All Portfolio posts

The difference an hour makes

I offer a free hour so that you can taste the difference I could make to your web site as a content strategist – for absolutely nothing.

Only an hour? What could I possibly do in that time?

The answer (so far) is plan a blog post, write a tag line, critique a page or a whole web site, write a piece for a front page, or meet someone in the pub to talk about content strategy as a career …

Here are 3 highlights from some recent free sample requests:

Holding back notes on the trumpet and coming out top on Google

Two things stand out for me about estate agent Kevin Henry.
Firstly, they have a genuine passion about Saffron Walden because they’re local and have lived there for years, unlike the corporate agents who open hollow branches everywhere.
Secondly, because of this authenticity and experience – and years of hard work – they are repeatedly the number [...]

5 ways to prevent the portfolio problem

This was meant to be a portfolio post on rebranding Endis, the sister company of the web business I work for. As well as specific sales and support web sites, Endis wanted an umbrella site for their UK brand. Simple, direct branding, with links off to the other sites (if you get geo-coded off to [...]

Show, don’t tell – better user experience from environmental content

Share Insight is the new support site for the Endis Insight platform. Because it is not a sales site, and the majority of content is generated by members (in forums) and staff (articles, guides, release notes, video), it contained little static content when I was asked to look at it.

This kind of content could be called supporting copy, creating the supporting frame for the interactions which take place upon the web site. Another term I like (and just coined I think) is environmental content: the content which sets the environment for users to interact.

Setting the right environment for a web site where existing customers come for support demands a clear user experience and easy access to the help that they need.

Converting coffee table book into compelling web site

After the fourth edition of SevenHolidays’ successful book Resorts of Maldives, it was time to go online. Firstly to serve the same purpose but to a wider audience and for free: to educate holidaymakers about which resort is best for them with personal, unbiased reviews and photography. Secondly, to sell those holidays.

The book is a page turner. Enjoyable to read, as you marvel at the luxurious top resorts, and get sucked in to deciding which resort you would like the most. Putting all this information online (free) from a content perspective was about finding a neat way to present the reviews and photography, but more importantly, of sucking people in in the first place.

Letting a company’s current customers sell to new ones

ChurchInsight have been providing websites to churches, charities and other organisations since 2002, developing and improving their platform many times over along the way.

I came into their new UK sales web site project as a copywriter, but ended up having a big say in the overall structure and tone of the site. Insight does so much that the important thing was to draw out a few selling points clearly and simply instead of trying to get them all in and losing people in the ensuing melee.

Combining diverse voices, motivations and media on one site

I first worked on the Checkatrade web site as a copywriter. Checkatrade are a unique business, compiling a free directory of reliable tradespeople for the public, by selling a vetting and monitoring service to the tradespeople. The workmen and women sign up because they get so much work through it, because the public love finding tradespeople that they can trust.

The main challenge in furnishing the site with copy was writing for all the different audiences on the same site. The public are after a simple, useful and clear service. Tradespeople need to be sold memberships. Members need to enjoy the benfits that their membership has brought them, and the staff need to make sense of it all behind the scenes.