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As the response was fairly positive to my original post on headline engagement and best practices, I wanted to share a few more examples before I moved on to other topics. But as I continued to talk about headlines, I kept finding new and better case studies. So what follows really is more of an addendum to the first post, a final notebook dump of sorts, where we at the Chicago Tribune took digitally deficient headlines and really focused on drawing out the compelling aspects. As before, in all of these examples, we at least doubled realtime homepage engagement (click-through rate) after we made the change. We based this on Chartbeat’s heads-up display. So if 50 people were clicking on a headline before, at least 100 were after. Visually, that looks like this…
It can be difficult to get a news release approved internally—even without thinking about search engine optimization.
However, if exposure, disclosure or page views are your goals, you must heed content discoverability and make your release SEO-friendly.
A list of search engine violations and penalties shows ways your content can fail to attract attention online. This applies to all your owned media content—including your website and news releases.
What makes some releases more successful than others in terms of drawing traffic? They’re written with healthy SEO features. These successful news releases appeal to Google’s latest algorithm, which rewards high-quality, unique and non-spam content.
Follow these five simple steps to create releases that can rank high in search results....
Who fancies a game of Buzzword Bingo? Here are five words to get you started that I’ve noticed being used with increasing regularity inside communications agencies and at industry conferences…
Use these 7 strategies to come up with a virtually endless supply of fresh ideas for content creation. Several of them involve simply tapping into the power of some websites you are probably already using... Content marketing poses many different challenges to businesses of all sizes, one being producing enough content. In fact, according to a Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs study, 64 percent of small businesses and 53 percent of enterprise businesses note that producing enough content is a content marketing challenge they currently face. Often businesses aren’t able to produce “enough” content because they believe they simply do not have any new ideas for their content marketing projects. Though content creation can seem daunting, there are many easy ways to make the content marketing process easier. Not only are a variety of tools available to help inspire fresh concepts, but there are also some hassle-free methods that businesses in any industry can take advantage of — simply by tapping into the power of some of the websites you are probably already using every day....
... Since I began covering journalist arrests and press suppression in real-time via social media I have developed a healthy obsession with verification. As the tools we use to report online continue to shift, we need verification to keep up. A great example of this is how Instagram filters or Vine jump-clips might hinder efforts to verify images and video from breaking news. Below is my directory of links and resources for verifying social media content – it is a work in progress. I have been collecting these links for awhile, but a recent study profiled over at Poynter inspired me to post my list here. The study showed little consistency in how journalists approach assessing the accuracy of social media content. The links below are presented in no particular order, but are organized into three categories: How-To Guides, Case-Studies, Discussions and Studies. A note on scope: The resources below are specifically and purposefully limited to verifying social media and user generated content. General reporting accuracy is not covered in depth here....
...It’s also important to acknowledge that conventional Web searches — just Googling it — won’t necessarily turn up the best research materials; search algorithms don’t always prominently highlight studies and reports that are seldom linked to or visited. There’s also the problem of increasing “personalization” of search results. For specialist reporters, many of the key subject-area databases may be well-known. But for more general assignment reporters, here is a short, representative list of open databases and scholarly search engines that are well worth bookmarking — and entering your key words into as part of the newsgathering process:...
David Ogilvy gives 10 tips on writing that are still relevant today in PR. [Hadn't seen these for years. Still great advice from a legend - JD]
You could argue that a writer has no business critiquing the work of one of his closest friends. Knowing the person behind the words influences the reading experience, making it impossible to approach the writing with fresh eyes. Yet proximity also offers advantages when it comes to thinking about craft. Knowing Joshua Davis, I can tell you that one of the keys to his success with stories like “The Untold Story of the World’s Biggest Diamond Heist” is that the man thinks in scenes. This isn’t necessarily a prerequisite for good narrative nonfiction; certain writers can sculpt compelling stories out of nothing more than their cognitive firepower. But more often than not, writing is enhanced by scenes: those sequences of action that, when enriched with the right detail, enable readers to do more than merely digest information about what took place. It lets them feel as if they’re there.
