Text, Copy and Email

Many kinds of content can be added to a webpage. Often people get caught up in the whiz-bang of it all and forget the copy. Well written copy not only talks to your customers, but to the search engines as well. Be sure to write and review your copy, and ask others to read it before using it on a webpage where millions of people can read it. Copy should be re evaluated and updated often. Not only does the environment evolve, but search engines notice when a page is updated regularly. Fresh copy is the best approach.

Here are some things to remember about getting your copy ready and sending it to your webmaster or customers.

Sending Copy
When sending ad copy to your webmaster, it is better to copy and paste from your word document to the message field of your email than to attach a Word, Works or other word possessor document. It is possible that your recipient does not have a program that will open the file. Avoid formatting copy with more than simple headlines.

Spreadsheets
If you have data in a spreadsheet, export it to an 2003 - 2007 workbook (.xls). This can be placed directly into a webpage as a table. If there are more than 6 columns or 16 rows, the file should be linked to as a pdf, or xls.

Fonts
A common problem with the internet is the limited number of fonts available. Web pages use fonts installed on the user's computer, so that cool font you use for your print pieces likely is not available. You can make graphics from your font, but they will not be readable by the search engines. A solution is to use alt tags for those things which must be graphics to maintain consistancy between your website and your print collateral. Alt tags were intended originally to show what a graphic was in a browser that did not support graphics. Now, they are an important way to ensure that search engines understand the meaning of your graphic.

PDFs
Pdf files (portable document format) from Adobe® are extrmely useful and can be displayed in all current browsers. They can also be emailed or downloaded from a website. They look exactly like the original documents with embedded fonts and graphics, regardless of what program they were created in. If you have a publication like a brochure, newsletter, schedule or other printed item you would like to make available to customers or prospects, Pdf files can be easily created from the source files with Acrobat, or other Pdf creator.

Tips and Tricks for the TOTAL beginner

Copy and Paste
As unlikely as it might seem to someone who uses a computer everyday, some simple things are difficult for some people. Often I suggest that a client copy and paste something like a web address into an email or other document. They ask me how to do that.
Here is a little learning aid to learn the most often used key commands. Move the cursor over the three actions to see the key comand.

Sending Page Links
Another really important thing is to be able to send someone a page link. Look at the top of your browser, and you will see the URL (universal resource locator)

This is the address for the webpage you are looking at. If you double-click it, it should select like this:

Then you can copy and paste it into your email or other document (Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V).

Many applications like Outlook and MS Word support hyperlinks (a link to a webpage). Even pdf files can have active hyperlinks. You can tell if the application (typically) recognizes the link, because it will become underlined in the document.

These hyperlinks are what make electronic documents so powerful. You can link a word to the Wikipedia page or Merriam Webster's defination. You can link to supporting documents, pictures, or an opportunity to buy or download.