The Content King

Save The Internet!

Congress is now pushing a law that would end the free and open Internet as we know it. Internet providers like AT&T and Verizon are lobbying Congress hard to gut Network Neutrality, the Internet's First Amendment and the key to Internet freedom. Net Neutrality prevents AT&T from choosing which websites open most easily for you based on which site pays AT&T more. So Amazon doesn't have to outbid Barnes & Noble for the right to work more properly on your computer.

Many members of Congress take campaign contributions from these companies, and they don't think the public are paying attention to this issue. Let's show them we care - please sign this petition today.

For more information, or to link to MoveOn's outreach on this issue, check out: http://civic.moveon.org/alerts/savetheinternet.html

Online Writing Tips

These guidelines have been developed through partnership with Internet Broadcasting, a variety of print and online resources, and our own online writing experiences.

1) Strive for approximately 400-500 words in length.

- According to studies by Jonathon Fox, editor-in-chief of Sun Microsystem’s site, Web content should be roughly half the length of a comparable print piece in order to be effective.

2) Inform and educate. When appropriate, structure your article around helpful tips for online readers/consumers.

3) When possible, write in an easy to digest format: bullet-points, subheads, etc. Online readers want quick-hitting points.

- The Web demands your writing deliver "joltage" in a concise manner. Crawford Kilian, author of Writing for the Web,” compares the newspaper-reading experience to a warm bath. Web reading, by comparison, is a 30-second shower - get in, get the job done, wake you up, don't hang around.

- Likewise, Jonathan Fox found that 79% of Web users scan the page versus reading word-for-word. He recommends bulleted lists and focusing on only one main idea per paragraph as techniques to best get your message across to Web users. 

- In Call to Action the Eisenberg brothers recommend short paragraphs for online readers. Avoid “impenetrable blocks of text” whenever possible.

4) Short, concise, catchy headlines. Shoot for 6 words max.

- Good Web headlines need to be like soda pop or champagne, according to Rachel McAlpine, author of Web Word Wizardry: "crystal clear and fizzy." The enigmatic, cryptic, poetic, ironic, or witty heading is should be avoided on the Web.

- Here is an example of a headline that could use some trimming: “Car Buyers to Find Better Vehicle Technology in 2006, but Fewer Special Incentives – Tips Can Help Drive Smart Loan Deals”

- Here are some good headline examples taken from some popular news and information-based Web sites. All are concise, to-the-point and catchy. (Article headlines were found on MSN, MSNBC, iVillage, Internet Broadcasting, CNN, and other major media sites.)

   

Buying the Ring She’ll Love   9 Small-space Home Décor   Sins Saving Options Beyond the   Bank Which Type of Water is   Best? 8 Common Old-house Hazards Top Tactics for Financial   Sanity The Myth of Midlife Crisis Warm, Hearty Risotto   Recipes 10 Real Estate Deal Wreckers What are Today’s Hottest   Careers? How to Earn Income by   Investing

Child Abuse Warning Signs Do-it-Yourself Wedding   Flowers Unique Wedding Invitation   Ideas One More Reason to Lose   Weight The 20-Minutes-a-Day Diet Fast Food Cravings   Conquered Finding Childcare:   Questions to Ask New Moms: Work or Stay at   Home? Low-carb Diet? Toss These Foods New, Unusual Kitchen   Products 8 Creative Ways to Pay for College

 5) Write effective call-to-actions:

- The Web suits "response" writing which prompts the user to carry out an activity. Make sure the CTA is action-oriented. Saying “learn now,” inspires action more effectively than “learn how.”

- Clearly identify exactly what you benefits you are offering to the reader: Eisenberg states, “Optimize your copy to give them what they want and get out of the way.”

- You can drive traffic from articles to other areas of their own sites or to drive readers to online partners. The goal is to keep them moving.

Examples:

· See more sports stats at www.newspaper.com/sportsstats .

· If you’re looking for a job, visit our online classifieds at www.newspaper.com/classifieds/jobs

· To post an online car ad, visit our auto section at www.newspaper.com/autos

· To see photos of wide plank floors installed with this application, visit the company's Web site at www.wideplankflooring.com.

