guy on computerWhat Business Should I Start? Advice to Help You Decide

By Amy Collett

There is a lot that goes into running a business. There is the marketing side of things and procurement, vendor arrangement, and employee management. But before you can get there, you might be stuck at the starting stage – the idea. What kind of business should you run? Content Strategy Alliance shares key advice to help you get started.

Skills and Experience

A great place to start when it comes to business creativity is to go with what you know. If you sell a product or service you know and love, you’re more likely to be motivated and passionate about working on it. Similarly, something you know a lot about is what you have skills or experience in. Take a look at your background, such as any college degrees or jobs you have worked on and list out the primary skills and takeaways from these positions. You may just find a recurring theme that you would love to pursue. If you need help assessing your skills and experience, check out this guide by Monster explaining how you can do so. You could also go the opposite direction and go with something you’re not familiar with but think can bring significant financial gain. However, many entrepreneurs choose this option as a short-term strategy rather than a long-haul approach because it can be challenging to sustain a business without skills or passion. Either way, look at lots of small business ideas for inspiration before settling on the option you want to pursue.

Time and Resources

As an entrepreneur, you’re wearing many hats simultaneously. There is a tendency for wannabe entrepreneurs to take everything on, even if the task is beyond their scope. However, this can lead to burnout and eventual business failure. Instead of spreading yourself too thin, consider how much time you have to devote to your business. For example, those working full-time on their startup will have more energy to give, whereas those working part-time will have to balance their time with other work. If you’re struggling with devoting enough time to your venture, explore resources that help you optimize and reduce time spent on unnecessary processes. For example, free or low-cost tools can help you with accounting, scheduling, and payroll. Another great option to manage your time is to use an infographic maker, as this can help you create eye-catching visuals for your website or socials very quickly. All you need to do is choose a free infographic template and personalize it using your own text, colors, background, and more.

Competition and Marketing

Although marketing does come later in the business timeline, it’s best to do some market analysis research. Once you’ve figured out your industry or niche, evaluate how unique your product and services are and if they provide value to the consumer. Looking at competitors in the field can be helpful to learn from their mistakes or have critical features that distinguish your product from theirs. Once you’ve conducted all the research, it will also be worthwhile to have a rough marketing strategy. For example, some brands begin marketing even before the product launches. This can be a great way to generate buzz on different social media platforms even before the product hits the market and can even cause you to go viral. This can then drive up engagement and interest and gives you time to fine-tune and tweak messaging before the launch.

According to this article in Better Marketing, a business’s idea leads it to success. Everything else falls into place if you have a great idea or niche. So, take your time figuring out what you want to pursue, as the more thought-through and grounded your idea, the more successful your entrepreneurial venture.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Content Strategy Alliance.

 

 

 

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5 Easy Ways to Overcome Work-From-Home Burnout

by Katie Conroy

If you aren’t working from home already, there’s a good chance you will soon. Many experts predict that more Canadians will work from home after the pandemic. If your job allows you to work from the comfort of a home office, you may even find the switch refreshing. However, it’s important to watch for conditions which can lead to work-from-home burnout—like a seemingly insurmountable workload or a stagnating career—which may affect up to 90% of workers in Canada.

If you’re worried about experiencing burnout or if you already have some of the main symptoms, like not taking time off or obsessing over your job security, try not to get too concerned. Here are five easy ways to overcome it, courtesy of Content Strategy Alliance.

  1. Start Each Day With a Plan

Failing to have an organized strategy for work each day can lead to disarray, wasted time and increased stress. As Reader’s Digest explains, starting your day with a well-thought-out plan can help reduce all of those things. Before you officially begin your workday, sit down and take some time to think about what tasks you need to complete and what goals you want to achieve. Block out periods of time to work on each specific item on your list; you might find it useful to incorporate an app into your plan, like Remember the Milk or Trello.

Another idea is to connect with a professional strategist to help you develop both short- and long-term goals and visions for your work. At the end of the day, you’ll get more done, which will reduce your stress and help you feel more accomplished.

  1. Take Frequent Breaks

To avoid burnout, you need to take frequent breaks from your work. You should aim to step away from your work for 5 to 10 minutes every hour of your workday. 15Minutes4Me even suggests taking a long weekend every 6 weeks in addition to breaks throughout each day, and taking a weeklong vacation every three months.

