Content Optimization

Content OptimizationThree Dimensions to Creating Content That Works - #tcworld12

Andrew Bredenkamp@abredenkamp

Acrolinx

Overview

IntroductionWhy do we develop content?

15 minutes(8:45-9:00)

People-Ready ContentIntroduction, Exercises, Examples

25 minutes(9:00-9:25)

Global-Ready ContentIntroduction, Exercises, Examples

25 minutes(9:25-9:50)

Search-Ready ContentIntroduction, Exercises, Examples

25 minutes(9:50-10:15)

Wrap-upTake-aways, Feedback, Discussion

15 minutes(10:15-10:30)

Quick Survey

Technical writers? Editors? Translators? Documentation managers? Engineers: software or otherwise? ESL Writer (writing in English but not a native speaker)? Experience with simplified English? Experience with structured authoring? “Pre-Sales” content writers?

Why are you here?

Solve a specific problem Help those around me write better

– I am in charge of our style guide Write better Write better for translation Translate better Write better for search

What products do you make?

Software Products with embedded software IP products Components in larger products Products only touched by people with appropriate training

90% of user interface is … content Customers interact with your products through … content

Words are everywhere

(source: idratherbewriting.com)

Text-free user interface

Content’s often (almost) all you’ve got!

How to make it happen?

“90% of customers never touch the product before they buy”

HP “Global Content Management: Hewlett-Packard Talks the Talk of Worldwide Business”

The Gilbane Report, January 2005

Content is your only chance!

“70% of the buying process is already complete before prospects engage with a salesperson”

(SiriusDecisions)

Content is your only chance!

The roles that content plays

Your content is influencing sales

All your company content is influencing customer satisfaction

What I promised

Increasingly organizations have realized that [if they do it right] their content represents a critical competitive advantage. But your content has to work for you. This session will show how asking the right questions can help you create content that works.

Help is at hand

You are the content professionals!

Three Dimensions

Content That Works

People-Ready Global-Ready Search-Ready

People-ready

Understandable by target audience

Tone-of-voice

Non-native speaker friendly

Task and solution-oriented

People-ready?

Cisco Catalyst 4900

Cisco Linksys E900

Content Strategy @ Cisco

“The 4900 Series is ideal for space-constrained deployments.”

“Simplified Management: Edge switch auto-provisioning”

Zero uses of “you”

Content Strategy @ Cisco

Not “space-constrained” but “smaller”

No sentence over 18 words

Eight uses of “you”

Cisco Linksys E900

Tone of voice

Writing for mobile

Space constraints Short sentences Telegraphic style Abbreviations Allowing for expansion

Don’t just guess!

Don’t publish standards and hope they are applied Benchmark and measure over time (“are we getting better?”)

Look for leading indicators– Quality metrics which give you an indication of content

effectiveness

Summary

Carefully identify who you are writing for– And how they will be reading it (space-constraints?)

Choose words, phrases and a tone of voice which this audience can easily understand

Don’t just guess!

Not People-Ready

“Travels of persons, for whom you are defined as their superior with the status Entry complete, Requested and travels, which are to be approved by persons, for whom you are their approval deputy.”

Global-ready

Write for a global audience• Not everyone reads English

(as well as they claim to)Write for translation• MT not TM

• On-Demand MT (you’re not in charge)

Global-ready?

Read this!

Writer, Editor, Linguistic Engineer at SAS Institute

Guidelines based on extensive (on-going) empirical analysis

Acrolinx customer since 2004– Not just thinking, but doing!

What is Global English?

Global English is English that has been optimized for a global audience.

The four guiding principles are:1. Eliminate ambiguities that impede translation.

2. Eliminate uncommon technical terms and grammatical constructions.

3. Make sentence structure more explicit.

4. Eliminate unnecessary inconsistencies.

The benefits of using Global English

Clearer and more consistent technical documents result in faster, clearer, and more accurate translations.

