Content Mastery Guide

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Usability Tips to Keep Blog Readers Happy and Returning

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If your blog isn’t easy to use, people won’t stay very long and they probably won’t return. Usability is the key to making sure readers find what they need. In a previous post, Tema Frank from Frank Reactions introduced us to usability, and now we’ll get her concrete usability tips to use when blogging for business.

From a usability standpoint, is it better to have a blog be part of your main website or on a separate platform at a separate address? Why?

From a marketing perspective, I think it is better for a blog to be part of your main website. It is so hard to get readers to your website that you don’t want to be splitting your efforts. The more traffic you can drive to one site, and the more valuable content you have on it, the higher it will rank in search results.

It is also better for usability if you keep your blog and website in one place. Otherwise people may get confused going back and forth between the two.

What are some tests bloggers can use to improve the usability of their blog and website?

To start with, use Google Analytics and track what is most popular with your readers over time. If you see that your bounce rate is high (people coming to your site and leaving right away), you can assume that you’ve got a problem.

There are some free tools you can use to test things like page download speeds (the faster the better), colour contrast, etc. I list several of them on the Internet Marketing Tools page of the Frank Reactions website. Scroll down and click “Usability Testing.”

Another useful free tool is built right into Word. It will check the grade level readability of your writing. Oddly, even for a highly educated audience a grade level score of about Grade 8 will get you the best results. It is hidden in the more recent versions of Word, so here’s how to enable it:

  1. Click the File tab, and then click Options.
  2. Click Proofing.
  3. Under When correcting spelling and grammar in Word, make sure the Check grammar with spelling check box is selected.
  4. Select Show readability statistics.

After you enable this feature, open a file that you want to check, and check the spelling. When Word finishes checking the spelling and grammar, it displays information about the reading level of the document.

Do you have any other usability tips for business bloggers?

  • Be focused. Try to write on one consistent topic. If you wander all over the place, people won’t know what to expect, and are less likely to follow you. Think about who you are writing for, and what will be relevant and of interest to them.
  • Blog regularly. Aim to post at least once or twice a week if you want to build a following.
  • Promote your posts. Use social media and other tools to promote what you’ve written. I love the WiseStamp tool that you drew to my attention, Linda. It lets you have a link to your latest post automatically placed in your email signature.
  • Minimize jargon. You may be tempted to throw a lot of jargon in to show that you are an industry “insider” but usually even tech types find it easier to read jargon-free documents.
  • Don’t have patterned backgrounds! Fortunately, this is not nearly as common as it used to be.
  • Be human. This can be really tough in a business blog, but people will respond better if they get a sense of the real person writing rather than just a corporate face. Try to bring some personal elements into your writing.

So while you’re aiming for high-quality content that will be interesting and useful to your ideal clients, be sure to think about how easy it is to find and navigate through the information on your blog. The more usable your blog, the more likely people will stay on your site long enough to learn more about your business.

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Are These Usability Mistakes Undermining Your Business Blog?

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Is your blog confusing your readers and sending them away dissatisfied? Tema Frank, author of PeopleShock: The Path to Profits When Customers Rule, and Chief Instigator at Frank Reactions, walks us through the topic of usability, and how it impacts business bloggers.

Tema Frank is a marketing and customer service expert who built her first website in 1995 and has been helping businesses with online marketing since the late 1990s. Through her speaking, consulting and bi-weekly podcast, Frank Reactions on Customer Experience, she helps companies profit from the Internet.

I met Tema online when we both tweeted that we’d be attending a Toronto marketing conference. By the time we met in person, I’d visited her website, listened to her original podcast series (the Frank Online Marketing Show), and discovered just how knowledgeable she is about online marketing! I’m thrilled she agreed to an interview, and I hope there will be more to come.

Tema, one of the services your company offers is usability testing. I’d like to delve into the topic of usability and how it relates to business blogging.

First of all, what is usability?

Put simply, usability is about making a website (or software program, or anything else used by people) easy to use.

What are some of the consequences of usability problems on your website?

