clients. Why no per hour charge? Let’s look at an example.

A client asks for a quote to blog for him. For an ongoing project, charging per page would be wise. Here’s a very simple example why this works better:

1. Your hourly fee is $50.
2. You write a blog entry in 30 minutes, which is $25 if you charge per hour.
3. Charge $50 per blog entry and you’ll come out ahead.

Of course, not all entries will take 30 minutes depending on the subject and length. But you can see how a per blog entry works better than per hour.

Update: A Twist with the Youngest Child

My six-year-old brings home a math pack every Thursday. It consists of games and puzzles related to math. The latest one required he pick one of the word problems to solve. Then three of us (11-year-old joined us) create a solution using words, numbers and pictures and share it. We had to list how our solutions were the same and how they were different. A great lesson because it shows there is more than one way to solve a problem.

The 11-year-old took the easy way out and simply wrote, “7 – 3 = 4.” So our only option for the “same” was that we all used numbers. My six-year-old didn’t like that. “It’s too obvious. It’s too easy,” he kept saying. Really, the simple answer was the only answer.

I started reading The Little Prince and it makes a references about how children look at things differently from adults. Much like this theme. The narrator drew a picture that looked like a hat. It was a python swallowing an elephant, but adults could not see that. The Little Prince did.

What I learned from my daughter: Sometimes the answer is a simple one.

What problems have you come across where the answer turned out simple?

This entry is part of Middle Zone Musings: What I Learned From… Children groupwrite project.

Well, my dear, they come from many places. If you go to the library known as Freelance Folder, you’ll see people sharing how they find their clients.

When a freelancer and a client meet, they check out each other to ensure they are a fit. It may take some bio and web site reading to get familiar with each other. After making it pass the test phase, they come together and a product or service is born. No storks involved.

But how do freelancers and clients meet in the first place? Believe it or not, Mommy never relies on cold calling. Isn’t she lucky? Imagine how many bad phone calls I’ve had trying to contact strangers through the relay service. Blind dates just don’t work well here.

All of the following ways work because Mommy met at least one client each way.

• Referrals: Mom has clients from everywhere. Only one client has an office in Dallas. Yet, Mom found him through a colleague based out of Seattle. I helped teach a thesis related course for a few years plus created the bibliography guidelines for the school. Professors refer students to me for editing help. I love thesis editing because I learn new things like the impact of gentrification on cities.
• Social network profile: Just last week, someone who found me on LinkedIn sent me a query to do web content for his business.
• Existing clients: It’s important to keep current clients happy. It’s easier and cheaper to keep clients than to find new ones. A current client emailed me a project for another client.
• Plain ol’ reply to ads: A lot of people think this doesn’t work anymore, sweetie. With many people out of jobs, we all think every opening receives hundreds of applications. I replied to a call for writers and landed the gig.
• Twitter: I don’t think Mom has gotten any gigs directly from twitter. But it keeps her name out there as she tries to help others solve problems and link them to valuable and fun resources.
• Networking: Another client got to know me through his site’s forums and a couple of email exchanges. Networking involves many places including twitter, blogs, Facebook.
• Web site: A web site with all of its contents add to a person’s credibility. Well, if it’s done right. Too many business sites have no About page, photos, bios or anything to put a friendly face behind the company. Add a newsletter along with an email subscription box and you start building relationships.
• Existing work: A client liked several articles your mom wrote and contacted her. Another client and I worked for the same web site.
• Interviewees, editors and resources: I can think of at least three people I interviewed for an article or book chapter who eventually hired me.
• Volunteer work: I encourage new freelancers to build their portfolio through volunteer work. Besides that, you do something good. People will notice your work and refer you or hire you.
• Former students: I suppose this could count as existing work. I assisted many professors in NYU’s online graduate program. The students got to know me through online classes.

I’ve bought ads for directories with local non-profit organizations. I knew it was more for helping out the organization than advertising. As you know, I have only one local client and he found me through an online search.

So there you have it, darling. That’s where Mommy’s clients come from. And in not one instance did I rely on protection in the form of advertising or blind dates from cold calling.