Documents that are not translated are more easily understood by non-native speakers of English.

Documents are also clearer and more readable for native speakers of English.

Key Guidelines

1. Conform to Standard English

2. Simplify your writing style

3. Use modifiers clearly and carefully

4. Make pronouns clear and easy to translate

5. Use syntactic cues

6. Clarify –ING words

7. Fine-tune punctuation and capitalization

8. Eliminate undesirable terms and phrases

But first:

The Cardinal Rule of Global English

“Do not make any change that will sound unnatural to native speakers of English”

Corollary

“There is almost always a natural-sounding alternative if you are creative enough (and if you have enough time) to find it!”

Global-ready

Know your audience! Precise Concise Simple Jargon-free Translation-ready

Precise (unambiguous) language

Pronouns– “Once you define the basic structure of your table, enhancing it is

easy.”– “Once you define the basic structure of your table, enhancing the

table is easy.” Prepositional phrases

– “I saw the girl with the telescope” vs. “I saw the girl with the ice-cream”– “Attach panel with paint” (attach it with paint? Or does it have paint on it?)

“Only”– “Only use arrows to indicate stress points”– “Use arrows only to indicate stress points”

“Use modifiers clearly and carefully” (Kohl)

3.1 OnlyOnly I hit him in the eye yesterday.(No one else did any hitting.)

I only hit him in the eye yesterday.(I didn’t shoot him in the eye.)

I hit only him in the eye yesterday.(I didn’t hit anyone else.)

I hit him only in the eye yesterday.(I didn’t touch any other part of him.)

I hit him in the only eye yesterday.(He had just one eye.)

I hit him in the eye only yesterday.(Not long ago—recently.)

I hit him in the eye yesterday only.(Not any day other than yesterday.)

Simple

Short sentences Simple structures Verb (action) oriented Standard/Mainstream language

Short simple sentences

How short?– It depends (15-30 words)

• Procedural (for example, <step> content in DITA) =< 15• Descriptive (introductory, marketing) => 30

– Flesch-Kincaid will not help!• It sets the wrong goals – especially for technical content

– Use words you know your audience will know– Use sentence structure

• Simple• Direct• Natural

Simple expressions

Simple structures

nose landing gear uplock attachment bolt

Simple structures

Standard/Mainstream language

Jargon

Writing for translation I

All of the above

Translation-ready II

Global-ready - summary

Know your audience! Buy John Kohl’s book Be precise, concise and simple Avoid jargon Remember translation (and remind everyone else)

Search-ready

SEO – Search Engine Optimization

More content delivered via Google (you’re not in charge)

Search performance is a challenge for Support

After-Sales Content is relevant for Sales!

Search-ready?

What’s it called again?

Circulator pump

Circulation pump

Recirculating pumpCirculating pump

Pump, circulator

Water pump

Recirculation pump

circulation pump

circulating pump

water pump

recirculating pump

Heizungspumpe

Heizkreispumpe

HeizkreisumwälzpumpeHeizkreis-Umwälzpumpe

Kesselthermenpumpe

Umwälzpumpe

Gerätepumpe

Heizungsumwälzpumpe

循环水泵

再循环水泵

再循环泵

循环泵泵

水泵

冷水循环泵热水循环泵

Ask Bing

Develop great, original content (including well-implemented keywords) directed toward your intended audience

Ask Google (hint: search for “Google SEO”)

Ask Google

Other search engines

In Russia, China, South Korea and Japan, Google has less than 40% of the search market.

SEO Goal: Visibility

Organic search results

Google Adwords (Paid advertisements)

SERPs = Search Engine Result Pages

Fujitsu

The Battle for Search Rankings

Fujitsu

Higher Rank = Higher Click-Through Rate

IBMCTR 40% (= 3240 qualified visits)

FujitsuCTR 5% (= 405 qualified visits)

Conversion rate on website 1% 32 transactions, new customers 4 transactions, new customers

Avg. Transaction $8000 Revenue+ $256,000 / month Revenue+ $32,000 / month

8100 searches / month

Fujitsu

“unix servers”:

What’s the Value of a Higher Ranking?

