There is nothing as intimidating for most of us as staring at a blank piece of paper (or Word document) and knowing that it needs to be filled with luscious prose painting a compelling picture of who you are and why your potential customers should work with you. Creating Web site content for a Web site re-design seems to be a nerve-wracking task for many clients and can even bring a project to a screeching halt on some occasions. This doesn’t need to be the case. 

A few tips for writing Web content:

1. Let your site map be your guide. Your site map is the outline of all pages on your Web site. With it, you know exactly what content you need to pull together.
2. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Look to existing marketing and product collateral as sources of content. This will also ensure consistency of message throughout all of your mediums and save you a ton of work in the end.
3. Remember: Visitors don’t read. They skim until they find what they are looking for. Front load your content (most important information first), use chunking (short paragraphs), bullets and imagery as they make sense.
4. Write content for the Web that is rich with your keywords.  This is the best way to be found on search engines, so make sure to optimize your Web site for search engine rankings.
5. Know your visitors. Know who your primary audience is and why they are coming to the site. Speak to them.
6. Be concise. Enough said.

May 30^th – a special day all around for me.  Annual significant vacation and my anniversary!  Every year at this time, we are deliberate about experiencing God’s creation – first hand.  Cindy and I educate our two boys (Tanner  - 13 and Hudson – 11) at home.  We seize nearly every opportunity to “teach” them every step of the way.  As we are currently touring the west (New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota / Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce, Yellowstone, Black Hills, Badlands, etc.), you can imagine the endless opportunities for learning.  I am abundantly confident our boys are learning each and every hour of every day we are on our vacation.  Even with our intentionality for learning, we are cautious as to never declare “A Learning Moment”.  In doing so, we would rapidly diminish the depth and breadth of the opportunity to learn.  We call this experiential learning.  It is quite powerful.  The scary thing is, I get to learn the most!  Very exciting. 

So goes our upcoming Web Camp.  We have reformatted Web Camp and are calling it: “Get Your Hands Dirty”.  This new approach is not unlike our approach to education for our boys.  Okay, as much as we would like to, we cannot take all Web Campers to the Grand Canyon to get their hands dirty (although I could be persuaded to consider such if we have enough clients interested in doing so…?); however, we can most definitely provide a learning experience for our clients in a much more experiential fashion.  Listening to Charlie Brown’s teacher drone “wah wah wah” for hours on end just isn’t cutting it in today’s multi-media, multi-input, hyper-absorption culture.  Our minds simply wander too far afield within minutes of the traditional lecture-based education model. 

As I write this, we are on day 8 of our 19-day vacation.  I’ll admit, yes, I do have to work daily while traveling.  It’s just not an option; however, we have assembled the most talented staff imaginable and I can rest on vacation knowing our firm’s business is in great hands.  Day 8 is a “turn” in our vacation as we now leave northern Arizona / southern Utah and head north.  Our next stop is Bryce Canyon (www.nps.gov/brca).  We *will* be getting our hands dirty here – guaranteed!  The exploration is as much for me as it is for my boys and I would challenge you to, within your daily routine, find your own Bryce Canyon for exploration.  There truly are “learning opportunities” at every turn if we keep our eyes open

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Since its release in 2007, BitWise has been among the few Indianapolis based Web development companies to utilize Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS). Over a dozen of our clients have taken advantage of Microsoft’s not-for-profit institutional pricing and chosen to develop their new, robust Web sites on the MOSS platform. Clients include: 

• Marian College
• Finance Center Federal Credit Union
• Learn More Indiana
• Networks Financial Institute, a program of Indiana State University
• Park Tudor School
• Double Take Software
  
  

MOSS takes the concept of a Content Management System (CMS) to the next level by facilitating collaboration among users, automating business processes, and supplying access to information that is essential to organizational goals and processes. In addition to the publishing components, the Web site can be extended to include blogs, wikis, and other user-generated content. As part of the Content Management System, administrative users are able to add or rearrange pages at will and add to the navigation as the need arises. I have provided a few reasons that MOSS is a great solution for non-profits: 

1)  Team Based Content Writing and Publishing:  MOSS allows multiple team members or departments to share content writing and content publishing responsibilities. Subject matter experts within your team are empowered to manage content sections related to their expertise without the concern of them accessing or altering content they shouldn’t. 

2)  Workflow / Approval Process for Content Editing and Publishing:  Workflows can be created to allow managers or department heads the ability to approve or reject content before it is published to the Web. Rules can be built to mirror or streamline your existing manual processes. 

3) Capability to Schedule the Publishing and Expiration of Content: Planning ahead is critical and now you can do it with your Web content. Schedule both publish and end dates so that your content is always relevant and never outdated. 

4)  Allows for Archiving and Saving Web Content with Version Control: When a page is updated, the older versions are archived for quick reference, retrieval and resurrection.  Your Web site is a critical tool in communicating with your employees and your customers. Leverage the latest and most robust tools to achieve your online communication and collaboration goals.