I’m hooked on As Time Goes By, a British TV show starring the Judi Dench and Geoffrey Palmer. I’m also getting into British-based Prime Suspect with Helen Mirrin.

Not only do I enjoy the repartee between Dench and Palmer, but also hearing the British accents. While I may not have good hearing, I can see and recognize the differences between British and American English.

I watch these shows with closed-captions or English subtitles. An interesting thing to note is that the captions use the American English spelling rather than British. For example, if a character says “color,” the captions also says “color” rather than “colour.”

Now why would a British TV show use American spelling? Because the DVD, a BBC America production, targets the American audience. This confirms Jakob Nielsen’s belief that web content need to use the correct variant of English and stick with it throughout the web site.

I love learning the differences in our languages including sounds, terms (football instead of soccer; Earth instead of dirt; loo instead of bathroom), and slang.

What amazes me is the shows make many American references. As an American, I might notice this more. However, I don’t think I’ve seen references to other countries and their cultures except in reference to an event such as Palmer’s character’s time spent in Korea.

Back to English and content. As much as I love the British culture and language (UK is one of the first places I want to travel whenever I get to the other side of the world), I use American English on this web site.

After all, most readers and clients hail from the US plus it’s where I live. Now, if I had an audience of 75% from the UK, then it could be a different story. However, it wouldn’t be a straight-out easy answer of using British English.

As much as I have picked up British slang, concepts, and terms, I will probably make mistakes. So is it better to stick with what I know best and stay consistent, or take a risk to devote thhe site  to British English and make a bad impression when I make honest mistakes?

Experts says to “speak in the audience’s language.” But does US and UK variation English count? In either case, we’re speaking English. For credibility’s sake, I’d probably need to stick with American English.

One of the more important rules regarding web content is “consistency.” That means deciding whether you use American English or Queen’s English, web site or website, Internet or internet.

The suspect: The confusing WSJ subscription page. Click to view larger.

Wall Street Journal meant well when its staff created the email center page. I like that it has all the e-mail subscriptions on for managing. When a resource has multiple e-mail newsletters, listing all of the newsletters in one page serves readers well.

Here comes the “but.” If you’re already subscribed, the WSJ page doesn’t show it. At the bottom of a WSJ newsletter, it shows:

TO VIEW OR CHANGE any of your e-mail settings, go to the E-Mail Setup Center: http://online.wsj.com/email

Everyone sees the same page and options regardless if they have a subscription. Subscribed users should see their subscriptions reflected on the landing page. Sure, they have a link so you can log in to subscriber Email Center to check your settings — but we read fast and I didn’t notice this on the first reading. Only “here” has a link and it’s not obvious when you scan.

So I click “here” and it’s a dead end:

No Information Available
Your subscription does not include access to this service.

If you want to unsubscribe to ALL WSJ newsletters, you have to go through the entire list and click every “Remove Me.” If you want to change subscriptions (unsubscribe to some, leave some alone, etc.), you feel the pressure to select all the “Add Me” and “Remove Me” because you fear leaving it along will automatically subscribe you.

In reality, it won’t do that unless you click either the TEXT or HTML boxes. But that’s not so clear, is it? What do you think? Know of another Web content suspect?

Go to jail and do not pass Go.

How often do you get an e-mail from a prospect who asks, “I need help with my web site’s content” or “I need five articles on such ‘n such topic”… “How much do you charge?”

Web content — one page takes less time than five pages. Even on page can vary depending on the page’s content. Will you provide information, content, etc.? Or do you want me to come up with it from scratch?

Five articles. 500 words vs. 1000? About social networking or some obscure medical topic targeted to those in the medical profession? Big difference. Writing doesn’t have a standard process like other jobs.

New writers have emailed me asking how much should they charge for a project. As if I can give them a magic number. Like Deb says, our experiences vary so what I charge won’t work for most people. Not only does our writing experience differ, but also our topic knowledge.

This formula should help most writers get started in the scary world of coming up with rates. Yes, it’s scary. After lots of practice, I’m more comfortable providing quotes — but my stomach still stirs whenever I press, “Send” with my quotes.