· Visit www.newspaper.com/newsletter to subscribe to our free newsletter with your weekly local news updates.

· The energy conservation study is available for download at www.foreverhotwater.com.

· Online resources like www.wbfi.org and www.wilddelight.com can be useful in learning about wild birds and outdoor pets, their diets, and how to feed them.

Additional Resources:

BOOKS

• Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results by Brian Eisenberg and Jeffrey Eisenberg
• Writing for the Web by Crawford Kilian
• Web Word Wizardry by Rachel McAlpine

WEBSITES

• http://img.icbdr.com/images/aboutus/pressroom/writer_guidelines.pdf      (CareerBuilder.com writing guidelines)
• http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html      (general website guidelines from Google)
• http://www.microsoft.com/office/previous/frontpage/columns/sbcolumn04.asp     
• http://www.ewriteonline.com
• http://www.ewriteonline.com/index.php?display=Articles&cat_id=31&PHPSESSID=0fc528479a4f2fdd67cb918062c87091     

Live Informed Typepad Widget

Do you blog about a specific lifestyle subject, such as cars, family, or food? If you do, you may want to check out the new Typepad widget from Live Informed.com. Their syndicated headlines cover the following categories:

• Automotive
• Decorating
• Education & Careers
• Family
• Food & Entertaining
• Healthy Living
• Home & Garden
• Home Improvement
• Personal Finance
• Weddings

The great thing about the widget is the time it takes to set up. Once you've followed the easy steps below, the headlines come in automatically and keep your site updated with fresh content. Headlines even take on the look and feel of your blog through your CSS.

Setting Up the Widget

1. Visit the Live Informed Widget center.
2. Click on the "Install Widget" button.
3. This will link you back to your typepad account.
4. Select the blog to add your widget to and click "Add Widget"
5. Done! (From here, you can change the order if you'd like.)

The headlines on the sidebar of this blog below the Live Informed logo are examples of how these widgets look. To read more about the widget, visit TypePad's widget center or the widget page of Live Informed.

Content Management System

If you're looking for a free Content Management System (commonly referred to as a CMS), you'll definitely want to check out www.OpenSourceCMS.com. This website offers tutorials, advice, and a forums section. Each CMS is set up on a trial server and reboots every two hours. You can see ratings, see other members' comments, and try a program out before you download it.

PaidContent.org

PaidContent.org is a great resource about online content and media. Rafat Ali, the founder and magic behind the site, its various divisions, and newsletters, has just been named as an "Under the Radar" industry leader on the Folio 40. And he definitely knows his stuff. He and his staff are widely traveled and attend or report on almost every event in the online media industry, on a daily basis. One often wonders where they get the energy, not to mention breaking the time-space continuum to get it all done.

Check out their About Us page to learn more about the various resources they offer. It's well worth the trip.

Why Content is King

by Cody Moya

You have heard it time and time again: ‘Content is King’. Yet still people ignore the truth of this common-sense phrase. People use the web to find information – it’s the content of a page that is important to them, because that’s why they’re there.

The content of a page is the primary thing that a search engine will look at when considering your site. The meta tags and the hidden text that many people like to place on their pages in order to draw search engines to their sites is much less important to the search engine. Many search engines don’t even consider meta tags any more. Don’t get me wrong, meta tags are a necessity when optimizing, but they are much less important than content.

Hidden text is not only skipped over by most search engines, it can give you serious problems with search engines. The king of search engines, Google, will remove sites from its index if they utilize hidden text. Hidden text is categorized as text that is the same color (or similar color to) the background or text that is the set as transparent using CSS.

When people arrive at your site, one of two things will happen. They will either find something of interest and stay, or they’ll turn around and leave. They make this decision within seconds. You need to have things that people want to read, or all your precious click-throughs will be for nothing. If you can’t come up with something to put on the front page of your site, hire a writer. Writers are there to create reasons for people to stay. They get paid for a reason, they are worth while.

You can never have too much information – it’s a fact that people want information. The web is great for information because you can find so much out there with so little effort. Hidden somewhere in all that information, you can be sure there’s something that you’d love to find. Search engines are there to help you uncover it.

