Daniel Eizans: Content Strategist, Geek

There is probably no SEO misconception that I despise more than the “more is better” argument. A good rule of thumb when it comes to content on your web site? If you’re feeling tired (and full) when you’re reading your content, stop feeding it to your visitors.

A very wise woman recently wrote:

“Online, when it comes to informational, marketing, or promotional content, more is almost never more.”

We need look no further than a pair of popular cleaning product makers to see this process in action. When we examine the homepage for Lysol and compare it to Clorox, a few clicks will show just how much more content is jammed into one versus the other.

As you can see below, Lysol’s site is jam packed with Did you Knows, Germ Information, PDFs, menus, sub-menus and enough cookie crumbed pages to choke a small child.

Conversely, the Clorox page features a great deal more whitespace, has fewer downloadables, and no submenus linking into deep pages. It also segments users based on their cleaning locales of interest (someone did their personas!).

So, who has the better SERP ranking? Clorox beats the crap out of Lysol with far less content.

A Google search of the keywords “Cleaning Products” put Clorox.com number one in the sponsored links and the top result of actual products (7th in the organic list). Lysol didn’t appear in the organic search on the first page, nor did it on the next 20. While it appeared in the sponsored links underneath Clorox, I didn’t have the heart to keep digging to see if they made the organic SERPs within 40 clicks.

Not only are the Clorox.com search results better, it’s also far easier to find the information you’re looking for. The fonts are larger, the headlines are shorter, written specifically for a web audience and sub headlines provide an accurate description of what we’ll find within a link or article page. Product information is weaved in nicely with informational articles, there are graphics that engage users while informing and useful tools that help decide the best way to treat stains.

Bottom line, good content helps improve search ranking, but it has to be useful, tagged and relevant.

So before you go off and publish a mammoth Web site with tons of pages, articles and information, with high hopes of a higher SERP ranking, ask yourself a few questions.

• “Does this information add to my brand story, user experience or increase engagement?”
• “Would I lose anything if this content wasn’t here?”
• “Can this information be better organized, bulleted or edited down?”
• “By including this content, am I preventing my users from getting content they need?” (THIS ONE IS MY FAVORITE!)

Useful, usable Web sites are not not about providing every single piece of information that anyone could ever think of. It’s about providing solid content that is on strategy, that means something to your visitors and that is properly tagged optimized and placed to be useable for machines and humans. Tag better, write better, and spend more time optimizing and editing less content to get more of a result.

If you get overwhelmed and feeling too full looking at your site, chances are your users feel exactly the same way.

Photo: Sandeep Nair

Even if you’re the most casual of Facebook users, you’ve no doubt seen one of your friends, a journalist or a “social media expert” (I hate that phrase) sounding off on the social networking giant’s rolling changes to its Terms of Service.

Last night, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg finally yielded to a growing user revolt, just a day after he attempted to clarify changes to the Terms of Service in a blog post. Despite his explanations, users still were unhappy and concerned about their privacy.

With more than 50,000 users complaining. Users win.

Zuckerburg wrote last night that Facebook would revert the terms of service back to its previous version, adding however that the site is determined to update its terms of service, but this time would seek input from the community of Facebook users first.

“If you’d like to get involved in crafting our new terms… you can start posting your questions, comments and requests in the group we’ve created–Facebook Bill of Rights and Responsibilities. I’m looking forward to reading your input.”

In all honesty, I’m glad Zuckerburg was quick to act and not just because I personally saw some holes in their new terms of service. I’m glad he did it because it’s the right thing to do from a best practice standpoint.

It seems that Facebook and Zuckerberg have learned something from the Beacon problem two years ago.

What Facebook did wrong with it’s roll out of these new terms of use is what some other popular free Web sites have done in recent months – it neglected to adequately warn users of a reasonably major change to the site. The initial blog post that came on February 4 that simply told users that the change happened was not enough to give users ample time to remove content they wouldn’t want to fall under the new terms of use. And all explanations aside, the change was significant.

Hulu faced a similar negative response when it failed to notify its users that it had to remove older seasons of “It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia” in January. Granted, “Sunny’s” parent network, FX made the request that the episodes be pulled and Hulu simply complied. The problem was that they failed to communicate the change to any community members. Seeing as “Sunny” is one of the most popular shows on the site, the community was rightfully upset and in quite an uproar at Hulu’s mismanagement of the situation.

Hulu made it’s Mea Culpa blog post just four days after pulling the episodes. They ended up working out a deal with the network to add the episodes back for an abbreviated period to allow users the chance to get their fix before the episodes made their exit.

What all this comes back to is the need for sites and services to communicate to their users, even if there is nothing terribly important to say. I don’t care if your service is free or paid. iTunes forces me to agree to new terms on a seemingly weekly basis and to be completely honest, I adore them for it. I always know where my privacy stands with them. Facebook should have done the same thing.

Muhammad Saleem pretty much sums up everything I think that Facebook should have done before rolling out changes to their terms of service in a blog post he did following the Hulu incident: “HOW TO: Survive a Social Media Revolt. He nails it on every point. Now, lets see where we go from here.

Photo by Zirak

When people ask me what I do, I sometimes struggle to come up with a definition. During the course of my career, I’ve been a lot of different things. I’ve been a newspaper reporter, a Web designer, a programmer, a marketer, a strategist and probably a slew of other titles that I can’t recall. My favorite title is probably “husband.” While I wear this one full-time, I sometimes wonder if I’m cut out for the job. Thankfully, I have the best co-worker a man could ask for. But I digress.

Despite my career meanderings, the thing that has never changed is the fact that I’ve worked to produce engaging and meaningful content. It’s exactly for that reason I redesigned my Web site. The previous two versions of my site were creatively driven. I used this space to showcased my design skills, my creative portfolio and my love for music and art. I maintained a blog that largely came second.

As I have become more interested in social media and in developing content solutions for clients, I’ve realized it’s time to take my own medicine. It’s high time I start being more congruent – to practice what I preach – and to produce some quality, engaging content of my own. And with my redesigned site, powered by Wordpress, I believe I have the right tools in place.

Hopefully, we’ll have some interesting conversations and we can learn from each other. I’m looking forward to a more frequently updated, more usable Danieleizans.com. I’m open to your thoughts and suggestions, please feel free to leave them in the comments below.