Bad SEO

Los Angeles SEO is important if you own a website in Los Angeles. When you own a website, you need Los Angeles SEO

to achieve a high page rank. Without Los Angeles SEO, your website will not perform. Contact our Los Angeles SEO

Company to learn more about Los Angeles SEO!

[from: http://www.starcontentwriters.com/article/seo-copywriting]

Good SEO

If you own a business in Los Angeles, California, chances are that you have a company website and that you rely heavily upon

search engine optimization (SEO) to market your services online. Like most business owners, you probably know that

achieving a high page rank is essential to the success of your business as most people rely upon search to find local

companies. What you may not know is what SEO strategies can improve your overall page rank. Thankfully, there are Los

Angeles SEO companies out there like Star Content that can help. To learn more, contact us today!

[from: http://www.starcontentwriters.com/article/seo-copywriting]

Text optimization example: Before

Title and first 100 words only contain 1 useful keyword, “Active Directory”

Topic title too generic– Rich key words and

important solution content hidden in second half of topic

Recommended action– Break out second half

into separate topic to increase visibility of content

– Optimize intro to contentFrom: Metrics-based Publishing at Symantec, Bob Lee, Shared Engineering

Services

Text optimization example: After

Title and first 100 words contain additional new keywords

– Domain controller– DCInterface– NTLM

First 100 words also contain important updated technical information that address customer issue from Symantec Connect forum

From: Metrics-based Publishing at Symantec, Bob Lee, Shared Engineering Services

How can Acrolinx help with SEO?

Acrolinx can help with on-page optimization– Discover keywords– Which keywords to use– Where to use them

Help with conversion– Create compelling snippets

Search-ready content: summary

Make your content relevant Use appropriate words and phrases in prominent positions Don’t ruin your content for humans! Keywords are just part of the story, other key factors:

– Linking strategy– URL naming– Website performance and hosting location

Other notes

Redundant contentPlease enter an actual start date earlier than the actual end date.

The Start Date cannot exceed the End Date.

The End Date cannot precede the Start Date.

End Date must be Later than Start Date.

End date must be equal to or later than the start date.

The end date must be later than or the same as the start date.

End Time must be later than the Start Time.

The valid grade's end date must be Later than or equal to its start date.

Please enter an End Date that is later than or the same as the Start Date.

Competence end date has to be later than or equal to the start date.

The start date cannot be later than the end date.

The appraisal end date must be later than or equal to appraisal start date.

The Effective start date cannot be Later than the Effective end date.

Date from cannot be later than date to.

The start date must be on or before the end date.

The Start Date cannot be after the End Date.

Your end date must be after your start date.

The end date cannot be after the start date.

Start date must be before end date.

Your start date must be before your end date.

The Status End Date is either earlier than the Start Date of the Assignment or later than its End Date.

Enter a Start date that is before the End date.

Please enter an end date that is later than the start date.

Date To must be later than or equal to Date From.

The Date To must be later than the Date Received.

The actual end date must be on or after the actual start date.

End date should be greater than start date.

End Date cannot be before Start Date.

The start date must be prior to the end date.

You entered a start date later than tile end date.

Ending range must be later or the same as starting range

Please enter a new start date later than the original end date.

The ending date must be later than or the same as the beginning date.

The date to has to be later than or equal to date from.

End Date must be gr eater than Start Date.

You cannot enter an .. End Date" that is before your ,.Start Date."

End Date must be greater than or equal to Start Date.

Please enter a start date that is before the end date.

The end date you enter must be between the grade's start and end dates.

The start date you enter must be between the grade's start and end dates.

The projected end date must be on or after the projected start date.

The Period start date cannot be later than the Period end date

Writing for structured authoring

DITA rules

Content Optimization - Three Dimensions to Creating Content that Works

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