Try to get some physical activity in during each of these breaks; this might be walking up and down the stairs a few times before returning to your desk, taking out the trash, walking the dog or going to your mailbox. Physical activity promotes good physical and mental wellness, and helps you feel more energized when you come back to work.

  1. Get Sufficient Physical Activity

Speaking of physical activity, you need to work hard to take care of your body when you’re working from home. You need regular exercise to keep your blood flowing and to maintain good health. Every day, make it a priority to get outside for a 45-minute walk or bike ride. If you don’t have the opportunity to exercise outside, you can run on a treadmill indoors or stream a quick 20-minute video workout.

  1. Keep Your Professional Space Tidy

A cluttered professional space will propel you toward burnout very quickly. Messy areas can make stress levels skyrocket until working from home seems completely overwhelming. The good news is that you can do much to reduce your at-home stress level by keeping your workspace tidy and neat. A clean, organized workspace helps ensure a positive energy flow.

  1. Get Rid of Negative Influences

Do you have negative influences in your home or immediate office space that are hampering your mojo? It’s time to get rid of them or move them. For example, if there’s a painting in your office that makes you feel tired, bored or stressed, donate it to charity. Give your workspace a thorough cleaning and adjust attitudes and atmosphere as needed. Fill your at-home office with a positive aura and don’t keep anything that leads to negative thoughts or emotions.

 

Implementing these five tips will go a long way toward helping you avoid burnout while working from home. If you notice any symptoms creeping in, review this list to make sure you’re still incorporating all of these tips.

 

Look to Content Strategy Alliance for information, ideas and concepts that will help you prosper personally and professionally.

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Critical Practices for Starting (and Maintaining) a Successful Home-Based Business

 

(Image via Pexels)

By Katie Conroy

Running a business from home can be a dream. It can provide the ultimate flexibility and work-life balance, as well as the opportunity to make good money doing something you love. But none of these benefits are guaranteed.

In order to set your home-based business up for success, you will need to take the time to thoroughly prepare, make sure you understand what is involved, and commit to the long term. Along with staying up to date on resources from organizations like Content Strategy Alliance, here are a few things to keep in mind as you begin planning for your new home-based business:

Go Through Your Talents, Skills, and Ideas

First of all, it’s essential to come up with realistic business ideas that could result in success. If you already have an idea of what kind of business you want to start, USA Today says to be sure to evaluate it before diving in. Consider your natural talents. Are you creative, great at communicating, and/or detail-oriented? Also, consider your personality traits to ensure that self-employment is your best option. Are you a self-starter, eager to learn, and comfortable with risks?

Then, factor in the skills you have acquired over your working years. Are you good at writing, organizing, or marketing? Once you have assessed your talents and skills, you will be in a better position to choose what kind of home-based business to pursue.

Prioritize Productivity

From the get-go, you need to establish a plan for staying productive on a daily basis. Without such a plan, your chances of producing good work consistently will be slim, and none of the other steps listed here will matter very much. Consider your work habits and lifestyle, and create a home office that suits your needs. This might include investing in a high-quality internet connection, a separate phone line, ergonomic furniture, and much more. And make sure that you put boundaries in place with your family so that you can keep distractions to a minimum.

Plan It Out

Another critical aspect of any successful business startup is creating a business plan. While business plans are necessary for securing funding, there’s much more to them than that. Shopify explains creating a business plan shows you whether or not your idea can indeed be successful. Among other things, this involves researching your target market and competition, crafting a mission statement, developing a marketing strategy, laying out your daily operations, and working through the financial side of things.

Start Building Your Base

Of course, you can’t really have a business without customers or clients. Therefore, building your base must be a top priority for both the short term and long term.

No matter what kind of business you are starting, ask your friends, family members, and former coworkers to get the word out. Begin networking at virtual events and on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. When social distancing guidelines begin to subside, make it a point to attend networking events in person. And make sure that you have a quality website that represents your business and in an accurate and positive light.

Embrace Content Strategy

Finally, remember that content is king. However, not just any content will do. If you want to grow your customer/client base and your business as a whole, you must produce quality content that is engaging and unique. Along with using the right channels, such as social media and email, make sure there is a smart strategy behind your blogging, videos, and other content.