1. Start by figuring out how much you want per hour.
2. Estimate how long it will take you to get the job done.
3. Add 10% to that time because there is almost always something to make the assignment take longer.

After gaining experience, you won’t need to focus on how long it takes to do an assignment. You’ll get faster in some assignments. So if you charge $20 per hour and an assignment originally takes five hours, that’s $100.

With experience, the assignment takes you only one hour. $20 isn’t fair anymore. Instead, charge a flat fee such as $100. You factor in experience.

However, for some clients — I charge by the hour because they’re open engagements. I adjusted the hourly rate based on experience.

Doing enough assignments and quoting will help you come up with rates to use as the baseline. Experience will help you get a handle on rates and feel good about giving quotes.

So when a writer asks me how much to charge, don’t be offended when I don’t offer numbers and point to resources instead.

What works for you?

Jakob Nielsen’s Blah-Blah Text makes an important point that web site visitors want to cut to the chase. They don’t want to waste time with a welcome message or any of that.

We writers have learned that we need to have an opening, body, and conclusion. But we also know that writing for the web breaks many standard writing rules. Whether a site should have an intro depends on its purpose and audience (You’ve heard this a thousand times, I’m sure).

Yahoo! needs no introduction. Almost everyone knows what it is. Instead of an intro, Yahoo! gets down to business with headlines and a sentence for its latest news items. The rest of its content leads users to where they want to go as users go there for different reasons… search, e-mail, news, and specific sections.

Users go to Google to search. Some use it for news, but not like with Yahoo! Google compromised by providing two home pages — one with the famous signature Google logo and a search box with a few links around it; and the other customized for users (iGoogle). iGoogle’s default (for users not signed in) home page contains the more popular widgets.

On the flip side, few know meryl.net and what it’s about. The name gives away nothing. I chose not to put the blog on the home page because my business comes first and many people will find their way to the home page. Not all of my clients care about blogging, but they get a bite of it on the home page right after the introduction to the business.

A random testimonial appears on the top right letting current clients speak for my work. The newsletter provides a way to capture names and e-mails in exchange for providing visitors with information of value (at least, I try!).

Bulleted lists on Web pages help readers scan and find what they want. Two situations that do well with bulleted lists are series and instructions. Also, beware of indenting, spacing, formatting, and whitespace.

Series
For situations where three or more items appear separated by commas, they might work better as a list. Instead of, “Bring an apple, orange, and banana” use…

Bring:

• apple
• orange
• banana

This doesn’t need numbers as order has no impact. The space between “Bring” and the list might be too much as people might not instantly associate the two with the distance, but CSS can fix this.

Instructions
When steps call for doing tasks in a specific order, numbered bullets work well. eHow.com does this nicely. Take care in situations where you have a choice. For example…

1. Peel apple.
2. Cut apple using one of the following ways:
   • Dice the apples using the chopper.
   • Cut the apple in half. Cut both halves in half for four wedges. If you want smaller wedges, cut the four wedges in half.
3. Serve.

With instructions, you can also clarify a choice like this:

• Dice the apples using the chopper.

• or

• Cut the apple in half. Cut both halves in half again for four wedges.

In this version, it’s clear you have a choice since “or” separates the choices.

Indenting
Notice Step 2 takes up more than one line and uses the indent? Some sites don’t indent lines beyond the first and it’s hard on scanning like this:

1. Dice the apples using the chopper.

2. Cut the apple in half. Cut both halves in half for four wedges. If you want smaller wedges, cut the four wedges in half.

Spacing and Long Lists

It’s also possible to break up a long series such as what to pack for sleep away camp. That list can easily get long. Break up the series by categories (i.e. clothes, toiletries, linens). Also, instead of one long list — put the list into columns to avoid wasting white space.

But what about a long list like 175+ Data and Information Visualization Examples and Resources? Do the numbers throw you? Numbers typically represent order, but this list uses the alphabet. The numbers determine the number of resources.

Furthmore, the list divides into three categories. Can’t do more than one column simply because the content space is narrow. Plus, some of them have comments.