Checkout the new Hawaii Restaurant Association website!

• Self-Editing News Format
• HRA Member Promotions (homepage preview widget)
• Social Network Integration (facebook)
• New Navigational Architecture
• A Catchy New Name & Look

BTW: Here’s the ‘before’ hawaiirestaurants.org website:

1. Get the Right Tools. Content Management Systems (blogging platforms like Wordpress, Typepad, Blogger) make it really easy for you to edit and re-edit your writings. CMS makes it easy for you to edit and re-edit at the speed of thought. Seriously, the writing experience on a CMS is more like sculpting – it’s fun, immediate and gratifying. Do a CMS.

2. Write Like You Talk. Colloquial is fine for most web writing. Conversational language implies immediacy and honesty. Write what’s on your mind and don’t puff. Go au naturale. Be a word nudist. Un-stuff those falsies and you’ll get more action.

3. Write for Skimmers. Most folks don’t really “read” on the Internet. Heck, if you’ve read this far into this paragraph, either you’re a super-nerd or my writing is A-W-E-S-O-M-E! By this point for most, I might as well be writing, “#!@$^@ @()*&&^ $!&!!!?” But seriously, people skim. So help the skimmers by putting the important stuff up front (first sentence), make bullet-point lists and boldface appropriately.

4. Write Short. Keep paragraphs short – like even single-sentence paragraphs. Use a lot of punctuation – hyphens, commas, brackets – to break it up. Sentence fragments and even single-words are fine and easily consumable. When editing, look to cut out “and” uses if possible. Short works. Neat, huh?

5. Link. Linking to related sources is both helpful to your readership and helps your page rankings. So for example, here’s some perspectives by others: ProBlogger.com, BloggingTips.com, instigatorblog.com.

Writing for the Internet is an art unto its own. And as Rob Schneider says in the movies, “You can do it!”

Top 10 Naming Tips:

1. Make it Short. Ideally the shorter the better as it reduces viewership impedance. Short names also brand better – i.e., shorter is easier to treat graphically. 6-10 letters is good, less is really good.

2. Make it Meaningful. The best names actually mean something. And that makes them intuitively easy to remember and pass on. Made up words may be cute or goofy, but they require marketing expense to get folks to remember them.

3. Use a Metaphor. Metaphors are a really efficient way to communicate a complex idea. They also can provide the basis for a great symbol or icon. For example, if you were doing a career site, the word “grow” or “sprout” might be better than “career” as you could then use a leaf or flower icon rather than a two-guys-shaking-hands-image.

4. Make it Likable. You want your viewers to want to tune in so likable means sticky.

5. Make it Easy to Convey. In part that’s why you want it short. But you also should avoid difficult spellings or pronunciations. Also, don’t use underscores or hyphens – they’re just too hard for people to remember and describe to others.

6. Get the .com Address. It’s the default. It’s the intuitive place for folks to go. Even if you are an organization and want to operate under a .org, get the .com and redirect it to your .org address. If you don’t, you could be inadvertently be sending traffic to someone else’s .com version of the site. Some Internet futurists believe that eventually it won’t matter what the extension you use, but the marketing guys have more of the pulse of the lay world and they universally agree that you should go for the .com… we agree with the latter.

7. Get All Similar Addresses. Domains are cheap – like $9-15/year so grab all the territory you can get. That includes alternative spellings, common misspelling, pluralized versions, and numerical alternatives (e.g., 2, to, too, two), etc. What you don’t want are squatters drafting on your name, particularly if there is a high likelihood of confusion. For example, in researching this post, I was looking for a site called BUYDOMAINS.COM but inadvertently went to two wrong sites before getting the right one: BUYDOMAIN.COM is a direct competitor and DOMAINBUY.COM is a porno site – boy was I pleasantly surprised!

8. Grab All the Territory You Can. starting with a more generalized name is better as it allows for future growth. For example, in Hawaii, many sites use “HI” or “808″ (the telephone area code) as part of their addresses like “restaurantHI.com” or “808golf.com” But “HI” is more expandable to other localities if the enterprise grows (and it’s shorter) so it’s generally the better alternative.

9. Make Sure Multiple Word URLs Read Well. Domain names don’t allow spaces, so make sure that the resulting coined word isn’t bad. For example, you don’t want to end up with “Sam’s Hits” becoming SAMSHITS.com (don’t bother trying to get it, it’s already taken and is a sex toy shop). Also, try to avoid repeating consonants like “Jims Salads” which would read as JIMSSALADS.com.

10. If You’re Not Using a .com Extension, verify that you’re not infringing on an existing trademark. The truth is that if the .com is available, you likely have no problem as the trademark holder would already own the address. But if you’re going for a more obscure extension like .biz or .tv, then you could be setting yourself up for a trademark problem in the future. If you must go down that extension path, check your name candidates with a trademark attorney or search them at USPTO.gov.

Happy naming!

A Nip & Tuck Along with a Bit of Company Re-Positioning

Our New Top 5 Storymanager Buzzwords:

• Business Positioning
• Linguistic Branding
• Content Management Systems
• Navigational Architecture
• Web-Optimized Content

Ooooh, fancy, no?

In business, having most of the answers just isn’t good enough.

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