Welcome to another edition of Sites Weekly.
In this week’s edition, you will find links to articles about the following:
- Content. Authority or vulnerability … or both?
- Design. Learn the three key design factors for an effective business website
- Technology. Should you consider Facebook Messenger for your website?
- Strategy. Are you creating a loyal group of “insiders?”
- Bonus. Are you in touch with the pain your product or service helps release?
But first …
Last week on Sites
Last week, Sean Jackson (creator of the patented SEO tool Scribe) joined me to discuss SEO. We reflected on the previous week’s episode about the importance of site speed, discussed the emerging importance of preparing your content for voice search, and then delivered some important news about the future of this podcast.
Listen: [23] What’s New in SEO? (And What’s the Future of This Podcast?)
Want a sneak peek?
In case you missed it, here’s a sneak peek at this year’s Black Friday promotion, which is coming up next week.
Genesis tips from Brian Gardner
Once in a while you might have the need to put major emphasis on some content on your website. Perhaps it’s an alert message, a caution message, or even a warning message. Lucky for you, it’s super easy, and Brian shows you how to do it in this post.
Read: How to Add Custom Entry Message Boxes to Your Site
And now, on to this week’s links …
Content: Authority or vulnerability … or both?
You don’t need me to tell you about the importance of authority. We’ve been talking about authority within the Rainmaker Digital/Copyblogger realm for many years now. And nothing’s changed there.
But there is something else that is also just as important: vulnerability. And you don’t need to sacrifice one for the other.
As Sonia Simone explains:
“Smart writers knew better than to fall for false dichotomies. For skillful writers, the combination of those two — authority and vulnerability — has become the most effective voice on the web.”
Read this article to discover how you can combine the two for better content.
The Most Powerful Writing Voice for 21st-Century Content (Copyblogger)
Design: Learn the three key design factors for an effective business website
One of the tricky elements of designing a website is making it interesting and attention-grabbing without making it overly complex or bloated with performance-sapping code and scripts.
“… A website is only as good as its design. And many small business owners go for designs with a lot of extras and embellishments that might seem like a good idea at the time, but ultimately can be simply distracting or, even worse, counterproductive.”
This article from Design Beep explains three key factors for an effective business website.
The Most Important Factors to Consider When Designing a Business Website (Design Beep)
Two of the most important decisions you will make about your WordPress website are your theme and your hosting. Wouldn’t it be great if they worked together to make your website more powerful?
Now they can.
Discover why over 213,675 website owners trust StudioPress.
Technology: Should you consider Facebook Messenger for your website?
Chatting with visitors who are on your website is growing in prominence, and one of the tools website owners will now be using to do this is … of course … Facebook.
Here is the most important element that version 2.2 of Facebook’s Messenger Platform includes:
“Messenger’s customer chat plugin allows businesses to carry on conversations with customers between their website and Facebook Messenger.”
Right now you can only join the waiting list, but this is worth keeping an eye on.
Facebook Introduces Messenger Chat Plugin for Business Websites (Search Engine Journal)
Strategy: Are you creating a loyal group of “insiders?”
Is it time to stop worrying so much about bringing new people into the top of your funnel, and instead focus on cultivating better relationships, loyalty, and enthusiasm with the people who already know you? It might be.
As David Meerman Scott explains, “You’re either a part of the group of insiders who know the place or you’re not. And it works.”
This is a short read in which David shares the story of a restaurant in Cairo that does this very well.
Snubbing Marketing To Build Fans And Grow Business (Web Ink Now)
Bonus article: Are you in touch with the pain your product or service helps release?
As Margaret Magnarelli explains, three fundamentally human qualities are:
- We like to be heard.
- We want to be understood.
- We seek a release from our pain.
And there’s a lesson here for anyone marketing a product or service. Read this article to learn it.
Why Understanding Pain Is the Key to Customer-Centric Marketing (The Content Strategist)
So …
Which of the ideas in these posts will you put to good use immediately?
I’ll be back with a new edition next week.
Keep building.