There are lots of them – here are the top five:

  1. Wasted advertising and promotional efforts because people who come to your site can’t do what they want or find what they are looking for.
  2. Bad publicity (thus turning off future clients as well as those who hit the problem). People who have a bad experience on a website are likely to tell many others about it. Now with social media, that bad experience can quickly become known by thousands of people and hurt your business for years to come.
  3. Lost sales. Odds are there is someone else offering something similar that has a more usable website. Guess where your prospects will go?
  4. Higher customer service costs. If frustrated visitors can’t find what they need or do what they want easily, they’ll either give up or call you. Generally a call from a customer costs many times more than letting them do things themselves online.
  5. Increased costs correcting errors. If it isn’t clear how to do something, users will make mistakes. Those mistakes will cost you money as you try to untangle the mess they’ve made.

What are some usability issues that are specific to blogs?

One that drives me crazy is when there are no dates on the posts. Information, especially when it comes to technology, gets outdated quickly. If I don’t know when the post was made, how can I tell if it is still relevant?

(I often get around that by filtering my search results to be within the past month or past year. I wish Google would let me set a default of one year for all my searches.)

Another is lack of scannability. People have short attention spans and tend to read only about 10% of what’s actually written on a page. (Sad for us writers, but true.)

When my daughter was in her first year of university, I taught her that if she was short on time she should read the first and last paragraph of each chapter, then scan the headings and bullet points. That’s what people tend to do on blog posts too. (Though they probably don’t bother with the last paragraph).

Boring headlines will work against you. Headlines are vitally important. If your headline doesn’t grab your readers, they won’t bother with the rest. Jon Morrow has a great free report on Headline Hacks that is worth reading. (You can also check out my interview with Jon Morrow at http://frankonlinemarketing.com/fom52-jonmorrow/.)

Too much text. Along with keeping your text scannable with sub-headings and lists, photos help break up the text on a page and add more visual interest. People are naturally drawn to images, especially photos with faces in them. Use a good headline under the photo, as that is very likely to be read.

Are any of these usability mistakes showing up on your blog? Stay tuned for the next part of my interview with Tema Frank, where she’ll reveal her best usability tips for business bloggers.

P.S. If you liked this post, you might enjoy the Blogging Tips newsletter, delivered weekly to your inbox! Sign up here.

Shedding the Burnout Business Model

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burnout business model
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Burnout is a common phenomenon in business, particularly in helping professions. In both the Wellness Leadership Academy Masters and the Wellness Business Academy Black Sheep communities, I’ve met many talented wellness professionals with stories of burnout that led them to seek a new path.

This is a topic I first explored many years ago as a music therapist, when I faced my own burnout after several years in the field. Is burnout inevitable? It doesn’t have to be!

Mary Davis is dedicated to helping wellness professional become prosperous healers, by avoiding burnout business models in the first place. I recently interviewed Mary for a two-part series on her own blog. Since this is such an important topic, I wanted to share the links with you here.

Part One – Shedding the Burnout Business Model

Part Two – Business Burnout Needs Personal Self-Care

How to Find the Best Research in the Least Time to Boost Your Blog’s Credibility

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Have you ever noticed underlined text or reference numbers when you’re reading health and wellness blogs? If you click on those, you’ll see that the author has backed up their writing with links to journal articles, studies, and other sources.

When I created my collection of five nutrition blogs I like, I noted Julie Daniluk’s commitment to research, and that it speaks volumes about her credibility and professionalism. And as nutritionist and health writer Leesa Klich points out in her post, there is no better way to make sure you’re delivering the most current recommendations and best value to your readers.

Leesa was my guest for a recent class in my Content Mastery Formula program, where she shared her tips for finding the best research in the least time.

She was even kind enough to stick around for a Q & A with our students, where we covered topics like how to shift from academic/professional/technical writing to conversational blog post writing, and how to structure the links and references within your blog post.

Here is an excerpt from our interview:

We all remember our days as students, spending hours poring over references for our academic papers. Is researching a blog post easier? (Please say yes!)

