Often forgotten in the development rush, regularly updated XML sitemaps are essential in guaranteeing that search engines crawl all your content. Here is Google on the subject: Sitemaps are a way to tell Google about pages on your site we might not otherwise discover. In its simplest terms, a XML Sitemap—usually called Sitemap, with a […]
The Most Important SEO Tool In the World Read More »
Google Insights is no more. It has been absorbed by Google Trends. Both Trends and Insights have been useful tools for writers and editors looking to improve their articles’ SEO. Google Trends also lends itself nicely to a game I call “Celine Dion or Torture?” where you put in phrases until you find an unrelated,
Google Trends Eats Google Insights, Also “Celine Dion or Torture?” Read More »
Danny Sullivan’s “Search Engine Land” is always a great source of info on the dark continent of search engine optimization. They’ve just released an infographic that covers both factors that are under the control of site owners and those more nebulous elements as “authority,” and “reputation.” It’s a clever cheat sheet, and for most, all
Search Engine Land’s “Periodic Table of SEO Ranking Factors” Read More »
In one of the digital media courses I teach, I find that my old media students often balk at one of the axioms of digital content: by publishing something you are essentially releasing it into the wild. Digital content doesn’t sit still — it travels, interacts with other content and competes for attention far beyond
Your Digital Content Has A Life of Its Own Read More »
Trying to parse political rhetoric is always a challenge, but the Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman would like us to at least make the distinction between disagreements, errors and lies. Not quite “Liars, Damn Liars, and Statistics,” but still an interesting take. Here are his classifications: Disagreements — Differences of
Krugman on Politicians’ Three Kinds of Wrong: Disagreements, Mistakes and Lies Read More »
A Twitter friend posted a link to an article on Writers Digest about best-selling fiction. It is surprising — or on second thought, not surprising — how many of the qualities of good fiction are also the qualities of good web content. Writer’s Digest excerpted the list from “The Writer’s Little Helper,” by James V.
21 Key Traits of Best-Selling Fiction That Work For Web Content Read More »
Google Trends is handy for suggesting key search phrases that can be incorporated into titles and body copy. Adwords can give even more detail. What headline should we give to our “Summer Reading” roundup? Based on the Google Trends chart above we should include the key phrase “summer reading” in our title and also “summer
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Slate’s excellent Farhad Manjoo has written a very funny (because it’s true) piece on how to create content that will instantly go viral. He did his research by studying the most viral posts on Buzzfeed.com and attempting to puzzle out the secret of their virality. It turns out that the Buzzfeed’s secret is easy. They
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In an essay entitled “The Age of Criticism,” Randall Jarrell said that most critics’ attitudes toward living poets was, “Go away, pig! What do you know about bacon?” When you plan new projects, launch new products or market your site, how much do you listen to your users?
Listening to Users: “Go Away Pig, What Do You Know About Bacon?” Read More »
Prolific writer Terry Teachout is a teacher, biographer, memoirist, librettist and blogger, but he is best-known as the Wall Street Journal’s drama critic. In his blog, About Last Night, he posted a list of rules that he used to hand out to his students. Here are his 15 Commandments for Reviewers: Be simple. Write in
WSJ Drama Critic Terry Teachout’s 15 Commandments of Reviewing Read More »