Is Your SEO to Grow Your Start-up? Learn About Angel Investors

Are you trying to develop your site’s SEO because your new business is growing? Are you getting ready to move to the next level with your start-up?

I am constantly trying to see what tools are available to ease my work, and my clients efforts (especially after I set them up for success). I run across a variety of sites that are successful in short-cutting the learning curve. Instead of having to read 2 books, or sit through 5 months of classes or pay $10,000 in consulting fees, there are a plethora of solutions to help you get at least a cursory education on a variety of challenges for start-ups.

Here is another website that I found it has a great deal of wisdom in short nuggets. It is GUST.com, a website that matches investors and start-ups in one place, creating a clearinghouse for entrepreneurs to look for angel investors in a single location. But the nugget that I found that was really valuable was the hundreds of videos that they have as short 1 to 3 minute nuggets of wisdom from those that have been through the trenches before.

A matchmaker for startups and inverstors

These are investors that most often have sat on the entrepreneur side of the table. They have learned the lessons of start-ups. Most often they learned the hard way. They are often boiled down in the way investors talking to many perspective start-ups can grasp most quickly from practice and repetition. The repitition of dealing with many pitches throughout the day, giving the same advice over and over. Their wisdom tends to be in short little nuggets that you can walk away from with your mind clearer and more focused then the cup of coffee you sipped while watching. These might even be good nuggets to put around your management tables to start out at different meetings. It might also be an interesting way to kind of go through and bring in an outside person to lend some advice to some of your conversations/arguments that you and your management team are having as to how to solve a problem. Certainly, they’re not the absolute perfect answer to everything, but I do find some thought-provoking ideas in there that can be helpful in trying to map out your course, and stay on path to growing your start-up.

I know what you think about gust.com, and the idea of looking at short videos for gaining wisdom and keeping your energy level up as you go through the challenging days of marketing your business to the world through search engine optimization.

http://videos.gust.com/video/Knowledge-than-credentials;Staff-Picks

Are You Looking at Your Website from a Cusomers Perspective?

What you’re looking for someone who’s looking for what your store is generically offering comes in to see if you have what they are specifically looking for work. You can convert them to being a true engagement while they’re there.

That’s why retailers count how many people are coming in and how many people are coming out there also counting how many of them are actually purchasing. I have worked with over 100 different retail chains from single retailers to Office Big box stores. They are counting by the month, day of the week, hour of the day (I know, I installed the counters that go back to the corporate databases). They are counting how many of customers are actually signing up for the e-mail list. They’re counting how many of purchasers are return customers from previous orders. There also counting what is the average amount of each visitor’s spending. Retail stores count the numbers in so many ways you would be amazed. Just like you need to on your website. Your website is not a black box. You need to be paying attention to what’s happening.

If these types of customer engagement don’t make absolute clear sense to you, then I would suggest you go and spend some time and with brick and mortar retailers. Consider even working as a retailer. Learn how retailers convert the looky loo’s into true engagements. Yes we have all been shopping, but look at how retailers work with other customers not just yourself. Learn how retailers try to customize to the needs of each person, not a one size fits all. It is important that you learn how to look through a store or website through the eyes of a customer. It is important that you understand that the customer is always right in their perspective, and how they are looking at the world. And if you don’t understand their perspective, it will be very hard to understand why they’re not buying from you. If that same attitude of understanding is what a potential customer or visitor is looking at when they see a store and their perspective also becomes very useful.

This attitude of looking at your website and how you design your SEO and SEM. Did you need to present the right kind of signage from the street to get the customer to pull into the parking lot? Once they get inside the store, they need to see what the sign promised is fulfilled. SEO and SEM is about creating it signage from the street. You can fake a man once or twice but once you do, they will ignore your sign for the rest of their life, because you made them cut across left-hand lane and pull into your parking lot. And they will tell their friends to ignore you or worse. You need to create a good ‘sign’ in your SEO/SEM to attract your visitors into your store. But you also need the sign to be a good indicator of what is in the store.

Just as stores don’t (at least those that survive long term) have the same layout year after year, websites also must evolve and continue to improve based on what works and what does not. This should be done as measured experiments. You can follow the models used in Lean Start-up (Eric Ries) and E-Myth (Micheal Gerber).  Those experiments need tools like Google Analytics and other tools like ChartBeat. Topics of other blog posts.

