Thursday, 15 September 2005

How to Blog for Higher Search Engine Ranking

Blogging, aside from being one of the easiest ways to publish online, is also one of the easiest ways to increase search engine rankings.

Search engine spiders like Google’s GoogleBot expect websites to change and be updated frequently. Blogs are (or should be), so the spiders come by more frequently. Once the spiders are at you’re weblog, they look for keywords in 4 places:

  1. Window title (in the window, above the address bar)
  2. URL (in the address bar)
  3. Article title
  4. In the article itself

WordPress, the weblog system I prefer, sets the window title and URL from the article title. Then, it’s just a matter of writing a title representative of the article and writing an article worth reading.

Listing your category archives and recent articles as links in the sidebar automatically increases the keyword count on the page – automatically increasing your google juice.

Wednesday, 17 August 2005

Business Podcast Sighting: Cisco

Had another conversation yesterday about how podcasting can help business communicate and connect both internally and externally. One thing coming out of these conversations – there’s probably audio or video somewhere in your organization that is collecting dust and could be more used and more useful in an RSS feed. Aside from the convenience, there’s an accessibility aspect to podcasting.

Steve Rubel at Micro Persuasion pointed to News@Cisco Podcast the podcast from Cisco’s PR team.

Sunday, 14 August 2005

The Second Difference Between Consumers and Customers

“There’s no time of day that would be good for me. I don’t plan my days around a radio or TV schedule because, quite frankly, I don’t need to. I have an iPod and I can listen to what I want, where I want and when I want. And given that there’s already more good programming than I have time for, anyone who doesn’t make it easy for me by providing an RSS feed with enclosures simply won’t make the cut. Even in my car, unless it’s just a trip to the grocery store, I no longer tune in a broadcast station.”Doug Kaye

Thursday, 4 August 2005

Take Control of Your Reputation – Blog

Though my blogging roots can be traced back October 2000 I started blogging regularly about a 18 months ago because I wanted my Google presence to be more than a handful of stale message board postings.

If there’s any single reason to blog, it’s to take control over your online reputation. This goes for businesses, professional organizations, and individuals. Search engines bias websites that change frequently and have keywords in the right places. Weblogs fit both those criteria.

I’ve written about how not having an RSS feed is like not having a business card. Consider this the prequel to that post.

Without frequent posts to a weblog, your reputation is at the mercy of others. Sometimes that’s good, sometimes bad, and sometimes both. With weblogs, you actually take control of the conversation – it’s your business, shouldn’t you be the one talking about it. GM’s blogs have proved a valuable tool in responding to criticism in the open. Just to prove my point, at the time of this writing, Gary Grates’ Clearing the Air post was #2 in Google for ‘gm blog’.

On a smaller scale and less positive note, my less than stellar experience at Punch Pizza ranks higher than I’m sure the proprietors would like. By default, because they don’t have anything to compete with it.

Peter Cooper (via Gaping Void) talks about how the transparency of blogs benefits the hiring process. Yes, seems to me, reviewing their weblog one of the most quickest, effective ways to determine if a candidate is a hiring fit. As Alan Gutierrez states in the comments at Peter’s site:

“Without a blog you’re forcing yourself to be a surf.” [sic]

Tuesday, 26 July 2005

How Wikis Work Best

Hugh Macleod released the HughPage, a wiki for bloggers, yesterday. As always he concisely captures the power of a wiki.


“The Hughpage wiki is up and at your disposal….Just blogged about something that doesn’t have a section? Then create a new section by yourself. No need to ask first. Exactly.”

Like describing the idea of wikis in general, he concludes:

“This is either a totally great idea or a totally insane idea. Maybe a bit of both…”

(Yes, Working Pathways is listed in the Blog and Podcast Consultant sections.)

I’ve worked with wikis for project documentation and team communication. Their power is in their organic growth and how they put the responsibility of accuracy on the reader. When I talk with others about wikis, one question always arises:

What if somebody writes something that’s not good?

At the heart of a wiki lies 2 equal responsibilities;

  1. The Author is responsible for writing accurate, useful, and interesting things.
  2. The Reader is responsible for changing things to make them better.

For the most part, these 2 responsiblities quickly make a very comprehensive knowledge base. If for whatever reason they fail, there’s always rolling back to a previous version of the page.

On a related note, over at MNteractive.com we’ve been playing with a wiki to create a Minnesota internet talent directory.