As long as you choose something you are good at, stay dedicated to the big picture, and take care of the details along the way, running a business out of your home can provide you with unmatched fulfillment. And keep researching and learning everything you can about what it takes to start and maintain a successful home-based business.

Content Strategy Alliance provides valuable information and resources like this to help your business grow; stay connected so your company prospers.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Content Strategy Alliance.

 

 

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A Guide to Taking Your Brick-and-Mortar Business Online During COVID-19 and Beyond

 

Photo via Pexels.com

By Katie Conroy

Online and e-commerce-based businesses may be a dime a dozen, but the fact is, there are still countless small businesses that have held on to their brick-and-mortar roots without a hitch. That is, until COVID-19 came into the picture. With new rules on social distancing and widespread lockdowns, a great many SMBs that rely heavily on walk-in traffic now find themselves in dire straits.

Thankfully, all hope is not lost. But it does mean that many entrepreneurs must look online for survival. If you suddenly find yourself in that boat, it can be all-too-easy to feel out of your  element. But fear not—so many successfully did so even before the pandemic, there’s no dearth of information to show you the way. Let’s begin.

Why It’s Time to Go Online

First things first—before you can take your business online, it’s important to understand why it’s potentially one of the best decisions you will ever make. The fact is, this actually goes beyond just being a knee-jerk reaction to the pandemic. Rather, for several years now, e-commerce has proven to be advantageous for many businesses as it expands your reach while keeping overhead low—not to mention, it’s easy enough to maintain and execute.

As you move toward taking your business online, you might even find that it’s overdue. But don’t fret; it’s not too late to accelerate your business’ digital transformation, especially given COVID-19’s effect on consumers’ online shopping behavior and habits. Truly, there’s no better time than now to ride the waves of change.

How to Take Your Business Online

You will likely find that taking your business online is quite straightforward. You’re already an old hand at setting up a business (albeit a physical one), so creating an e-commerce version may actually prove to be an easier transition. To dive in, The Balance suggests leveraging some simple e-commerce tools. There is everything from tools to help with naming your domain to simple marketing apps that perform a variety of functions, ranging from customer service to performance reporting.

Probably the most important initial decision you will make is to sell your products through a stable and trustworthy platform. As Let’s Talk About Money points out, not all platforms are created equal. It’s more than prudent to do some research to find a good match for your small business.

How to Achieve Online Success

Finally, as your brick-and-mortar business makes the transition into an e-commerce one, you’ll want to get the word out in a manner that is enticing to consumers. Doing so will not only guarantee that your loyal customers continue to invest in your products and services, but also help new clients find you.

This essentially boils down to having a good marketing strategy, as well as having the right marketing tools in your arsenal. Content Strategy Alliance explains current trends indicate avenues like niche content, vlogging, and content for voice activation should all be on your radar. Along those same lines, for many online businesses, simple email marketing is a great way to touch base with your customers on a regular basis through promotional newsletters and the like.

And of course, social media marketing is just as important—maybe even more so, in certain niches. After all, everyone’s on social media these days, so it’s more than wise to make great use of your social media properties to reach the appropriate eyeballs and, by extension, tug at the right purse strings.

Indeed, it can be argued that offline businesses are not dead yet, but it won’t serve you or your small business to sit still during this current impasse. Taking your products and services online may even spell the difference between death and survival for your small business. You know very well which outcome you prefer, so start your digital transformation today.

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Content Strategy Alliance.

 

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Review: The Story of Content: Rise of the New Marketing

Last year, the Content Marketing Institute along with Brightcove produced a documentary about content marketing. With interviews and case studies, it offers a fascinating view of how marketing changed over the last century. Read my review here.

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Template of the Week – Search Engine Optimization

(This is part of a series of articles highlighting the templates from Content Strategy Alliance Tools & Templates: A Best Practices Handbook we created in 2014. Check back at the end of 2020  for a revised and expanded handbook.)

By Lisa Trager

The best way to rank organically for search is to develop great content!  When people search, they are seeking a solution to a question to help them learn, shop, fix, or understand something.  Develop a content strategy that addresses how to best inform and answer questions that your target audience is interested in reading, watching, and generally engaging in through the content you build on your site.