Oh, not selling products on your site?  I would place heavy odds on your sellling ideas – be they the idea that your service is better then someone elses, or your idea is more important then the next bloggers. Remember to look at the website through your visitors eyes in the path they took to get to your items.

 

New World order – customer perspective 1st, Company perspective 2nd

Who do you think the business is behind this site?

Check out this website and their whole approach to marketing. Let me know how long it is before you figure out who’s actually the big company behind the totally different approach to marketing.

Here is what stands out in looking at this as an effective marketing tool:

• it is fun and colorful
• it has movement – both in the rotating graphics as well as in the variable typefaces being used.
• It is inviting,  both from its graphics and it’s ability to share with others, and the ability to easily find information
• it states what it can do for me in a non-sales format way before I ever can get to the point of finding out what I can buy from them.
• It focuses on community and how we can interact locally, rather than with a big mega Corporation.
• It’s quick, concise, clear, and the messaging text is easy to figure out what it’s about, then get on,  get off, and move on to my next task at hand.
• the navigation is easy to follow. While I usually don’t like the drop downs and chase the cursor type websites, this one is easy, because the targeted areas are large,  and easy to click on, with a single layer drop-down.

I think the key here is that they are starting from a customer perspective, rather than from a corporate perspective, which is very key for any business these days, especially in working with the younger generation.

https://www.nextdoorchi.com/

This site may or may not be the best for search engine optimization. Although it really is not clear exactly what terms they would be trying to optimize for anyways. They do rank at the top for “next door Chicago”. Which if that is their brand focus here, it is a good approach. But I imagine in the list of site objectives, SEO was lower on the list, and they are more successful in other site objectives.

I would love to have your perspectives on this.

Trying to Build a Business with Your Website?

A few key websites I would recommend:

• High level business plan suggestion – http://blog.guykawasaki.com/#axzz1j9so32SI  I am listening to Guy’s Reality Bites and they echo so much the experiences of many who have been successful in growing a business and getting capital investment. Guy started his success at Apple, but along the way has become a successful venture capitalist, and therefore has sat through many many business presentations. He has learned what works from the perspective of will it get someone to write a check and do a deal.

• I have mentioned Seth Godin a few times, I particularly recommend Linchpin
  

  A mindset for new business creation or anyone trying to earn a living

  His writing style is light and fun, but I think his ideas are pretty fundamental to the way the new world is. It tells the story that trying to be 2nd best or worse is hardly worth getting out of bed in the morning. Be the best – 2 ways:

  • Be ‘fortunate’ enough to be the best in a ‘standard’ area.
  • Be creative enough to define your niche of being best. The key is you should be able to introduce your self as ‘the best ………’ in a way that everyone you meet knows it is the truth. That may be by geography, or creating a new market segment or reframing an existing segment but be the best.
• Here is the story of the marketing and passionate niche I was telling a few clients about. http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelellsberg/2012/01/11/the-tim-ferriss-effect/ It demonstrates how the world of broadcast over narrow-casting has passed as absolute law. Our markets are large enough (over 303million in US alone) and flat enough (2 day for under 2 pounds, but so much is the speed of internet) and segmented enough (how many Yahoo groups are there today, how many Meetup groups are there today in your area). So many business owners keep trying to get the ‘big’ publicity hit and fail to understand that most success comes from targeting the key people you want to connect with. That success from connection individually rather then exposure of many.

• Explore your business using the Business Model Canvas. I have worked with many different start-ups.
  

  A new way to get to the Truth of a business plan

  Along the way, I have built a variety of questionnaires that I found very helpful for all to understand and clarify what the real objective and strategy. Having recently found this 1 page tool, I find it naturally replaces my flat mini-book of questions with a single sheet that is far more action oriented, less overwhelming and more action oriented.

• And of course, there is the E-Myth Revisited by Micheal Gerber.

Why Is It So Complicated? It Is Just a Wedding Cake

One of my projects is helping out a small non-profit. Their advocacy website is in WordPress. So when WordPress.org let them know that a new version was out, they recommended upgrading 3 days after the release. The non-profit  had a natural question: Should we upgrade our site to the new version? Seems logical. Newer is better, right?

Well not so fast.

The issue is one of managing risk by understanding the risks and the benefits. Here is where some analysis can be helpful.

