It can be a waste of time, effort and money to publish an article that is only of interest for a week when, for the same amount of effort, you can publish something that will continue to attract readers long-term. Search tools can help with this as well. Does "Summer Reading" have legs? Is it of … [Read more...] about Using Search Tools to Determine if a Topic is Evergreen
Using Search Tools To Help Decide When To Publish Content
When is the best time to publish our article on summer reading? When to Publish Based on this Google Trends chart, we'd try to publish the "Summer Reading" roundup in late March -- because it can take two weeks to begin ranking significantly on search results pages. After the page developed … [Read more...] about Using Search Tools To Help Decide When To Publish Content
Using Search Tools for Headlines and Key Terms
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 … [Read more...] about Using Search Tools for Headlines and Key Terms
Headline Tweaking for Better Click-Throughs
Can changing headlines post-publish impact readership of an article? According to Visual Revenue, an analytic tool provider, during the 2012 Olympics, USA Today underwent a testing campaign of their headlines. As you can see from the results below, the newspaper was able to almost double … [Read more...] about Headline Tweaking for Better Click-Throughs
Why Your Site Fails To Attract The Audience It Deserves
This may be my favorite cartoon ever. The marvelous webcomic XKCD explains in one simple diagram what is wrong with most websites: They aren't about what the users want. Has this always been so? In 1981's "The Soul of a New Machine," Pulitzer-Prize winner Tracy Kidder describes an … [Read more...] about Why Your Site Fails To Attract The Audience It Deserves
Buzzfeed’s No-Fail Secret to Creating Viral Content
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 … [Read more...] about Buzzfeed’s No-Fail Secret to Creating Viral Content
Google Launches Content Experiments Tools for Publishers
Constant experimentation and improvement is the heart of any digital strategy -- especially for media properties. As part of their world-domination plan, Google has integrated A/B and multi-variate testing tools in the Analytics suite. With Content Experiments, you can develop several versions of a … [Read more...] about Google Launches Content Experiments Tools for Publishers