Copywriting? 
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There has been a large number of website publications in Mauritius these last weeks along with disastrous concepts such as the L’Express website (discussed over here). One of the major problems that seem to be quite difficult to get over is copywriting.
As stated in my last post on FantasmĂ©dia and in the discussion over the new L’Express website, the use of language, be it French or English, is always biased in terms of quality and consistency. Many a Managing Director thinks that a post or a description of an online activity is either a transcription of what is written on their printed ads or just a way of trying either some black hat seo or a stupid challenge of putting the largest number of adjectives in one go.
Web users actually don’t care. They want concise yet informative texts. They do not want to read lengths of “how we are a great company and will conquer the world for you as all our employees are Supermen disguised in Batman with Spider-Man’s super powers.” What they need is “show us the needs and what solution you have and what do I gain in using it.”
Using good copywriting techniques will not only deliver a quick and insightful message but also help your SEO because one thing companies usually forget, the person looking for information will be using just plain everyday {insert language here} to find the product, so cut the grass under your challenger’s feet with this.
Want to know how to do this? Check out this old but still up-to-date article on A List Apart by Erin Kissane, learn the techniques and spice up your website with the simple yet to the point advice.
Waiting for Fantas MĂ©dia.
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Published in L’Express on the 27th of November 2008
Michael Anseline, 24 ans, est chef d’entreprise. Il est un des fondateurs de la firme Fantasmédia qui est dans la création de site web, l’événementiel ou encore la modération.
«La création d’un site web peut prendre une semaine à trois mois. Notre rôle est de proposer des solutions aux clients», explique-t-il. Ses clients sont des français. «Ils se rendent compte que Maurice est une destination pas chère et de qualité en ce qu’il s’agit d’informatique», dit-il.
Avec le boum des BPO, les gens pense que c’est la seule filière liée à l’informatique, mais la programmation est également une avenue intéressante pour le jeune chef d’entreprise. Comme Michael, les autres intervenants pensent que le secteur informatique peut connaître un développement majeur à Maurice, que ce soit pour la création de sites web ou pour la programmation pure.
Once again, quite a lot of bragging about Mauritian web design. For me, the first thing to do when you have to get close to a web design company is to visit their website. Why? Because if they have a great website, standards compliant, flexible with optimised and really interesting content they are convincing the prospective client that they’ll be selling the same type of website to them. Others will base themselves on highly graphical elements just to sell the eye-candy and skip everything else. The eveything being the essence of the web: standards, css and content.
So let’s have a look at Fantas MĂ©dia’s “high quality” website. Ok, they haven’t really got one, but the one online for the time being tells quite a lot. Ok, first things first. Say “Hi!” to Mr.Flash Page. Bad idea: no indexation, non standards-compliant, bandwidth gobbler (remember we’re in Mauritius guys), difficult to update, and these are just examples. Along with that is that annoying music loop! Here are some great articles to learn about UX (user experience), standards and quality
- How to Convince a Client (and maybe yourself) their Site Doesn’t Need Music?
- Forget the Flash splash.
Ok, let’s have a look at the code now.
What do we have then? Beautiful example of keyword spamming. An advice: try a Google search on basic SEO techniques, it’ll help, I guarantee. It might even incite you to remove the “rĂ©fĂ©rencement” keyword from your business model.
In page CSS, true enough, the animation is already killing the bandwidth so why bother about an external CSS file. Using upper case HTML, ok no standards then and the code confirms it. Wonderful onClick="window.open(this.href); return false;". You’re a user without Javascript activated and you don’t have Flash installed, too bad, looks like Fantas MĂ©dia is telling you that you’re SCREWED!
We might give Fantas MĂ©dia the benefit of doubt, their portfolio is not online. Yes but Google is. Here’s a sample of their work, or might it be a part of their new website. Their previous portfolio itself is a huge flash animation. So no alternative for accessible browsers, no alternative for standards compliant browsers and no way to get this indexed in search engines because of the keyword spamming added to the horrible use of English and French. Even the keyword spamming is incorrectly done as the portfolio shows (supposed) English text while the keywords are in French.
Dear Fantas MĂ©dia, please employ a copywriter who’ll tell you that “multimedia” doesn’t have and accent in English, “massif” is a geology term and cannot be used in a phrase like “massif image resizing” or “positivism” is a scientific knowledge theory where you might have used “positivity”. Just like “concept” is a “concept” and not a “conception”!
Here is an example of how standards are completely absent in Mauritius and the quality of the work really poor. This is what Mauritian web designers should not be doing as it reduces the value of Mauritian web design. The same persons will be saying that they are doing quality work while being completely oblivious of the core concepts of web design. Their new site should be online soon, I’m really waiting for it and hope that they’ll prove me wrong.
“Sex” is no longer a buzz word!
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Remember that the word “sex” claimed to be the most searched word on the web for a long time? Well, times have changed and Web 2.0 have tanned its hide. I’ve been hanging around on Google Trends these days and just thought about how things could have changed around the world with the advent of the Internet, the use of search engines and the popularity of some major new age applications. One thing we’ll notice in this analysis is that the search for the word “sex” is pretty constant with minor fluctuations.
Obama stronger than sex itself.
Barack Obama’s election is a pure example of buzz. On the night prior to his election, search engine searches on his name have seen a major boost overwhelming “sex” by a good 100%! 
Ok, it was the American election etc. but the stats are based on world searches. However, after that day, the buzz just died down. Here’s the Google Trends chart based on “obama” and “sex” searches.
MySpace, the first contender.
The birth of MySpace was a huge leap for social networking and Web 2.0 (in its real social, Internet user buzz definition). People around the world started opening MySpace pages to keep in touch and build new relationship networks. Even Guns and Roses put their 15 years brewed 20 million dollars “Chinese Democracy” online to 76 millions of tracks listened since Friday last (21/11/2008). MySpace had such an impact that it nearly became the number one searched keyword while becoming, for some time, the number one social media. Here’s the Google Trends chart for “MySpace” and “sex” searches. Wow, that was a close call!
Ladies and Gents, Mr B.I.G, the Masta!: Facebook
Call it the buzzword killer, the ultimate social media tool, the world class Web 2.0 
application. Facebook turns out to have a constant increase in users and above that a steady use. This gives you the following chart, where Facebook started out by the end of the first term of 2004 and just kept on becoming more popular. Along with that you can also see that, according to Google, references to the application were not that much during that time.
There you have it then, Facebook is now the most searched keyword on the net and “sex” has been thrown back to the second place. What will the future be then ? Will it be “oil prices”, “water”, “crisis”, “work”, “job” 
or another webapp like Twitter? Here’s what we’ve got for Twitter for now :