In one of my former lives, I was an event photographer. I always vowed (pun intended) to not do weddings. The reason – the expectations of the customer (bride) are unreal. If the baker makes a mistake, I as the photographer am already doomed. The expectation is perfection. For the entire day. Everything. Including the weather. Anyone on the ‘team’ makes a mistake and all fail.  Especially since everyone can make a cake, press a button on a camera (or cell phone, or a computer).  So the question becomes why is making a cake (especially for a wedding day) so complicated? Well after listening to a few bakers and artists, I learned there are a thousand critical points where a simple cake turns complicated. Mostly because for each layer you add, all the little mistakes on the layer below it show up and get amplified until you end up with the tower of Pisa or worse. While it may all work in the shop, taking it to the wedding or putting it out in public can expose those issues in ways not desired. It becomes about risk.

A similar situation exists with a ‘simple’ WordPress website.

Now don’t get me wrong, I feel WordPress is a great tool for most websites (since most websites are simple in objective and construction). For those websites that is is not the case (more complicated) the conversation becomes far more nuanced.  And I recommend WordPress as the 1st consideration for a site. Even if it does not belong on WordPress, it becomes a great prototyping tool, and scrum development platform for at least a place to converse with key stakeholders.

Recently, I was asked ‘should we upgrade to the latest version of WordPress?’. WordPress 3.3 was release 4 days ago. The short answer was not now. But I was not in a short answer mood. A big part of the issue was risk management, and the software layers involved like the layers on a wedding cake.

In the world of webservices that layer cake is sometimes referred to as LAMP (Linux, Apache, MS Sql, PHP). A whole other topic worthy of its own site, let alone a single entry. But back to the layers on our cake for this non-profit.

• Why, let me start with listing the layers we are using and where there could be issues:
  • The hosting company hardware – usually shielded by the operating system, in fact most people working with a hosting company do not even know what the hardware is, or when it was last updated or changed. Not knowing is fine, but that hardware may not play well with this new version. Probably only a .1% chance of causing grief in this scenario.
  • The hosting company OS (operating system), typically a Linux variation for most hosting companies not using heavy database tools. Again typically hidden, and takes some effort to determine the micro-release. But this is key in making sure all the hardware plays with the software. Whose version (or distribution) of Linux probably adds .1% risk. The micro-release adds about a .2% chance of challenge. (.4% running total)
  • The web serving software (typically Apache or Microsoft IIS) and it’s micro-release. Again another layer to work in partnership with all other layers. This adds a .8% chance of challenge, mostly because it is more directly accessed and more configurable by the hosting company to meet the needs of the type of hosting (shared, virtual, VPS, full server, reselling…). (1.2% running total)
  • The control panel software (CPanel being the largest in the Apache arena). This is the tool that lets you create users, email accounts, empty log files, add more space for x subdomain, lock out Suzy’s account until she pays, or forward until she returns from long term absence. This adds about .3% risk to the stack. (1.5% running total)
  • The install software. This is typically a button on the control panel software. Sometimes it needs to be updated to handle the customizations in the lower layers. This adds about.5% risk to the stack (2% running total)
  • Add-ins – these can be at almost any of these levels but 2 main areas would be at the Apache/web serving software like a spam tool on the server, or log tracking tool (for collecting traffic statistics). Depending on how many are running, for a stable hosting company they add .1% risk to upgrading a WordPress level. (2.1% running total)
  • WordPress release itself. This it what is creating the website on top of all the other layers to be shared with the world through the WWW. This adds risk based on where WordPress is in its lifecycle (the risk changes from when the product is new and ‘raw’, to stable, to needing to change and catch up to other tools that are ‘beating’ it in the industry, to being at its end of life cycle).  At this point in WordPress’ cycle I would estimate that a .x (vs x. or .xx release) adds 1.5% risk to a stable ‘simple’ website. Part of this risk is just updating any software that is installed and running over installing from scratch.  It is much easier to build from scratch in most software then to overlay running software and not do any harm (3.6% running total)
  • Plugins or Add-ons to WordPress. These are the SEO optimization tools, traffic analysis tools, and the other 17,409 plugins currently registered at WordPress.ORG (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/). These can add lots of challenge and conflicts. This is where a patient attitude can pay off in saved aspirin and Tylenol.  This adds 2% to the risk (5.6% running total)
  • The theme in WordPress. There are 1,458 as of today registered at WordPress (http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/).  This is just what is registered at the site. This layer is the template gives the look and feel of the site, integrates all the previous layers (especially the plugins) to the site. Since this is on top of WordPress, it is more susceptible to issues. The risk level here is a function of how mature the software it is sitting on, and how major the release is. In this case a 3.x release, and a simple theme with few plugins (sorry for adding so many weasel words here, but it gets specific quickly) I estimate the risk at .2% (5.8% running total)
  • Customization of the WordPress theme – this can be very minimal from changing the color theme from blue to green, or as major as adding a blog to a theme that was not designed for it. In this example, minimal customization on a simple theme adds .1% risk. (5.9% running total)
  • Some tweaks to the stack that the hosting company added that is not clear, documented and well maintained. This is a black box of unknown. Since I did not choose or research this hosting company, I will guess the risk factor by the size and reputation of the hosting company. A better way to determine a more accurate risk estimate would be to look at the questions and comments posted by customers of the hosting company based on real issues they have had. Part of the detective work is to look at the responses and timeline of the hosting company. My estimate is .2% in this instance. (6.1% running total)
  • Security patches applied to all the layers listed above based on when they came out, how thoroughly they were tested and how long they have been applied.  Add .1% risk this month.  (6.2% running total)
  • Add all the risk estimates up (sorry the risk is cumulative), and the potential risk to upgrade is around 1 in 18 upgrades will have some challenge. This is where a testing and roll-back plan comes into play. And that is a whole other entry.

