Website Content and Considerations - an Excellent Example from Salesforce Partner Pardot

I agree completely with everything in an article on website lead generation that Pardot posted recently.

Completely. With everything.

So, while I don't have permission to publish it here in its entirety, I highly encourage you to read it - if you'd like to get more out of your website, that is.

Go ahead; read it. I'll wait. (You'll come back though, right?

HEY, Welcome Back!  Now that you've read the article, you know that Pardot really walks the talk when it comes to using marketing content for lead generation.

Because that was a pretty darned good example of marketing content, wasn't it? I love it when that happens.

Who Needs Content? Businesses That Need Leads

I just might make it required reading for all of my clients. At least half of my clients are small- to medium-sized businesses who believe that they're too small to follow all the "rules" of marketing and/or they just don't have time to think about marketing. OK, to be fair, they really don't have time.

But what Pardot said is exactly what I keep telling them. If you want your website to help you attract customers and increase sales, you need to:

1. KNOW your customers and what they want
2. Make sure your website helpful, from their perspective and 
3. Create content that makes buying from you (among other things) easier on them.

Good content not only helps you grow your business by generating pre-qualified leads, it also helps to maintain those customer relationships, leading to repeat and referral business. In case you're into that kind of thing... 

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Need help creating content? Sharing it? Or making better use of the content you've already got?
I specialize in marketing small- to medium-size businesses. See my website for more info.

Beyond the Keyword Stuffing Discussion

When drafting copy for a client's site as it was in the wireframe stage* I asked what's the 'ideal' length & style for ALT image tags. Nobody seemed to have "the" answer,* so I read a few articles on the subject, many of which contradicted each other. A couple rang true, notably one by Chris Rand and another from the University of Washington.  

Alt Tags and Animal Mix-ups

While both articles were written before Google released its Pandas and Penguins (but after Apple released its Lion, oh my) I suspect (ok, guess) the advice is still pretty sound. Here's what I gleaned:

• The ALT image tag should describe the image AND what it means to site navigation (e.g., would you like to design a bookcase like this? something taller? click to use our free bookcase designer.)

• KW stuffing is bad. Very bad. 

• Accessibility readers generally agree the focus is on the first 125 characters (not counting spaces). For humans (who never agree) the tag should be a max of 7 words long, not more than 12 words long, 16 words of 7-8 characters each, and as long as it needs to be. Don't worry, there won't be a quiz later. There will, however, be infinite changes to the rules. 

• The Hobo blog is worth following. 

Definitive Word on ALT Tags? 

Anybody want to offer the definitive word on the subject? Wanna guest blog about it? I'd love to hear from you! Twitter is one of the best places to reach me. 

~Diane Stresing

*In case you're looking for a good exercise in frustration and general confusion, writing copy while a website is in the wireframe stage is a great place to start. Creativity is running high, the possibilities seem endless, and it's almost impossible for anyone to make a decision and stick to it for more than 10 minutes. At that point in the process, I find it's best to keep a "leftovers" document, full of good ideas bound to fall during the editing process. Later, that "leftovers" document is a gold mine, where you can dig up oodles of blog posts, fodder for landing pages, and other content that didn't quite fit on the site - at first.