June 17th, 2006, 10:13 am

Goof-Proof Your Website

Susan West and Michael Gold, westgoldeditorial.com, Friday, June 16, 2006 at the Peabody Hotel, Little Rock, Arkansas, 2006 AAN Annual Convention (Association of Alternative Newsweeklies)

Here’s some notes. Long, text heavy notes. They haven’t been edited or fact checked, so if you see something I goofed on, lemme know!

Goof #8: Organize and simplify information

• Don’t have 50 content categories, have 5

Goof #7 Squandered Vertical Space

• Don’t put important stuff below the fold. Users don’t see stuff unless they scroll … and they don’t
• (See Poynter’s Eyetrack Study)
• example: FairfieldWeekly.com

Solution: Put real content above the fold

• Make design elements shallow
• Use horizontal area
• Signal presence of critical material with jumpdown links
• example: WSJ

Goof #6 Thinking like print

• Using print terminology online
• Organizing site like paper
• Pulling heads and decks from the print issue, where they don’t make sense
• (example: Metroland. “Cover” “volume” “issue”)
• (example: CL, Scene & Herd … “Rented men” “He didn’t know” … it’s true, I don’t)

Solution: Transcend the dead tree

• Eliminate artifacts of print
• Users are online, you don’t have to remind them
• Avoid shovelware
• Text, podcasts, video, audio are all content online; don’t segregate them into a multimedia section
• example: Seattle Weekly’s cover story isn’t labeled as such
• example: Boston Globe presents all content

Goof #5: Withholding information

• Making users click down many levels to get information (Big Gigs, etc.)
• example: Boston Weekly Dig; tells you about quality of life, doesn’t show it
• Good: SF Weekly, has names of artists on each headline

Goof #4: Slow Text

• Users want to get their information right away
• example: San Diego CityBeat’s listings are too gray
• example: Nuvo.com; restaurant information at bottom of article
• Reading text online is about 25% slower online than in print

Solution: Webify text

• shorten articles
• cut text into chunks
• format with bullets
• example: Sacramento News & Review uses anchor links at top of page, have days of the week navigation
• example: Washington City Paper puts restaurant info right at the top

Goof #3: Buried Treasure

• Site neglects users’ hot buttons
• Compelling content is hidden (like Musician Directory)
• example: Boston Weekly Dig search functionality is buried

Solution

• Create prominent homepage tools that allow people to easily find their stuff; show off your treasure by linking to stuff on homepage
• example: Nuvo.com and Seattle Weekly
• VV: Hot button topics are covered on lower level pages with links and teasers

Goof #2: Untapped Web Power

• Site relies on static print material, fails to capitalize on Web capabilities

Solution: Take advantage of ..

• Databases - turn print tools into web tools
• Indexing: “Gentrification” … use keywords to tag content and pull out hot topics
• Custom alerts and updates: send out alerts via email
• Most viewed stories
• Mobile (cell phones, iPods, PDAs, etc.)
• RSS Feeds
• Take advantage of tagging and technorati to help folks spread your content
• Streaming music: AudioFloss.com
• Walking Tours: Ed Loves Bacon’s Audio Tour of BODIES

Goof #1: Untapped web power: This time it’s local

• Every alt should be the primary source on local music in its market
• We have the best restaurant suff

Solution: Use the local social web to play to your strength

• Washington City Paper: 3500 raters, user reviews in print edition as well, Nobs Mobs reinforce relationships between users and paper, got more advertising as a result
• Sacramento News & Review: puts myspace link to bands on pages, uses downloads, labels his homepage. Becomes a space where bands want to be seen
• Palo Alto Online (Palo Alto Weekly): Town Square allows users to contribute stories, built it from 3 weeks, concept to release is 4 weeks
• The Phoenix: Enable users to add comments to articles
• Boston.com: Allowing users to post pictures; asking specifically for images to accompany upcoming/planned stories

Q&A

How do you deal with the marketing/editorial fight over space and resources?

• Think back to the print context - you need content that is valuable to your readers. Without it, no one will come and advertise
• Primary areas need to be focused on what the user is coming to the site for
• It depends on what your users come to the site for … what’s going to make a user click on this?

Why make your site easier to navigate when doing it poorly will increase your web traffic?

• Tools can be sponsored, you know
• LauraFries.com’s take: The more useful your site is, the longer people will spend on it. You’re saving a penny so you can’t make a dollar - in terms of traffic.

Other than playing to our strengths of music and food, how can we distinguish ourselves from our daily counterparts? Also … do people really read heavy stuff online?

• Yes, people do research online, so they will read it
• The personality of the alternative press helps you to enlist the conversation of the users and the audience, the personality of your industry is to let things fly a little bit; I think you should be more willing and able to do that than the conventional press. People are using the web for more than passive consumption of information.
• The OK daily prints a whole section of citizen-generated content
• Wisconsin State Journal allows users to vote on what goes in the paper
• You should be working those local social networks
• You have to watch what your users are doing

How can we exploit our ability to talk candidly about politics in ways that dailies can’t?

• Set up political pages; the web allows you to take the next step and promote the ‘action’
• Teach your users about things like tagging, wikis, etc. and then allow them to go crazy using those tools to engage in social computing

For links to the good stuff, check out:

Del.ico.us/westgold/AAN-June2006