Friday, 15 July 2005

Notes from Wikis, Blogs, Podcasts, RSS, and More Talk

Great turnout at my MN-ASIS Brain Food Sampler talk earlier this week. We covered quite a bit of ground in 30 minutes, thanks to everyone attending for the great questions. Here are Ann Treacy‘s notes, published as her latest Byte of the Week email newsletter (Thanks again Ann):

“Last night I went to a great presentation by Garrick Van Buren to the Minnesota chapter of the American Society of Information Science and Technology. He was terrific! I am killing two birds today by writing up my notes and sharing them with you and ASIST. So today’s Byte is an annotated bibliography of many of the resources Garrick mentioned on wikis, blogs, RSS, and podcasts.”

  • Garrick’s web site – includes links to various blogs, wikis, and podcasts, including Garrick’s podcast, First Crack.
  • WordPress – software to help you create/maintain a blog. As their site says, they’re “free, yet priceless.”
  • Audacity – open source audio recording for creating a podcast.
  • Audio Hijack Pro – upgraded software for creating a podcast.
  • Audioblogger – easy tool for creating podcasts, much like blogger.com for blogs.
  • WikkaWiki – software to create a wiki (a wiki is akin to a shared blog).
  • NetNewsWire – an RSS reader – for info consumers.
  • Feedburner – Helps you generate and track an RSS feed that you have created – for info creators
  • MNspeak part blog, part wiki, part old fashioned web conference.
  • Trackback – this is the Wikipedia definition of Trackback, a concept that allows and tracks posts among blogs with a reduced chance for spam.
  • Technorati – a search engines for blogs (aka the blogosphere).
  • Google Patent – we mentioned this last night, this is my [Ann’s] favorite article on the topic.

Friday, 24 June 2005

Monday, 20 June 2005

How can Podcasting Help an Art Museum?

One of the exciting podcasting-related conversations I mentioned in an earlier post was with Brent Gustafson over at the Walker Art Center.

We grabbed a coffee at the newly renovated Loring Park Dunn Bros and discussed some podcast-related services the Walker Art Center could offer.

As expected, some interesting projects came out of our time together. Brent mentions one of them in a recent post at the Walker’s New Media Initiatives Blog:

“The other thing Garrick and I talked about was user tours. The idea is you could comment on an artwork after you hear about it when you dial Art on Call. It would save this as a voicemail, which automatically archives it to MP3, and we could pick the best comments to create user tours. This would allow people to choose multiple “versions” of the same tour. You could pick from the artists tour, the Teen remix, or the user tour of the same show, each having a different perspective on the work.”

To me, podcasting gets interesting after the part about it being an alternative to broadcast radio – where it starts to extend and enhance a business in a way radio can’t.

Saturday, 4 June 2005

Podcasting is Closer to Voicemail than Radio

Yesterday, I listened to the latest from the Podcast Brothers featuring an interview with Todd Storch. You’ve probably gleaned that I don’t see the viability of an ad subsidized podcast. As I’ve mentioned in the economics of podcasting, existing broadcasters have huge amounts of money sunk into transmitters, spectrum, studios, and talent. The easiest way to get a return on that investment is from advertisers. These sunk costs don’t exist in podcasting. So, there’s no financial pain for advertisers to heal.

For the sake of not having the advertiser conversation for a moment, let’s put down the radio metaphor.

If someone calls my phone and leaves a message – I get it automatically. When Dave Winer, Tim Elliot, Cayenne Chris, or Dave Slusher publish a new audio file, I get it automatically.

Phone messages are also very personal, relevant to a topic I’m concerned with, and vary both in frequency and duration. All characteristics of a good podcast. Voicemail also isn’t ad subsidized.

As Doc Searls famously asked in the BloggerCon Making Money session:

“What’s the business model of my telephone?”

Lawyers, accountants, coaches, and other professional consultants stake each paycheck on answering clients’ questions expertly and immediately. What’s the value of a voicemail from your accountant? Depends on the question.

How much would you pay for your accountant to leave a voicemail answering a question just before you ask it?

That’s how to make money podcasting.

In Podcasting is the New Voicemail, Ross Mayfield is thinking along the same lines:

“Soon it will be one of the simplest ways to communicate with groups.”

Friday, 27 May 2005

“Because of” Not “With” in Traditional Media Also?

Last night, I was chatting with a copywriter about some story ideas. She mentioned how tough it is to get a story in free ad-subsidized weekly newspapers. Even when you get the by-line, the monetary compensation isn’t all that. Over in the music industry, Steve Albini reminds us how record companies put artists in the hole while Thomas Hauser tears apart the “standard” book contract.

Makes me wonder if Doc Searls’ statement about money and weblogs is true for traditional media also:

“I believe it’s far more important (and interesting) to make money because of our blogs, rather than with them.”

For example, musicians don’t make money with a record, they make money on ticket sales and merchandise (because of a record).

If there’s only two nickels to be made, directly, whether self-publishing (weblogs) or via a publishing company (newspaper, recording, book) and all the money is in the “because of”. It seems to me the quest is finding the shortest way to “because of”.