Conclusion on New Worpress Release

As complicated as this all sounds, it does usually work quite well and runs far more reliably then my car. The world we live in is complicated, but our ability to understand it is also incredible. Embrace the fun of change. Even a field of sugar cane and wheat to make the wedding cake changes and evolves. Ask any farmer and they will certainly tell you about risk and risk management.  Just like our web serving stack. But remember there is risk and consider the trade off of benefit to risk in your upgrade decisions.

Should I Upgrade to the New Version of WordPress? Testing Plans for Success

As I wrote about yesterday, One of my projects is helping out a small non-profit with online presence and social marketing. Their simple site is in WordPress, so when WordPress.org let them know that a new version was out. Of course, they recommended upgrading just days after the release. So the executive director asked the natural question: Should we upgrade our site to the new version? Seems logical, newer is better, right?

Well not so fast.

WordPress 3.3 was release 4 days ago. My short answer was not now. It is probably best to add this to the list of todo’s for next year. But I was not in a short answer mood. A big part of the issue was risk management, and the software layers involved like the layers on a wedding cake.

In one of my former lives, I was an event photographer. I always vowed (pun intended) to not do weddings. The reason – the expectations are unreal.

A similar situation exists with a ‘simple’ WordPress website and its’ many layers of software that are used to let someone see our site. Tomorrow I will run down the different layers, but for now, here are the reasons that most jump out to not upgrade.

Now don’t get me wrong, I feel WordPress is a great tool for most websites (since most websites are simple in objective and construction). Those that is is not (more complicated) the conversation becomes far more nuanced.  And I recommend WordPress as the 1st consideration for a site. Even if it does not belong on WordPress, it becomes a great prototyping tool and scrum development platform for at least a place to converse with key stakeholders about how to meet the site’s goals.

Recently I was asked ‘should we upgrade to the latest version of WordPress?’ So my reactions were:

• New releases are best tested by others. Unless they are fixing a core issue that is not working today. I am so appreciative of the thousands in the Internet and in the WordPress community that will find all the other ways a new release does not work on all configurations all the time. They will share with all the different layers and get those problems fixed. Hopefully before we upgrade.
• This release does not really improve our world today. This new release does not really change the limitations of the template, it may make new templates easier to build or old templates easier to improve, but it will not ‘fix’ the limitation of the existing template. So this is another reason not to upgrade right away. Tomorrow I will go over all the different layers and what risk I estimate they add to such an upgrade, but here are a couple of highlights:
  • Whenever changing software and its many layers, it is important to have a testing plan and program. We have not had the time to develop that, and it should be done before we upgrade releases.
  • Add all the risk up (sorry the risk is cumulative), and the potential risk to upgrade is around 1 in 18 upgrades will have some challenge. This is where a testing and roll-back plan (the ability to undo the changes in case they make it worse then the ‘upgrade’) come into play.
• There is no testing plan in place yet. A testing plan minimizes these risks by being able to duplicate the above issues as close as possible, and determine if in our specific circumstances, if there is a problem. For usually very few dollars, a test bed can be set up (usually less then $50 per year). Costs usually include:
  • ‘testing domain’  – $10 per year
  • setting up a 2nd domain/website – $10
  • Reinstalling WordPress, plugins and all the other layers listed above. The key is they need to be all the same version and configuration except the one change/upgrade (in this case new version of WordPress).
  • Possibly some testing software (although there are many low volume free versions) to thoroughly test a site, and some monitoring software to see how the ‘new’ version works.
  • This does not include the extra time on various peoples part to:
    • Define a testing plan.
    • Set up the testing platform.
  • But, once a process is defined, it will be much easier for all future upgrades, and far less stress before, during, and after (if there is a problem, there is a test bed to go see what is happening, and how to troubleshoot it, especially if the site is not fully down, but only ‘damaged’.)
  • This of course assumes a low volume, simple site. Issues, and solutions scale up as the sites objectives and complexity scale up. However, these fundamentals still apply, we have to add other considerations.
• Other questions to consider:
  • Has the hosting company added the new release to its auto install packs?
  • Have they tested the new release on their servers (at least on one of them, they should all be the same, but as you can see from above there are a lot of areas where variations can be introduced)?
  • Has the theme tested itself on the new release?  Their site or page should list comparability with the current release.
  • Have all the plug-ins (or add-ons) been tested as compatible with the new release? According to the page http://www.projectrace.com/wp-admin/update-core.php it has not yet be tested.
  • These three ‘pre-tests’ will be very helpful in determine when to start considering when we should install the new release. Relatively speaking this is not a major release and does not seem to add much.

Sorry for giving a long answer to a short question, I got on a roll and wanted to map it out to share with others. Even if you don’t set up the testing platform, just thinking through the issues and steps to test them will improve your ability to resolve issues once they do occur. Not if, but when. So this exercise in risk management has value in many different ways. And yes it is a pain in the productivity to getting it all out.

What are your thoughts on WordPress 3.3 and upgrading software?

Which Headset Should I Use with Dragon Naturally Speaking?

Nuance seems to always be discounting Dragon Naturally Speaking (DNS) in November each year, probably in advance of the latest version coming out in December or right after the 1st of the year. Therefore many clients consider improving their ability to create documents and all the other promises of voice recognition.

The headset that comes with Dragon Naturally Speaking is known to be crap by Nuance and others. Technically there are 2 chips used in most wired USB headsets (using the builtin connectors is a strain on the PC, although the newer computers may be able to handle it). The cost to manufacture is about 3-5 cents difference, so you can not tell by price which model is using which, and even a single brand line (such as logitech) will use both. But at $20-50 you can almost by 2 or 3, and return the ones that don’t work well.

I could not tell you why Nuance, the latest owner of DNS chooses to set so many potential customers with bad equipment that will hate voice recognition for years to come, and especially DNS, but they do. Perhaps they really do want to work only with resellers that know the dirty secret, or they want to keep expectations low for another 5-10 years. But the strategy sure seems counter intuitive.

Regardless, now that DNS is so relatively inexpensive, and decent headsets are as well, consider finishing the tool kit and purchase a decent USB or bluetooth headset before installing Dragon Naturally Speaking.

There are some inherent limitations to bluetooth, but they still work well. I researched which was best, and in talking to the engineer who actually worked on the Drgaon Naturally Speaking (DNS) recommended (even though he does not sell it) the Parrot VXi Xpressway last year when I bought mine.

DNS will create a different profile for each headset (since they are sound ‘different’ to the software), so switching does have the challenge of making a vs. b vs. c comparison a little more challenging (but better then training with mic x and then testing with mic y).

Hope this technical interlude helps.

Book Review – Innovation You

Innovation You

Jeff Degraf

 

I listened to this a week ago on CD in the car, and just now getting around to writing about it.

 

As I look at the cover, I am trying to remember the 3 takeaways that I had listed to myself as I was finishing up with it and finding it hard to remember.  Seems Innovation You‘s message was not that memorable.

 

Jeff is very relatable for me, coming from the next state over of Michigan and working with University of Michigan. He does the reading for this book, and I needed the 1st CD to get used to his voice and not feel it grating on my senses.

 

His stories are very relatable and useful.  Especially the need to pay attention to the weather as a sailor, or anyone in the midwest where a tornado can change the day in a hurry. The analogy is that business and your life can also be changing quickly, but often there are hints of the changing world the let us know that it is time for us to change as well, and now.