A key strategy is to keep content fresh and relevant to your audience.  Integrating a blog or adding whitepapers is a good way to stay on top of trends and keep people coming back to your website. Videos are also great vehicles to drive brand awareness – and don’t forget to encourage social sharing as social signals are becoming an influencing factor in SEO. A huge no-no is duplicating content within your website.

Recent google algorithms place more emphasis on site authority.  One tactic that can help increase your site’s authority is to include outbound links to government or educational websites, which already have indisputable authority.  Even better, is to have a site considered to have high authority link to your site.  These can include media or news sites, government, or even sites representing large organizations.

There are mechanics as well as strategies that are considered best practices for SEO.   From a build perspective, the 3 most important elements of the page include:

  1. Page titles that target your audience with key phrases.
  2. URLs that are clean, reflect hierarchy of information, and can be read by human beings
  3. Content that is relevant to a specific topic, which is linkable, responsive, and loads quickly

Although most people know the importance of keyword research, the real value can come from finding the “long-tail” words or words that will not be highly competitive in search engine results.  Long-tail words are great for inspiring new topics to consider.  However, when contemplating the best word for a page title, I’ll often consult Google Trends and go for volume.  Once you have determined the best word to use as the subject of your page, be sure to include it in the URL, page title, in the image alt tag, and several times in the text in the body of the page.

Metatags are the language of robots.  Be sure to use them and consider the following guidelines:

  • Leverage URLs that are short and keyword rich. According to Google, the first 3-5 words in a URL are given the most weight.
  • Keep page titles under 55 characters to ensure that they display properly in search results.
  • Keep in mind that search engines may choose to display a different title than what you provide in your HTML. Titles in search results may be rewritten to match your brand, the user query, or other considerations.
  • Recent updates Google made to their CSS has resulted in variations to how many characters will be displayed in desktop. According to research done by Hobo-web.co.uk, you can use as many characters that fit into a “block element that’s 512px wide and doesn’t exceed 1 line of text.”
  • Google enables longer page titles in mobile.
  • Use upper and lower text in the meta-title tag versus all caps.
  • Use H-tags for all headers and sub-heads
  • Never use registered trademark symbols (e.g. ® or ™) in meta tags because they can hurt your page ranking and look strange in search engine results, which lessen click-through rates

When in doubt, I highly recommend the following resources:

 

 

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The 2016 Content Strategy Alliance Business Survey

 

It’s here! The CSA queried businesses about their content strategy practices. Thanks to all who participated. Download the report below.

csa_2016BusinessSurvey_Report

 

 

 

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Content Strategy Best Practices for “Source” Structured Content

Khaled A.B. Aly, Technical Author and Analyst

The CSA “Best Practices Handbook” primary concern is to streamline the lifecycle management of large corporate sites and intranets from inception through planning, assessment, analysis, design, and maintenance phases. Typical web content would be generated by a CMS (like WordPress, Joomla, Drupal …) to HTML5/CSS, supported by web scripting languages (JavaScript and PHP) and a suitable metadata standard (e.g. Dublin Core, schema.org …). The CMS development work is to a large extent invisible to the content strategist.

On another hand, it is now widely agreed that the OASIS standard DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture), is the XML language of choice for structured documentation and e-learning source content (with over 400 element types). The standard expands as driven by market merit to cover other content types that may take advantage of its principal feature, that is: separating content, style, and publishing format. The open DITA standard and toolkit allow the enterprise to produce and setup own specialized vocabularies to cover specific domains such as heavy industry, hardware and semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, and others with merit for structured source. Following is a summary of the most basically distinguished features:

  • Topic-orientation & strong semantic typing: Content is contained within typed topics that in-turn contain typed elements (corresponding to HTML layout tags), with much attention to modularity and minimalist authoring. Topics are hierarchically arranged within maps that allow as well building relation tables among topics and their content elements to support navigation.
  • Multi-channel publishing (aka single-sourcing): The same DITA source markup could be published to formats meant to deliver print (e.g. PDF), HTML websites and other derivatives such as WebHelp, e-book HTML-based EPUB, and SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model; the XML e-learning standard), as well as any XML-based format. Publishing to each medium is established through specialized transformation processors that take into consideration the respective style of source content to be rendered.
  • Conditional publishing: Special DITA filtering attributes flag transformation engines of conditional inclusion, exclusion, or differentiated styling of any chunk of DITA content at any level: from a single phrase to a complete topic.

