Oh, to be a wise guy

Write Articles, Not Blog Postings, one Jakob Nielsen tells us. And that is because:

Blogs are also fine for websites that sell cheap products. On these sites, visitors can often be easily converted and the main challenge is to raise awareness. For example, a site that sells pistachio nuts should post as much content about pistachios as possible in the hope of attracting quick hits by people searching for that information. Some percentage of these visitors will buy the nuts while visiting the site.

While

To demonstrate world-class expertise, avoid quickly written, shallow postings. Instead, invest your time in thorough, value-added content that attracts paying customers.

So, if you sell peanuts, you can blog. If you sell stuff, you can’t.

One wonders what to think about Mr. Nielsens dictum from 1997 that users don’t read on the web… Yeah, sure: people have changed in 10 yrs (that’s some quick adaptation…)

Of course, one could also just presume that Mr. Nielsen is a clueless hack that should be rather grateful for his long (and, I guess, lucrative) career in advicing hapless PHBs about something he himself barely understands and constantly has to struggle to keep up with.

In that context, this is fun.

July 11th, 2007 / Tags: pompous gits, geek / Trackback