You could take some of this information and tailor it to your website’s needs, using bits and pieces that will be easy to read and useful to your visitors. The more interested in your website a visitor is, the more likely that they’ll stay a while, and come back some other time. You might even see some money from them, sooner or later.

‘Borrowing’ content word-for-word isn’t the way to go, though, because of copyright laws – but you can always create your own content. Remember that the most valuable web content is unique information that no-one can find elsewhere.

Another great method for delivering content is to provide RSS feeds from other sites straight onto your site. Many sites i.e. the New York Times site will allow you to put their RSS feeds onto your site. An RSS feed is basically an online news bulletin. If you are using Internet Explorer 6.0 or lower you probably haven’t encountered RSS. If you use FireFox or Opera for your web browser, you probably already know how great RSS can be for personal use. Imagine having all of that content available on your web site without having to pay a writer!

When selling products and services, make sure that you have enough information about your product’s features. Include everything anyone could ever want to know about your product. If you are running an affiliate site, buy a few of the products that you are selling and use them on a regular basis. This will give you the opportunity to find out what their major selling points are and allow you to make them into featured products and provide high quality reviews.

Think of it as leading your reader for a walk through your mind – arrange the site to help your readers see what you see.

For example: a page on music, could lead to a page on rock music, which in turn leads to one about the various forms of music, which leads to a page on equipment, and so on and on. Each page on the site can lead into the next, in a reasonable progression of thought. Your content becomes not only new but also fun to experience, as you make it easy for the reader to understand where you’re coming from. Tell a story with your pages.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Cody Moya writes about Search Engine Optimization in his free 50 part Big SEO Course. You can  sign up for his free Big SEO Course and get additional information at his website: http://www.bigseocourse.com

Content Feeds and Your Blog

 Are you looking for a way to expand what your blog has to offer? Consider adding content feeds in your side bars, headers, or footers.  Check out the following links for content you can add to your blog:

1. http://www.liveinformed.com (latest living trends on autos, healthy living, money, weddings, etc.)
2. http://www.clocklink.com (customized clocks on your blog)
3. http://www.shinystat.com (counts page views and visits to your blog)
4. http://www.thefreedictionary.com (provides The Word of the Day, Hangman, WordMatch, etc)
5. http://www.google.com/searchcode.html (allow users to search google while still on your page)

Announcing New Content to Your Users

Are you wondering how to get people interested in and reading your new site content?

 A few ideas for highlighting new content areas of your Web site:

1. Callout the new content at the top of your homepage, with a link leading them to the headlines. Something like, “Check out our new lifestyle articles on Cars, Home & Garden, and Weddings. Come back often as we’ll be adding new articles all the time.”  Make each category word a link to that section.

2. Announce the addition in your newsletter, and add a link back to the appropriate area of the site.

3. Consider using an actual article headlines in your newsletter or creating a newsletter out of your new content.

4. Make sure the content is well laid out and easy to access from many points of entry.

5. Always remember the search engines! Make sure your content pages have the proper meta-tags and descriptive paragraphs for each category.

Increasing Page Views with Content

A great way to make more money on your site is to keep visitors engaged and increase the number of pages views. If you provide interesting content that consumers want to read, you will increase your profits. Since visitors are still on your site (and not someone else’s), you can place banner ads and other revenue generators around the headlines and articles.

When developing your content plan, take the following steps:

1. Do some research. Make sure you know your site traffic statistics and visitor demographics. You wouldn't want to post family articles if all your visitors are teenagers looking for the latest fashion tips.
2. Carefully review sites that provide free articles. While there are plenty of them out there, the number that actually provide quality content is much smaller. Take time to find and read everything that you statically post.
3. If you are taking article feeds through RSS, XML, or JavaScript, make sure you preview the type and quality of the service. Keep an eye on the feeds to make sure you're not getting unwanted articles.
4. Announce the new content to your users through home page links, newsletters, or even a quick email.

A little bit of planning can go a long way. We're all tempted to "just get it done", but in the case of content, no plan can hurt your site and confuse your visitors. Take a day, or even just a half-hour to generally plan things out and you will reap the benefits.