To pull this off with events you never witnessed, thorough back-reporting is a must. It’s the writer’s ticket to material about prior action and dialogue – to resurrecting the past on the page so that you’re sharing a yarn, not delivering a bunch of facts....
This July 4th post is a bit of fun for PR pros, craft bloggers, storytellers and any other writer who is a passionate word lover. A great way to enjoy a little downtime on this Independence Day or any other holiday. Two cautions. You may become infatuated and even addicted to this smack resource. And it’s not always office cromulant. I’m talking of course about the Urban Dictionary. With more than 45,000 words, it’s an indispensable tool and a wonderfully quirky source of inspiration though sometimes profane, arcane and inane. Perfect for whiling away a coffee break and impressing friends with your new, urban vocab....
Bullets are handy weapons in every writer's arsenal. They can help you order your thoughts and make your content easier on the eyes for readers. Try these five bullet point basics to make your content really pop.
Last week I penned and article for Ragan’s PR Daily titled “The 5 Mistakes Press Release Writers Make” and followed that up with a more detailed post here titled, “The 6 Mistakes That Can Sink Press Release Visibility.” I shared these on several PR discussion groups and solicited additional feedback from my fellow members, asking what other press release tips they would offer....
When you're building online visibility you really can't afford to be absent for too long. Just like a newspaper or magazine, business bloggers should try to stick with a schedule your readers can rely on. According to Technorati.com's State of the Blogosphere 2011 report, almost 1/3 of bloggers have worked for the traditional media. That statistic got me thinking about how business bloggers could benefit from a journalism mindset....
Didn't understand that headline? Don't worry--you're not alone. I had to have half those words on the list below explained to me by other people at different points. Which is a little ridiculous, isn't it? [@Arik Hanson - Dude, awsum pst - JD]
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In August, Washington Post Managing Editor Cameron Barr and his fellow senior editors decided to do something about a problem that had been niggling at them for some time:
Articles were becoming too long, often for no good reason.
"We were seeing too many pieces that were in the mid-range of their ambition and their success — coming in at 60, 70 inches of copy," Barr said. "We were seeing the same thing in a number of blogs, where pieces were just too long, and we felt as though editors were not applying the necessary discipline and rigor in how these pieces were being handled on the desk."
The solution? A newsroom-wide initiative to cut down on editorial flab, Barr said. Since the middle of August, he's asked Post's department heads to take responsibility for articles longer than 1,500 words online or 50 inches in print. Bylines, captions, headlines and subheadings don't count....
When you’re planning to write, but before you’re actually writing, you create an outline. Unfortunately, most outlines are worthless. You need a better outline: a fat outline.
Outlines are helpful for mapping out the structure of a long piece of writing — anything more than 1,000 words (a couple of pages). An outline ought to help the people you’re working with — your boss, your clients, your editor — to understand what you’re going to write. It should also force you, the writer, to think clearly about content.
The problem is, traditional outlines don’t do this very well.
"As a writer you should not judge. You should understand."Ernest Hemingway has contributed a great deal to the collected advice of great writers, from his famous admonition against the dangers of ego to his short and stellar Nobel Prize acceptance speech. But some of his finest wisdom springs to life in this excerpt from his 1967 nonfiction piece By-Line, found in the altogether excellent Hemingway on Writing (public library) — a compilation of the celebrated author’s most insightful meditations on the craft, culled from his published works and his private letters. ...
Attention! Here is an invaluable guide for creating content that gets noticed. So if you want to engage, enthral and entice, read on... Tom Barton, UK head of communications at IT business and consulting services company Capgemini, says a question he is asked nearly every day is “Can you help us produce great content?”. His number one rule is to think about your audience. “Picture a person reading your writing and ask yourself who they are and what they want to know. It is unlikely they are going to be too dissimilar to you, so try to make it personal. Making it great is making sure it is useful to your reader. And for it to be useful, it must be clear and provide something practical to take away, whether food for thought, or a tip which can be implemented easily. It should also be unique – don’t write something that’s too similar to content found easily elsewhere.” To make sure your content is king, follow this expert guide....
