Articles

Is your website is succeeding?

26 July 2023

A successful website is more than just visits to your sales form.

Creating content in an agile world

25 July 2023

Creating content to meet a 2-week sprint timetable can be tricky.

Will AI-generated content replace content writers?

17 July 2023

Hollywood writers and actors are worried AI is going to replace them, should content writers be worried too?

Accessible content lowers risk and opens up new markets

11 July 2023

When 1 in 6 Australians live with a form of disability, it makes sense to make your content accessible.

Get more from your CMS upgrade (Video)

11 July 2023

Having a digital improvement specialist on your team could turn frustration into success

Don't make me scroll

28 January 2016

When I started work in the online world, we had to fit all our content into quite small screens. The first site I managed was built for 800 x 600 px screens. The site was an intranet, serving content to 9,500 postal employees, ranging from corporate desk dwellers to posties, couriers, truck drivers and everyone in between.

The content writer who knew too much

4 December 2015

Have you ever had a conversation with someone and wondered ‘What on earth are they on about?’

You heard every word they said, almost all of the words were in plain English and the sentences were grammatically correct, but at the end of it you were no more the wiser.

The power of the dark side (of digital conent)

30 November 2015

I've been watching a lot of Star Wars recently, and I think I may be missing something. It seems too easy to turn to the Dark Side.

Be a rebel - say what you mean!

17 November 2015

Why do we feel we need to write our web content in "grown-up" language?

Will customers ever learn? (your site)

17 November 2015

A few years ago, I ran a website that sold software.

Now and then we released patches to our software, as you do, and I remember having the oddest conversation with our server guy.

Servant of many masters – how do you create content for all digital devices?

12 November 2015

I’m fascinated by how we use our different devices these days.

I was in a café the other day with a friend of mine and her phone rang. She pulled it out of her bag to answer it, but didn’t put it to her ear. She just plugged in her hands free.

And no wonder, her phone was huge.

Change is good – but how much is too much?

11 November 2015

It’s amazing how much time you can waste, tweaking a website. I launched a new site a month ago and not a day goes by that I don’t make some small change to it. This morning I spent four hours trying to get it to render nicely on a mobile.

What's so cool about optimising content?

4 November 2015

Taking the time to tidy your content can reap many benefits.

Why bother with navigation structures?

24 September 2015

I was arguing with a colleague of mine the other day about the importance of a good navigation structure. My colleague didn’t think they were important any more: “These days everyone uses Google. They don’t need to navigate a site, they just search for the page they want and click on the link”.

Why do we design websites to confuse our users?

22 May 2015

Great designs are intuitive and easy to use.

Big banner pages – beautiful design or annoying barriers

6 May 2015

Call me a luddite, but I have an issue with banner-style home pages. You know the ones. The page is just a series of ad-style banners laid one on top of each other down the page.

Are we listening to our customers’ voices?

30 April 2015

Usability testing is a funny thing. On the surface, it’s a vital key to unlock the all-important “voice of the customer”. But how do you know it’s the customer’s voice you’re hearing?

Websites don’t always tell us what we want to know

24 April 2015

Have you ever looked at a web page and found you have more questions than answers? If you’re anything like me, this happens to you quite often.

Lies, damn lies and web statistics

22 April 2015

You can say a lot with a set of pretty numbers.

Don’t blame the CMS

13 April 2015

Have you ever noticed that when a web site is hard to manage, the Content Management System (CMS) almost always gets the blame?

Search engine optimisation – it’s simple if you try

9 April 2015

We all want to be on page 1 in Google searches.

Distributed authorship or a central web content team?

23 March 2015

When I began my journey through the wide world of web management, websites belonged to the IT department. They were hand built creations, coded in HTML, JavaScript, SQL and harder codes.

Are FAQs really frequent?

17 March 2015

Three customers go to a website… None of them can find what they’re looking for. What do they do?

Want to write digital content

12 February 2015

Why wouldn’t you? Online is cool. It’s where all the action is these days. And you? You’re a great writer. You’ve written heaps of stuff – direct mail letters, brochures, magazine articles… and you’re a gun at emails. 

What is it with social?

11 February 2015

Can someone please tell me when digital content became all about ‘social’?

I get that ‘social’ is an important part of any content strategy, but surely there’s more? Aren’t well written, informative ‘content’ pages still vital parts of any good online presence?