For question #2, what did you do differently from the original post? Please outline, explain, and justify what you changed & why. Essentially, what did you learn from this new topic and what did you change and why? (8 Marks)
All of my content from the original post was not written in proper plain English writing and was not written in a concise F-Pattern. I used some F-Pattern elements but it is still very hard to read, not able to scan, and has a lot of not-very-clear information about myself, my company, and a bit of information regarding my products and their purpose. I also did not speak directly to my ideal audience in a way that would effectively target them (jargon, action words).
There is no way for website visitors to quickly find more information through secondary sources (socials), or scan my website for information regarding my products/business’ purpose concisely and quickly. Website visitors also can not use the information I provided to fulfill their specific purpose or goal because there is no guide or navigation through the information and just an overwhelming amount of words that take way too long to read through. This first attempt would not be appealing to my ideal audience, helpful to my audience, and would result in visitors leaving my site without performing any actions – there are little to no CTA’s as well.
I learned a lot from this version compared to my first one. To start, I learned the power of images of how they can easily be used to get a message across. They convey a message without having to use any/minimal words. What I did differently from the first assignment was include images with very short and small text to support the purpose of the image. I used a “hero shot” of a very happy kid smiling with sound-proof headphones on, and text over the image stating “Calm the mind with a sensory solution” – this was done to convey that our toys will make your child happy from sensory relief because we provide the proper sensory solution for your child. I placed this first image right under the first sentence of the text because this was the most important image – it holds a place at the top so it is the first thing visitors see when they come to this page. As we discussed in class, website visitors decide if a website is useful for their search within the first few seconds, and this image allows visitors to scan the image and its short text over top right away and find that this website is where they can find a solution for their problem.
For my first header, I kept what I had from the original post I had made because it tells my ideal audience where they are and introduces my company in a very friendly voice and tone.
For the subheading <p> tag, I kept a very small portion of the first sentence on my original post, I added: “…with my safe and affordable sensory toys.” and left out everything else from the original post for this section. This was so that I could still introduce myself and my company – but also my products. I left everything else out because it was way too long.
With the information that I had kept out of this section, I kept my most important information and deleted the rest. The most important information from this section outlines the importance of my sensory toys and how they benefit children’s behaviors. Instead of creating another paragraph, I chose to do a very short list underneath my hero shot image.
In the list heading, I stated that “My Sensory Toys are the Solution to:” to directly tell parents that this list contains information that will potentially solve your child’s “problem”.
I created a very short list explaining how my sensory toys are a solution to children’s behaviors – calming, redirecting, and initiating. These are the 3 main purposes and uses of sensory toys and I did this so that I could speak to my audience of parents better -they know exactly what behaviors they need help and assistance for with their child. There was a lot of information I wanted to get across so to make sure that viewers at least scroll through the whole list, after my 3 most important short points I put “In-school” and “at-home” in bold to catch their eye while scanning. My last point is most likely already known to parents or can be inferred, it was also my longest point so I kept it at the end. I didn’t add anything to it like bolding because it was my least important information – because the majority of the audience most likely knows this already.
To summarize this list for scanning purposes and clarity – I created a visual that demonstrates and visually explains the most important points from the list mentioned above. Calming, redirecting, and initiating are the three main goals and reasons parents buy sensory toys for their children. These 3 different behaviors are the key to dealing with the behaviors of those who have a disability. This infographic would also be appealing to educators who need sensory toys for their students. I kept this section extremely concise with one-word captions to make sure it was optimized for scanning purposes – in case they don’t read the list mentioned above.
To help guide visitors in finding the right products for their children, in my first assignment I included this header and list. The header says “How To Find The Perfect Toy.” followed by a lengthy list explaining where to find more product information.
What I have learned since this assignment is that socials and direct anchor links are a must with SEO and content writing purposes. That is why for my second submission I changed the header and switched up the list drastically. In my original assignment, I did not include any action words relating to finding my products/ where to find them, I also suggested that they discover our blogs, read stories about parents, chat in real-time with parents, and view our product research – but DID NOT MENTION WHERE/HOW TO FIND THESE AT ALL.
I changed the header on my second assignment for this section to “We Have the Perfect Toy!” because I wanted it to sound more exciting and promising to my ideal audience. They are looking for the perfect toy for their child – I guided them to where the information was supporting this.
For my second assignment, the first thing I did was mention where and how to find our products and put that important text in bold. I also included “anchor text” that would lead visitors directly to our social pages – Facebook, Instagram profile, Facebook Group for parents, and our blog about parents and their journey with our products so that they can click and be brought right to the pages. I also added many action words “Browse, benefit you, Find us, Read our, Visit our, Start a chat” which spoke directly to my audience because I listed what information they could find using these links and what it provides for them.. They can take clear this information I provided and use it further for product research or fulfill another purpose or goal they have from my website.
For my final message, I wanted to keep it extremely brief and concise so I changed it from a massive paragraph tag that covered many unrelated topics to just 2 short sentences with a break between them. I kept the same heading because it was a phrase that influences visitors into thinking that they truly do belong here on our website. I centered it to make it more visually appealing and separate from the rest of the information and content on the page. I did this because I think it is very unlikely for customers to read this section. After all, it’s at the end of the page and is only content relating to why they belong to our website – “You Belong Here!” is massive so that it catches their attention below the other content, and the two sentences are my least important information so I made it very brief and is used to build trust between the ideal audience member and myself.
