This is something I've been talking about for some time... As a writer/journalist/communicator you have to think about your audience: who they are, why they're reading you, why they care, etc. SEO is simply another method of making sure you get your message across. It's not pandering, or selling out, or bastardizing your work. It's taking some well-wrought thoughts, and publishing them in a medium that is saturated with content, good and bad.
This comes from the Econsultancy news letter:
Last week the BBC announced it was to start optimising its headlines in an attempt to gain greater visibility in the search engine results pages, so I thought I’d take a look at journalism and the web.
Over recent years, many online news providers have had to adopt search engine optimisation (SEO) best practice into their articles in order to maintain their audience figures.
Yet I often see journalists and even some bloggers bemoaning the need to optimise their work, as though it means all the quality has been drained out of the article and replaced with Google-appeasing nonsense.
That’s why the first of my points is perhaps the most important. As long as it’s done well, SEO will not make your articles unreadable.
SEO is not the enemy of good writing
Believe it or not, the purpose of SEO is not to destroy your writing’s artistic integrity, it’s to make sure people can actually find your work to appreciate its genius.
I think that SEO is often misunderstood by professional writers, especially those who began their careers offline in the world of print and are suddenly having to adapt.
They end up believing that they have to cram key phrases like ‘Britney Spears’ into their serious article exposing the flaws in the government’s economic recovery plan. That’s obviously ludicrous.
Search engines are like a newsagent, they are where people find your copy. By bearing SEO tactics in mind, you place your article at the front, right next to the till.
Headlines hook more than humans
Journalists use their headlines to hook readers into the story, to convince them of the importance of reading this particular article.
However, most news websites will use the headline as the page’s title tag, which is one of the places that search engines look to assess the relevance of your article to someone’s search.
That means that if you can get the kind of words into your headline that people will search for, you’re more likely to gain a larger audience.
So, instead of something funny but inexplicable like ‘King faces whopper grilling’, use explanatory terms like ‘Mervyn King defends Bank of England strategy’.
Is SEO the end of the pun?
To an extent, this is bad news for the grand old tradition of the journalist’s pun. Look at a recent example. Poole Council replaced their town centre Christmas tree with a green cone that plays music and flashes inbuilt lights.
Naturally, almost every newspaper covered this story with the headline ‘Elf and safety’.
However, I heard the story on the radio and then Google News’d it at work. I searched for ‘Christmas tree health and safety’, so ended up reading one of the few articles that didn’t make that joke in its headline. (The Telegraph ran with ‘Poole axes real Christmas tree for safer fake one because of health and safety'. There’s a paper that gets it.)
I think SEO doesn’t need to be the end of the pun completely, though. There’s no reason a paper couldn’t use creative headlines for its print copy and optimised headlines online.
Use a keyword rich introduction
If your news story has a standalone introduction then make sure it’s filled with relevant terms. That doesn’t mean you have to make it incomprehensible to people, that will damage your reputation as a writer and increase your bounce rate.
To an extent it’s good journalistic practice, you want to summarise the main points and elements of your story to inform readers (and now search engines) what your article contains.
Write for your audience
There are some great ways of attracting inbound links to your article and getting it Tweeted or mentioned on social media sites like Digg or StumbleUpon. The web audience laps up ‘top tens’ and other list-type stories and are more likely to share these with their friends.
So, if you were planning to write an article about where to go for a winter holiday, for example, considering writing it as a ‘Top ten winter holiday destinations’ or ‘Five fashion crimes to avoid on the piste’.
These lists also allow you to use sub headings, which make an article more easily read by the online audience and are a great way of giving your targeted keywords an extra boost. Search engines pay attention to sub headings.
Consider keywords without curtailing quality
Your article doesn’t have to be stuffed with likely search terms but you can make it more search engine friendly.
Don’t abbreviate companies and phrases (unless they are as well-known as the full description, like SEO), and aim to use people’s full names.
This helps your article cover all the possible terms people are likely to search for and reiterates its subject relevance to the search engines.
Link descriptively
If you’re writing about the very latest development in an ongoing saga, it makes sense to link to your previous articles to give some background.
When you do so, don’t just link using useless text like ‘click here for my previous article’ or ‘for more information click here’ – use your headlines or relevant keywords.
Search engines look at the hyperlinked anchor text to help assess the relevance of a page to certain keywords. By linking using your (already optimised) headline, you give your last article an SEO boost.