You can make it as easy as you want to! I see three main factors that would influence how long it would take:

 

  • What type of articles does your audience want (and expect) from you, and what type do you want to deliver and be known for? Short tips, updates, recipes and Q&As require less research time than “ultimate guides” or comprehensive protocols, but the latter will help you rank for SEO by giving away your best information.
  • The type of references you want to use. PubMed scientific peer-reviewed research articles will take a lot more time to decipher than reading a consumer-friendly NIH or Harvard Health newsletter, or another blog post on the same topic.
  • How specific you are. The more specific your search, the fewer references there will be. This is similar to the concept of a “long-tail keyword.”

 

If you go too far, and get too many references, consider breaking them up into a blog series.

A note from Linda: Remember that a blog post isn’t the same thing as a journal article or academic paper. This is a common myth amongst health and wellness professionals. You’re not writing to other professionals here (though of course your colleagues may also read your posts). Ultimately, you are writing for clients and prospective clients, so imagine you are speaking just to them and keep it simple.

What are your tips for being efficient with your research time?

 

  • Have a specific topic – Looking up references for “Is dairy healthy?” is very broad, versus looking at “Is milk a good source of calcium?”
  • Have a system – First, list your favourite sites to reference and use those sites each time (there’s no need to go down a “Google” black hole).
  • Batch it – Take your topic(s) and set a timer for 20-30 or up to 50 minutes. Search each of your preferred sites. Take a cursory look at the title of each potential reference. If it looks like it applies, copy the link into your draft blog article document. Don’t go and read through them yet.
  • Save good references for future use – They can give you some great ideas for future blog articles, and you already have a reference to start you off. Bookmark them, or copy the URL into a document for when you need to write your next article.

 

How about you? Have you ever gone down a Google black hole when researching a blog post? Or felt confused about the difference between a blog post and a journal article?

Hopefully these tips from Leesa Klich have given you a good place to start. With the boost to your credibility and the value for your blog readers, research is definitely worth the effort.

P.S. Leesa and I went on to discuss more about the three categories of references you might use in a blog post, and how to assess the credibility of a potential source. You can access that recording as a member of the Content Mastery Formula program. Learn more by joining me for my next free webinar.

Blogger’s Block? Interview an Expert!

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In a post about how to leverage expert interviews to sell your online courses, my friend Nicole Holland revealed her top six benefits of interviewing experts in your field. She should know, since in just over one year of doing interviews she increased her own online audience by 17,000!

Nicole Holland’s top 6 benefits of interviewing experts

  1. You get to learn from the best of the best!
  2. You get to know them and they get to know you!
  3. You get to help them make money!
  4. You get to have fun with them!
  5. You get to easily create high-quality content!
  6. You get to earn instant credibility through association!

(Read the full post for more details, interviewing tips, and insights from Nicole.)

While Nicole shares her interviews via her podcast and her free online Business Building Rockstar Summit, we can easily apply this strategy to wellness blogging. For example, you can interview:

Three success tips for interview posts:

  1. Take notes while you talk, transcribe the interview, or (this is my preferred method), ask the person to send their answers by email and let them know you will lightly edit the text as needed.
  2. Present the text in a simple Q & A format (here’s an example), or intertwine their answers with your own comments (here’s an example).
  3. Stay true to your blog’s key categories when choosing the people and topics for your interviews. That way even when you’re highlighting someone else’s ideas, you’re still reinforcing your own expertise.

BONUS: You can watch and listen as Nicole shows off her interviewing skills at the Business Building Rockstar Summit. You’ll hear 40+ marketing experts teach the exact steps, strategies and mindsets that have helped them build brand recognition and attract a never-ending flow of amazing clients and customers.

Claim your FREE ticket to the Business Building Rockstar Summit
(Linda’s affiliate link)

P.S. As a follow-up to meeting on Twitter and chatting about how social media is meant to be social, Nicole chose me as her Twitter expert for the Business Building Rockstar Summit! Register now to hear this and all of the other valuable sessions.

P.P.S. If you liked this post, you might enjoy the Blogging Tips newsletter, delivered weekly to your inbox! Sign up here.