Taking on Spiritual Practice In Your Business (Without Killing Yourself)
Carolyn who blogs at Juggling Frogs wrote in a recent post about how to take on observing shabbot. If you’re unfamiliar with the Jewish observance of the Sabbath, it starts at Friday sundown and lasts until Saturday sundown, and there are, to put it mildly, a whole host of restrictions and things you shouldn’t do, […]
Playing to Win… Compassionately
Liz Strauss just posted The Object of the Game of Life– a post which starts by musing about board games, and playing. Almost exactly one year ago I wrote an article on a similar subject: How to win compassionately. I want to encourage you to read Liz’s post, and my article, and to think about […]
"Self-Improvement"
Someone I know recently ran something she called ‘Freedom from Self-Improvement day’ I love the concept- freedom from self-improvement, and support all of us getting our need for acceptance fulfilled in a deep way. One of my personal heroes is Paul Hawken, and in his latest book Blessed Unrest (highly recommended) writes this: Life tends […]
There’s No Such Thing as "Resistance"
Okay, you’ve got your plan in front of you. Let’s say that you want to get a new product created. You know what you have to do, you know what you want to do. The way feels clear, your heart feels right with it, even excited, you’re ready to go, and… Nothing. You’re stopped dead […]
Tag! Productivity–How Do You Get So Much Done?
I’ve been tagged- Jennifer Louden nudged me in her post on peace + productivity. It’s part of a string started by Ben Yoskovitz in his Instigator Blog which he’s calling The Ultimate Guide to Productivity Group Writing Project. Here’s what Ben said: Write a post on your best productivity tips. Challenge yourself by picking your […]
How the Kitchen Sink Drains Your Repeat Business
Okay, here comes someone who takes you up on one of your offers. And they come back again, and again, and again. They buy everything you’re offering, as quickly as you can offer it. They don’t even want to read your sales copy- they just say, “Yes, please, may I have some more?” It’s more […]
Another Solution for Business Overwhelm
This morning, as I was contemplating the Sacred Moment seminar approaching this weekend, in a way similar to contemplating an oncoming train. An oncoming train in a dark tunnel. With no escape. I was feeling a little stress. Stress? Why would I feel stress? One of the biggest reasons is that I was spending a […]
"Do You Have to Be a Great Writer…" At Dmiracle.com
Scribble, scribble, scribble. There’s been a conversation going on over at Dawud Miracle’s blog about scribbling, and whether you need to be a great writer in order to be a great blogger: I’m in a discussion with Lyle Lachmuth about how much writing skill does it take to be a great blogger. His perspective is […]
Cookie Grandma's Secrets to a Unique and Powerful Business
Your business probably seems like many others. There are billyuns and billyuns of therapists, consultants, retailers, and healers. Yet, in order to make an impact and deeper connection with customers that is so necessary for a sustainable business, you need to distinguish yourself. However, just ‘finding your voice’ and ‘developing your uniqueness’ aren’t often helpful […]
From Grok dot Com: The Web's Old Wives Tale: People Don't Read Online
Bryan Eisenberg wrote this post on the Grok.com blog: The Web’s Old Wives Tale: People Don’t Read Online
The post is particularly interesting, because he mentioned an eyetrack study from the Poynter Institute, (you know, eyetrack is when they use infrared, I believe, to track where someone is actually looking on the screen.)
And they saw that people do read online, many quite thoroughly.
Of particular note is that because some people don’t read thoroughly, they scan, design becomes even more important.
Sean D’Souza have both helped me to learn a lot about website design and readability.
If you are wanting to put content up on the web, I have some tips on how to make it readable. Please note, I’m well aware that this blog is NOT a good example… yet! Dawud is hard at work redesigning it this week.
Tips on how to make your online content more readable:
1. Margins-
Make sure that there is white space -around- your text- that columns and other design elements aren’t crunched together.
The white space gives room for the reader’s eye to actually “enter” the space. If the space is full of stuff, it’s hard for someone to look at and enter it.
2. Use Subheads-
Subheads are really helpful. Make the font size slight larger, and use them every 3-6 paragraphs or so.
Subheads help the reader to know where they are going, so they can settle in. Sometimes people scan the subheads quickly, and then go back and read. Or if they hit a part of your writing that they find boring, instead of clicking away, they may just jump to the next subhead and re-engage.
3. Short paragraphs.
Here I’ll just reproduce what I wrote in Creating Heart-Centered Websites
The BIGGEST Reason People Aren’t Reading What You Write
The answer is two words: paragraph length.
You want to use short paragraphs in your emails.
Really short.
You also want to use short paragraphs on your blogs. And on your website. And in your articles. And in your book. And in your email replies to interested people.
I’m not kidding. Because when you write really, really long paragraphs by email and they go on and on without stopping about every last thing you want to say, then it becomes this block of text that’s hard to read and follow. Your readers become frightened to start the paragraph, and, if they do actually start the paragraph, they get lost in the middle and never reach the end. And if they never reach the end, then they never see the next paragraph and basically the gig is up, because they’ve missed the point of what you were writing about, and you may as well never have written in the first place. And, because you lose them as readers you never hear back from them, you’ve gotten no response and so you can start to feel frustrated. Then angry. Then sad. Then you begin to fill with despair and wonder if anyone cares about you at all, and whether you should even be in business, or even in the world. Maybe you should just give it all up and go get a job in a cafe. When, it’s really not that bad, it?s just because your paragraphs were too long. Make sense? Short paragraphs. No more than three or four lines.
‘Nuff said.
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Those are my tips. There are others, such as not putting patterns behind your text, not putting too many elements on the page, etc, etc.
But these three are the biggies, and will help a lot.