Do you signpost your content?
Does your content leave clues?
Can people find it? Can they search for it?
Hi, I’m John Lacey and this is Build A Presentation Muscle.
Signpost your content
I think the average person doesn’t appreciate how true it is that you need to signpost your content and you do need to do this using text.
And it’s kind of hilarious because I was on LinkedIn the other day and somebody had done this classic LinkedIn thing that so many people do, they post a screenshot of their tweet.
Sometimes it’s not even a screenshot, sometimes it’s sort of recreated in some graphics software and doesn’t look anything like a real tweet.
And it cracked me up because it sort of went on to say, “the most important thing you can do is use your words and communicate. You don’t need all the fancy things.”
And I guess because my background in web design and development I’m very acutely aware of accessible content needs.
And the thing that cracked me up was, in this entire post about the importance of text, the only actual text in this thing just said “Agree?” [It contained no alternative text.]
About Alternative Text
Don’t know what Alternative Text is? Let’s talk about it. Alternative text, also known as ‘Alt Text’, is a text description of an image. It is text that your browser will show a web visitor in the event that your page doesn’t load and it is the text that will be read out by a screen reader.
People don’t understand the importance of text.
Missed opportunities
But I think it’s funny… And again, sort of on LinkedIn specifically, there are quirks between if you post a video on your personal profile versus a company page.
They actually give you a video title on a company page in a way that they don’t on a personal page.
And I saw another person literally had the video title “insert funny video title here” and again, it just feels like a missed opportunity.
So think about the opportunities you have to signpost your own content. Think about the words you’re using and the way you’re describing your content. Because at the end of the day so much of what we know as search is based on text.
For more information about today’s show, head over to JohnLacey.com