Watch the competition
If your newspaper isn’t making its content work hard enough, your competitors certainly will. When even the mighty BBC News has to work to keep its articles visible in the search results, you know that there’s no room for complacency.
Soon, journalists who can’t write optimised copy for the web will be under-skilled for their changing workplace. In an industry that’s shedding staff writers all the time, that’s a dangerous position to be in.
Mike Connell: Digital Strategist
Monday, November 30, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Why You Need a Communications Strategy
So, what do I think of Digital Communications/Marketing? I put some of this material together for a client of mine. I recommended that he develop a blog roll that would be regularly updated and packed with targeted key words and phrases. A key element of his new business model is digital marketing and communication. So, we discussed the theories and why I think communications strategy is important in general.
I don't want to sound too preachy, but first, what has changed about communications, and why do you need a strategy, marketing or otherwise?
Technology and overall accessibility have empowered both the client, and the audience they seek to reach... we have transcended conventional "push" communications and gone towards a two-way dialogue featuring targeted, personalized and viral communications.
A solid communications strategy identifies the right opportunities, has the right tools and – most importantly – develops the right messages that will permeate the online, offline and wireless worlds.
It’s not just a PR or marketing exercise. It’s learning/optimizing how you develop your internal communication, as well as your customer- or outward-facing dialogues.
Whether it’s a business plan, press release, website, email, product launch or novel, there’s a story that has to be told, and it has to be told well/effectively for people to pay attention. Even if sales are your end goal, your conversion, there’s still a message that has to be relayed telling people the what, where, why and how.
As a marketer, this means I'm no longer marketing products or services. I'm marketing conversations and therefore need a conversation strategy that answers some big questions: What content will trigger the right dialogue with the right people and what media is taking place on? How do you keep the conversation going?
I am a big proponent of the idea that anyone can write, anyone can communicate... but can you do it well and in a manner that best relays your mission and vision? In the digital space, does it result in the desired conversion? With a solid strategy, it can and will.
The basic tenets I look at? Why is the client communicating/marketing the product? The Why means setting acute objectives. By starting with meaningful objectives, and ensuring that everything in the plan relates to those objectives, it is ensured that the plan is on the right track.
Who does the client want to reach? Carefully determine who their audience is. Not doing so yields one of the most devastating errors in Public Relations: Communicating for communications sake. I've worked with agencies who have done that: promoted strategies and programs that pitch certain tools and tactics, simply because they know they can bill a lot for them, and they're buzzwords/popular methods they feel they HAVE to pitch. This goes back to the acute objectives: Why, along with Who, can tell you a lot regarding what type of media, tools and tactics you should/can be using. If your audience isn't online or participating in social media, that's not necessarily the tool for you. If you want to build an audience there, that's a different exercise, but with your current goals in mind, where will your message be relayed best?
So, that brings us to Where: Where will the client communicate? What are the various channels of communication that will be used?
How will the client say it? This becomes the overall strategy and is supported by a series of action-oriented communications programs.
When will communications take place? This is the timetable that disciplines the entire plan, as timing can often mean success or failure of a program.
The whole "media is the message" adage is tested and true, yet the reality is that you have to remember to put some media back in to the message... or is it message in the media? Anyway, the point is that we have to remember the goal: In the digital space, how you relay the message is just as important as the message. In turn, the result should not just be getting that message across. Rather, it should be to strengthen lines of communication, further build relationships and ultimately garner the conversions you require. The same thing goes for marketing in the digital space. There's a misconception that it's "cheaper" because you're not buying space, or ads or time. But it IS time and resource intensive and require diligent attention, otherwise it can and likely will fail.
The media you use are important, so with regard to social media and all that implies (twitter, facebook, linkedin, myspace, flickr, youtube, etc.), my thoughts are that they are incredible tools that continue to evolve. Myspace came along, then Facebook, then YouTube (well, it came along earlier, but is being used more prolifically now), then Flickr (same idea), then twitter, etc. What was hot today, may be in decline tomorrow. But some other social media tool and tactic will be there to take its place.
Twitter rocks, in my humble opinion. I use it not only to network, but also to follow news, events, areas of interest, etc. There are multiple strategies with regard to marketing and communication via Twitter, most of which focus on one question: Why do people care about you? Why are they talking about you? Because you stand for something bigger than your own brand. Blogging, tweeting and other digital outreach is a strategic exercise. Talk about what you know, what you’re interested in, and people will read. Eventually they’ll also pay attention to what it is your company does.