...So, let me explain. Pitch Engine and WordPress are best-of-breed application platforms that make creating a Social Media Release and Blog seamless, removing the technology hurdle from the process. Those are good things, to be sure. However, after re-reading my SMNR post, I was reminded that it wasn’t about technology at all, it was about the collecting and presenting of relevant assets, copy, images, and videos; it was about organizing and branding an ease-of-use “steal all this content, blogger, and please post on your blog” microsite. In fact, I made a point of showing how one doesn’t even need to spend all your time installing WordPress or some other database-backed website or web app — one can hack together a very valuable SMNR with just the most basic HTML, an inexpensive hosting plan, and a $12/year domain from a domain name registrar....
Think you know all about grammar & punctuation? Your grammar called and she thought it was time for a serious punctuation lesson. The PR Coach takes you on a journey to the twilight zone of punctuation for every PR writer, blogger and wordsmith. Think you know everything about grammar and punctuation? Not so fast Pilgrim. A little test to whet your appetite: - What is this character called: ‽ - What does the tilde ~ indicate? - How is the index/fist ☞ used? - What's the name of this character § ? Read on for 23 strange characters every writer should know but may never use ;-) ... ~ Jeff
Richard Rhodes, the Pulitzer-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, and of 23 other books, delivered one of the keynotes at this year’s Mayborn Conference for Literary Journalism. Here are five top takeaways from that address, followed by an edited transcript of his talk and a snippet from the Q-and-A session that followed.... [Inspiring read for writers, bloggers, PR and content marketing pros - JD]
Simple rules for becoming a better writer, from the author of “Zone One.”... Colson Whitehead says the art of writing can be reduced to a few simple rules. He shares 11 rules to help you be a better writer....
This week, a guest essay from my colleague Patrick LaForge on a perennial problem - leads (and other sentences) that tax readers' patience:... No one sets out to write an opening sentence so long that it frustrates and irritates readers. But that’s what we sometimes do. Writers are not always the culprits. Too often, editors are the ones overstuffing leads with background, context and tangential explanations. It’s a collective effort. We need to do better. ••• Two recent examples weighed in at 55 words each and actually prompted reader complaints...
The following characteristics are twenty signs you might be a word nerd. Fellow word nerds unite! ...I thought there must be some common threads for us word nerds—individuals who are extremely passionate about grammar and writing. As InkHouse’s resident grammarian, I enjoy perfectly punctuated prose not only because my sixth-grade English teacher stopped awarding me extra-credit points after finding too many “edits for credit,” but because written communication is the heart of PR. Here’s my map of the DNA of a word nerd. If you answer yes to at least three of these characteristics, welcome to the Word Nerd Club....
Search engines are starting to incorporate results from social media sites. Can the social-wide web trump the World Wide Web? I have two basic ways of finding answers to questions: asking friends or asking Google. That system has worked pretty well for about a decade, but it’s all about to change. Google recently announced it is going to make search results more personalized by including results from your social network. In 2009, Bing announced it would start including results from Twitter and later it added Facebook to the arsenal. More and more search engines are beginning to incorporate social properties into general search results, effectively making me ask friends and ask Google....
31 fluffy marketing buzzwords to avoid in your marketing communications. Let's be honest—marketers have quite the repetitive vocabulary, and we tend to get in the habit of using the same words obsessively around like-minded people. To the outside world, we could be repeating the phrase "meat-and-potatoes, meat-and-potatoes" over and over, and it wouldn't make a difference. So to optimize our communication's effectiveness, let's strategize more efficient messaging to change the perception around marketers' conversations and engagement.Whatever that means.... [ARGHHH - Off with their heads - JD]
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Great learning from these headline makeovers.