 

The  rest of the 6 1/2 hours is spent reminding us that what worked yesterday may be useful today, but in a world where everyone is changing rapidly, there is more then a fair chance that we need to consider a new approach and new methods. They may be uncomfortable, but adapting will be more comfortable then not adapting and using old approaches with the new storm.

 

His other big takeaway is the continual reminder that in most endeavors of life, perfection is not expected during a career to be the best (he uses Gretzky and shots on goal as the example), and certainly while learning a new area (even surgeons get to practice before working with live humans). The key is to keep trying and learning from what you attempt. Don’t get hung up in analysis by paralysis but keep attempting and improve from your attempts.

 

Of course in our incredible world that is continually expanding, it is important to remember to look for worthwhile goals to shot at. Look at what is worth the effort and keep adjusting to the world that is adjusting around you.

 

Jeff’s book is framed around a quadrant model of different ways people ‘fundementally’ approach life and challenges. He does recognize that many times the best solution is to blend 2 quadrants to come up with the best solution to a challenge. His labels for the quandrants is based on colors. Of course as an audio book, these colors did not map well for the concepts he was referring to. Concequently, much of the ideas were confusing for me as I was trying to visualize, but had not made a clear picture of his model in my mind. His description of the colors and quandrants did not anchor. Perhaps if he had included some key charts to audio book, it might have made a more lasting impression. My copy of the audio book was a library copy, which only included the cover in a library case, so maybe the retail version addresses this.

 

His website seems to have more tools, but they are all linked to those that got the program as a premium for his PBS special/pledge package. If you did not get the program as PBS pledge it takes a lot of wandering around the site to find out that you need to spend $100 on paypal to get access to other resources. More wandering around the site infers that it includes access to audio, video, iPhone app (no indication of Android version), and perhaps a chart (what I was looking for to see his color map explained). A poor sales job and poor communication job, so I conclude that the resources would probably be poor as well.

 

Not bad for reminding of the basics, and a potential idea for modeling that you need to emphasize different modalities for different situations. If the way you solved the problem last time did not work this time, then try a different model (approach or method) using a different mindset/framework. And understand that much of succeeding in today’s world will require changing your framework on an ongoing basis. And success is not just in terms of money or career, but on your values.

 

two stars of 5.

Damian

Computer Challenge – How to Create a Bootable Disk?

From Oren S./M/Newington,CT)
Whats the best way to create a bootable disk?

It depends on version of OS that you want to create the bootable disk.  UBCD from Download.com (a CBS (the TV conglomerate) site of shareware programs that are pre-checked for virus’ and malware) is a good tool. UBCD (short for Ultimate Boot CD/Compact Disc) is a program that allows you to create and load a few programs to create a bootable CD.

• Start Menu|Run|CMD|Format a:/sys if you still have a 3.5 diskette.
  

There are other tools built into MS Vista and I believe MS Win7, but I am not as familiar with them. You can also use UBCD to create a bootable thumbdrive or flash drive if you can have your PC boot from USB port. Otherwise the install disks that may have come with your PC as operating system may work to be able to boot directly from a CD.

KISS – Keep It Simple and Short

One of the best practices for website conversion also lines up (often) with better rankings on SRP (Search Results Page) – simple language, and good readability scores.

The issue is that once you get someone to your site it needs to be easy to read. There are exceptions, but how often are the buyers (of your product or ideas) really looking to work hard to understand what you have written? Of course Google is no genius either (although many that work there are). It is designed to look at your site as others without sophisticated degrees and high end language skills would look at your site. Of course, I am like many who like to slip into the shorthand of our vernacular and the jargon of each industry. But I do so at my own peril. And increasingly, at my own laziness. MS Word has had analysis of the reading level of your documents for at least a decade. But there are also online tools available as well for free that are quick and easy to use.

Understand that the Wall Street Journal writes its content for 11th grade. Most novels are written at the 8th to 10th grade level (remember we had to read them in high school). Take a look at most websites, they are written for graduate level. How many websites have you seen with humongous long words, utilizing complex sentence structures reminiscent of academic papers that put everyone to sleep (bad example intended)?

Here are a few based on a quick search (until I get back to finding the best in class):

• http://juicystudio.com/services/readability.php#readingresults
• http://www.editcentral.com/gwt1/EditCentral.html

In fact, the readability of a website is important enough that Google will allow you to control what sites you see in the results based on reading level: http://www.google.com/advanced_search

If you don’t believe that readability can help your site, do a little test and then let me know the results in the comments section.