That leads to key market research: Know who is talking about you and how. Social Networking is not just tweeting, facebooking, blogging or connecting on Linkedin, it’s about listening to what’s being said about your brand and your company, and the ability to join the discussion. It’s communications, market research and CRM bundled.
I don't want to sound too preachy, but first, what has changed about communications, and why do you need a strategy, marketing or otherwise?
Technology and overall accessibility have empowered both the client, and the audience they seek to reach... we have transcended conventional "push" communications and gone towards a two-way dialogue featuring targeted, personalized and viral communications.
A solid communications strategy identifies the right opportunities, has the right tools and – most importantly – develops the right messages that will permeate the online, offline and wireless worlds.
It’s not just a PR or marketing exercise. It’s learning/optimizing how you develop your internal communication, as well as your customer- or outward-facing dialogues.
Whether it’s a business plan, press release, website, email, product launch or novel, there’s a story that has to be told, and it has to be told well/effectively for people to pay attention. Even if sales are your end goal, your conversion, there’s still a message that has to be relayed telling people the what, where, why and how.
As a marketer, this means I'm no longer marketing products or services. I'm marketing conversations and therefore need a conversation strategy that answers some big questions: What content will trigger the right dialogue with the right people and what media is taking place on? How do you keep the conversation going?
I am a big proponent of the idea that anyone can write, anyone can communicate... but can you do it well and in a manner that best relays your mission and vision? In the digital space, does it result in the desired conversion? With a solid strategy, it can and will.
The basic tenets I look at? Why is the client communicating/marketing the product? The Why means setting acute objectives. By starting with meaningful objectives, and ensuring that everything in the plan relates to those objectives, it is ensured that the plan is on the right track.
Who does the client want to reach? Carefully determine who their audience is. Not doing so yields one of the most devastating errors in Public Relations: Communicating for communications sake. I've worked with agencies who have done that: promoted strategies and programs that pitch certain tools and tactics, simply because they know they can bill a lot for them, and they're buzzwords/popular methods they feel they HAVE to pitch. This goes back to the acute objectives: Why, along with Who, can tell you a lot regarding what type of media, tools and tactics you should/can be using. If your audience isn't online or participating in social media, that's not necessarily the tool for you. If you want to build an audience there, that's a different exercise, but with your current goals in mind, where will your message be relayed best?
So, that brings us to Where: Where will the client communicate? What are the various channels of communication that will be used?
How will the client say it? This becomes the overall strategy and is supported by a series of action-oriented communications programs.
When will communications take place? This is the timetable that disciplines the entire plan, as timing can often mean success or failure of a program.
The whole "media is the message" adage is tested and true, yet the reality is that you have to remember to put some media back in to the message... or is it message in the media? Anyway, the point is that we have to remember the goal: In the digital space, how you relay the message is just as important as the message. In turn, the result should not just be getting that message across. Rather, it should be to strengthen lines of communication, further build relationships and ultimately garner the conversions you require. The same thing goes for marketing in the digital space. There's a misconception that it's "cheaper" because you're not buying space, or ads or time. But it IS time and resource intensive and require diligent attention, otherwise it can and likely will fail.
The media you use are important, so with regard to social media and all that implies (twitter, facebook, linkedin, myspace, flickr, youtube, etc.), my thoughts are that they are incredible tools that continue to evolve. Myspace came along, then Facebook, then YouTube (well, it came along earlier, but is being used more prolifically now), then Flickr (same idea), then twitter, etc. What was hot today, may be in decline tomorrow. But some other social media tool and tactic will be there to take its place.
Twitter rocks, in my humble opinion. I use it not only to network, but also to follow news, events, areas of interest, etc. There are multiple strategies with regard to marketing and communication via Twitter, most of which focus on one question: Why do people care about you? Why are they talking about you? Because you stand for something bigger than your own brand. Blogging, tweeting and other digital outreach is a strategic exercise. Talk about what you know, what you’re interested in, and people will read. Eventually they’ll also pay attention to what it is your company does.
That leads to key market research: Know who is talking about you and how. Social Networking is not just tweeting, facebooking, blogging or connecting on Linkedin, it’s about listening to what’s being said about your brand and your company, and the ability to join the discussion. It’s communications, market research and CRM bundled.
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