Google says “HELL NAH, MULTI-PAGE” and promises to provide results for view-all over paginated articles.
From the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog:
Therefore, to improve the user experience, when we detect that a content series also contains a single-page version (e.g. page-all.html), we’re now making a larger effort to return the single-page version in search results. If your site has a view-all option, there’s nothing you need to do; we’ll work to do it on your behalf. Also, indexing properties, like links, will be consolidated from the component pages in the series to the view-all page.
This is welcome news for those of us who hate unnecessary pagination of an article. It’s a nice touch that Google’s post includes best practices for making pagination more usable (instead of doing what I’d do, which is to say, “HEY GUYS, your 12-page, 10-image post on the top quarterbacks of all time AIN’T GONNA CUT IT ANYMORE, YO.”)
But what about the pageviews? IS ANYBODY THINKING ABOUT THE PAGEVIEWS?
It’s not just a review of a simple iOS game: it’s a review on life itself. OR, it’s a treatise on the act of writing itself.
It’s J. Nicholas Geist’s review of Infinity Blade on Kill Screen. And it’s LIKE WHOA.
Infinity Blade is a game about iteration, about retreading old ground, about the small changes that surface across endless repetitions.
That’s the beginning. Or is it? Click “Begin Bloodline 2″ and you see the review shift: revisions appear as you watch, the copy becoming more honed, as if the writer learning from his mistakes. Which is the goal of the game, ultimately – learning from mistakes, becoming better, learning from your ancestors, etc.
And then, you click again. And again. And again. And seriously, this is easily the best thing ever.
Your home page is no longer your start page.
It’s a home base, for sure – a quick escape to the front, an ejector seat for a lost user – but it’s no longer first contact. And it hasn’t been for a while, actually.
The fact is, your start page is different for every user.
- User #1 comes via a link from a co-worker.
- User #2 comes via Google.
- Users #3 and #4 saw your special promotion landing page.
- User #5 has been bookmarking your products page for three years. He doesn’t even KNOW what your home page looks like.
Oh no! Your carefully crafted home page copy! Your crazy linkable text! Your beautiful carousel images!
All of it: ignored. So, the question is: “How do you provide your user with any sense of location or company spirit?”
The answer is easy. The process is not. You simply have to create compelling content that explains your company. At the same time that you’re explaining the subject of your Web page. And you need to do this on every page. Every time. All the time.
Tell Them Who You Are On Every Page
Your mission and your history and your entire product line are fantastic and we know you’re totally devoted to whatever it is that has brought you this far. But when I come to your Web site, well, sorry. I don’t care.
I want to know who you are. What you do. Most importantly – why I am supposed to care.
Conventional wisdom says you’ve got about three seconds to capture a visitor on any page of your site, so make it count. Make identity and personality a part of the site design, and give big-picture context to every page.
Don’t have an identity or personality? Don’t have any big-picture context? Well, that’s what your content strategy is for.
The Right and Wrong Ways: Or, “Stop Assuming They’ve Been Here Before.”
There are right and wrong ways to do everything. For writing Web copy, here are some examples: First, some vague copy you might find on a company’s Web site under the heading “Development and Design.”
“We’re here for you no matter what you need, from custom development and design to marketing solutions using tomorrow’s technology.”
The questions start popping up. Who’s here? What do you think I need? Development and design of what? What technology?
Compare it to this:
“Blend Interactive offers custom Web development, marketing and design through a dedication to Web standards and best practices.”
Let’s go through those questions again.
- Who’s here? – Blend Interactive is.
- What do you think I need? – Custom Web work.
- Development and design of what? – A Web site.
- What technology? – Not so much technology as a best practice through Modern Web standards.
It’s not the front page. Still, within one sentence, I’m already aware of who Blend Interactive is, what they offer, and why I should care. Explaining these three things should be the focus of every page on the site. It doesn’t have to be the same copy every time. But it should be focused on pretty darned quickly.
One More Thing: Headlines Matter.
Your headings aren’t just there to serve as truncated navigation links – they’re designed to call attention to the best and brightest points of your content.
Wanna know something else? Your top headings become the first thing a new user sees, regardless of the painstaking design you made on the home page. It’s in the search results. It’s the name of a link.
See, here’s the thing: people are lazy Web readers. It’s not an insult – it’s a fact. And they look to the headings to give them a quick description of what that page offers. Why read it for yourself and craft your own headline if the person who wrote the site has already taken care of it for you?
What this means: not only is a user going to gather all he or she needs to know about your company from whatever random page they land on, they’re also going to use your own copy to explain that randomness.
Don’t let their experience be random. Tell them who you are. And tell them on every page.
(Originally posted at the Blend Interactive blog.)
Resolution: BMOWP 03-2010 – Declaring This Day and Every Day: “Make Awesome Content Your Goal Day.”
Whereas: our Web sites are no longer cluttered with clanky weasel words and business-ese, instead replaced with real language that real customers might use in real situations. You know, because those customers want to talk to a person, not a damned search engine.
Whereas: our blogs begin dealing in insight and entertainment, rather than bullet pointed lists of what we did last night. Funny, profound or filled with poop jokes: the only requirement is that it appeals to someone other than our mothers.
Whereas: we only post video if it’s edited, we only provide data when it’s relevant, we only post music if it’s awesome, we only recommend books that will hold up years from now, and we understand that our recommendations are worth more than anything we could ever write, so we’d better not lead people astray because they will take notice and stop taking stock in our opinions.
Whereas: we use Twitter as an outlet for short-form creativity and worthwhile findings, using its advantages to OUR advantage, refraining from talking about the traffic and the weather and Lost and instead providing a blistering 140-character manifesto that says “FOR FUCK’S SAKE EVEN THOUGH IT’S ONLY TWITTER WE STILL TAKE OUR MESSAGES SERIOUSLY.”
Whereas: we give a reason for someone to read that e-mail we’re about to send.
Whereas: we stop for a second and consider how many words flow through our lives and, of those words, how many stick, and how important those words must be; whereas we pledge to provide the world with a slice of real emotion, thereby forcing a sudden swell of humanity into a communications system that has become so clogged with noise that we can barely distinguish the great from the good.
Whereas: everything we write – from a sexy escort service text message to a post-it note – is written in a way that gives back to the reader; whereas every word is a “thank you” to those people, who’ve graciously taken the time to read those words.
Whereas: we create things that make others jealous and driven to do better, which in turn leads them to create things that make us jealous and driven to do better.
Whereas: our content really matters; whereas it is really worthwhile; whereas we go forward without wasting our time.
Whereas: the curating of great ideas takes back the spotlight it once garnered, and creativity is rewarded with the attention of the world.
NOW, THEREFORE, the editorial WE at THE INTERNET WEBLOG Black Marks on Wood Pulp do hereby proclaim: This is Make Awesome Content Your Goal Day.
Dated this day, March 24, 2010. And every day.
So let’s make the promise to each other. And then, let’s try our damndest to live up to it.
(Originally posted at Black Marks on Wood Pulp.)