The CSA Handbook mainly pertains to Web content from a high-level content management perspective, regardless of how it had been developed. Structured DITA strategy and best practices are concerned with unprocessed, semantically typed, content that may be transformed to HTML (mainly to a WebHelp format that best supports documentation, but could be as well to a generic website template), and/or other forms. DITA content strategy best practices actually precede these supporting the finished site or publication (as would strategies for CMS-based site development), since DITA markup is source content that is yet to be transformed to a displayable form. This article explores a suitable compilation of strategic DITA-to-HTML best practices, for the three highest merit publishable forms: HTML website (template), WebHelp, and EPUB, as illustrated in the schematic below.

schematic

The following high-level categories are identified. [1], [2], [3]

  • Content Modeling: content domain, specialization merit, choice of topic and element types
  • Content Design: minimalist writing practices, reuse levels strategy, linking strategy
  • Content Findability: taxonomy and metadata (DITA, Dublin Core, schema.org)
  • Content Publishing: output formats, conditional publishing, transformation scenarios
  • Content Management: workflow (process), change management, metrics, overall governance

 

References

  1. Laura Bellamy, Michelle Carey and Jenifer Schlotfeldtm, “DITA Best Practices: A Roadmap for Writing, Editing, and Architecting in DITA,” IBM Press, September, 2011
  2. Ann Rockley and Charles Cooper, “Managing Enterprise Content: A Unified Content Strategy,” New Riders, February, 2012
  3. Mark Lewis, DITA Metrics 101: The Business Case for Intelligent Content, Rockley Publications, January, 2013

 

 

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Why Content Strategists Should Focus on ROI more than Engagement

laura_creekmore_3

 

By Melissa Eggleston

“Content people hate to talk about money,” stated Laura Creekmore (pictured above),  a content strategist out of Nashville, Tennessee. “It is an unpopular opinion to say that content work isn’t art, but you need to expect that your work will be judged in concrete and objective terms.”

On January 23 in Charlotte, North Carolina, Creekmore gave a talk titled Content 3.0 Making Great Decisions at the TinyGiant UX conference. The audience included UX designers, content strategists and others working in digital media.

Her talk focused on three “lenses” through which we need to view our content work – money, message and mechanics. I suspect the money lens may be the most challenging to conventional thinking in our industry, so let’s consider Creekmore’s ideas about it here.

She mentioned that before beginning a content project, essential questions to consider that impact the bottom line include:

  • How many people will this content take to make?
  • What skillsets and expertise do you need?
  • What kind of training is going to be needed?
  • Do you need other professionals integrated with your team? Whose budget does that expense come out of?
  • How will the data interact with the content management system?
  • What assets and technology do you need for content specific work?
  • How will all the parts fit together to achieve the goal?

Creekmore also noted that a big part of the complexity—and therefore cost—of content is its maintenance and updating, so that cost needs to be added into the equation as well.

Considering the above aspects of a content project will help get you to the “expense side” of the ledger, Creekmore explains. She notes that most of us certainly do tally up the cost to develop content. But we must go further, she insists.

“If you want to make things more complex or better or take more time, you might need to justify this to the business side of the house,” Creekmore explained. “These folks aren’t going to get that adding a new section of the website might mean you need a new staffer. They don’t understand these things, you have to translate for them.”

Creekmore strongly recommends that you don’t fall back on a common argument in our industry. She advises:

“Do not, do not, do not make the argument that your content is valuable because ‘It’s engaging!’”

From her nearly 20 years of experience in digital media, Creekmore knows that the engagement argument isn’t strong enough.

“You never win, it’s not quantifiable,” she explained. “You need to think – how do I turn it into dollars and cents?”

According to Creekmore, a content strategist needs to answer this question:

What is the return on investment (ROI) for this content?

“What is the value that content brings to the enterprise?” she asks. “You’ve got to be able to sell the value of what you are doing first – before you talk about the expenses.”

