August 2011

Beating my drum again about Dead End Content.

Published on August 19, 2011 by Nick Usborne

young drummer boyIf I look back over the years and try to identify the recommendations I have shared over and over again, ad nauseam, I bet #1 on the list would be my rant about dead end content.

What is dead end content? It’s when you write a page of content for your site, or a post for your blog, and fail to provide links to further reading at the end of the article, review, guide or post.

Some webmasters and writers shrug this suggestion away, confident that their readers will scroll back up the page and find a new link to click on.

Good luck with that. Not going to happen.

If you want to keep your readers on your site for longer – and you do – you need to maximize the number of readers who visit more than one page.

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If your freelance business website looks old, it will damage your brand.

Published on August 16, 2011 by Nick Usborne

nick usborne's freelance websiteLast year’s fashions look old. Last year’s smartphones look old. And last year’s websites look old.

OK, I’m exaggerating a little. Let’s make that 5 years.

Whatever the exact timeframe, there is no doubt that any given look and feel for a website eventually grows old.

As a freelancer, or for any business, you can’t allow that to happen. You can’t have a website that looks like it was last worked on back in 2005 or, even worse, 1998.

In some ways it’s odd that website design should be so susceptible to changes in fashion. If a particular look and feel works, why change it?

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Published in Freelancing
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When creating web content, be sure to accommodate different learning styles.

Published on August 4, 2011 by Nick Usborne

The science of learning styles is based on the presumption that not all of us learn in the same way.

There are various systems or models out there, including David Kolb's model, Honey and Mumford’s model, Anthony Gregorc's model, the Sudbury model, and Fleming's VAK/VARK model...and more.

Each model breaks down the ways in which we learn into different learning styles. Some models were created to address the needs of the educational system, while others are better suited to business.

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