Creekmore suggests content strategists get very specific on the value content brings to the enterprise or product.

She suggested the book “How to Measure Anything: How to Find the Value of Intangibles in Business” by Doug Hubbard as a resource to determine measures for content. Hubbard asserts that anything can be measured and that your professional life may be greatly harmed by a lack of measurement.

“This book can help you turn something that feels like art into a spreadsheet,” she explained. This may help you sell the value of content to other stakeholders in the enterprise.

At the Content Strategy Alliance, we have been working on a handbook with templates that include recommended metrics to help you show the value of content to others. This resource should be available in a couple of months.

Creekmore’s message may not be popular yet, but from a business perspective, it ‘s right on the money. Literally.

Learn more about Laura Creekmore.

 

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Error Messages: Best Practices for Supportable Product Development

By Samartha Vashishtha
Senior Content and Community Lead, Adobe Systems

While functionality deservedly remains the primary focus in the development of any software product, it’s also important to ensure that the product is easily supportable. Error messages – being the first line of support for a product – contribute significantly to product quality and the customer experience that it delivers. Poor error messages that are “plugged in” as an afterthought towards the end of the product lifecycle lead to frustrated customers, avoidable support costs, and loss of corporate goodwill.

Structural foundations of a good error message

A good error message is direct, short, and communicates just the right amount of information. When you write or review error messages, attempt to cover answers to the following questions:

  • Is the message an error, warning, question, or a piece of information for the user? The error message could begin with labels like Error: or Warning:
  • What exactly is the error? For example, Error: Could not write to the disk …
  • If the message is an error or a warning, the message should clearly capture what went Error: Could not write to the disk because it is full.
  • What is the solution/workaround? If no workaround is available, request users to contact the Customer Support Organization. Error: Could not write to the disk because it is full. Delete some files and try again.

Additionally, every error message should have a unique alphanumeric error code that customers can quote when they call customer service for support. These error codes also come in handy when customers are searching for troubleshooting information on the Web. In fact, content strategists often metatag troubleshooting documentation and technical notes with error codes as an SEO measure.

Wherever possible, error codes should be duly displayed in dialog boxes, especially for enterprise products for which customers have priority access to customer support. These messages could be unobtrusively displayed in a collapsible panel or a smaller font variation. For example:

error message png

Wording error messages

In an ideal world, error messages need to be a shared responsibility of product engineering, technical communication, content strategy, and User Experience Design (XD) teams. However, owing to timeline constraints and the fact that error messages are often treated just as a checklist activity, developers often end up writing error messages without much review support. Wordsmithing assistance is often sought late in the cycle and only for identified “problematic” error messages.

While writing error messages, developers/testing engineers can consider the following writing guidelines:

  • Use short sentences; 15 words at the maximum. Limit the error message to a maximum of 2-3 sentences.
  • Keep the sentences friendly, actionable, and conversational. Avoid a patronizing or reprimanding tone. Transfer the blame on the software rather than the user.
  • Avoid negative words like abort, catastrophic failure, execute, human error, etc. A typical example of a negative error message is the infamous DOS “Bad command or file name” message.
  • Avoid using programming jargon. However, it’s OK to use the necessary terms if the error message is intended for a predominantly developer audience.
  • Avoid over-communication. Unless absolutely necessary, do not include technical details about the error. Users are most interested in resolving the error as soon as possible and carrying on with their work.

blue screen

Over-communicated jargon: The Blue Screen of Death (BSoD)

  • Get the error message peer/buddy-reviewed. Involve your content strategy counterpart in the review process, whenever required.

Looking ahead…

The following suggested process improvements would facilitate the creation of useful error messages:

  • For easier review and localization, separate error message content from functionality code. Instead of hard-coding error messages, display error messages by reference.
  • Error messages should be part of the “Done” definition for agile sprints and significant milestones. If that is not feasible, error messages should at least be part of sprint backlog items.
  • Error message review should be part of buddy code reviews as well as quality reviews.
  • Review support from the content team should be enlisted earlier in the cycle, especially for priority components that significantly impact user experience

While tracking error messages as part of the overall program plan might seem like an initial overhead, benefits realized in terms of customer loyalty, reduced support call volumes, and fewer “reactive” fixes far outweigh the efforts.

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