June 13th, 2009 — writing
Keep it Simple Stupid (KISS): the not-so-subtle way of reminding us to write in an uncomplicated, non-flowery style.
Great advice, for web writing in particular and most types of writing in general (maybe outside of journals).
But sometimes it can be the KISS of death. Case in point:
I was in the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo recently (as a Frank Lloyd Wright aficianado I sought a mausoleum designed by the master) when I saw the humble tombstone pictured.
The statement of action here (”died”), in my estimation, is presumed by the inclusion of said Mr. Taggert in a cemetery! But what is missing is the how, what, when, why and where of his story.
Keep it Simple, Stupid all fine and dandy IF there is enough detail to make the story compelling. In this case, I am left wanting.
The SEO Story Behind KISS
As a long-time journalist, my writing instincts go nuts here: EVERYTHING is a story - every life, every building, every process…
And as a SEO, I shudder at insufficient content: the cardinal rule of minimum 400 words (at a pinch, 250 but that should really only apply to a blog post) hasn’t changed as Google knows more is better re: delivering contextual searches.
If content is king (and it is), then the quantity of (appropriate, interesting) words is the royal scepter - consider them the jewels.
If only the relatives of William Taggert knew that. (OK, so I realize stonecutters probably charged by the letter, so family fortune might have been a factor in the deficit of wording.)
May 8th, 2009 — writing
[Full disclosure: I am a graduate of journalism school and a 20-year veteran of print journalism as a writer and editor.]
I attended a presentation by marketing speaker David Merman Scott in Florida last week and to my surprise (and delight) he urged the audience to all go out and hire a journalist for their online content needs.
It was an audience of real estate brokers/owners - top performers invited to the annual Chairman’s Circle held by CENTURY 21 Canada. (Full disclosure: I blog for CENTURY 21).
Who’s Writing the Content?!
These busy brokers - professionals trained in selling properties, working with mortgages, home inspectors and like - are NOT editors or writers. Naturally, they related to a business pain expressed by Meerman Scott not only in person, but in his blog WebInkNow:
“…how can we actually create all this content you’re talking about: e-books, white papers, blogs and the like? We have a small marketing department and very little budget.”
The comments left at this blog post were as interesting as the post. For example, David Leland wrote:
“
Digital Immigrants vs. Digital Natives
Obviously, as a seasoned journalist, I know the value of hiring someone with excellent writing skills - not only accurate and error-free but writing quickly and effectively in language exactly targeted to the readers.
BUT… what about those great, experienced journalists who are “digital immigrants” -i.e. they:
- Aren’t savvy to the styles of web writing (and how that differs from magazine or newspaper)
- Don’t know how to write with SEO to get the content found online and ranked high by Google
- Aren’t up to speed on using social media to disseminate their writing?
OK, so no problem, you think - I’ll go hire a “digital native” journalist…
Oops, now you’re facing a new set of limitations: Namely, a deficiency of proper grammar, sloppy English, spelling mistakes and a general depth of knowledge that they bring to the writing.
What to do?? As what I suggested to some of the brokers who asked my advice in Florida last week, consider hiring TWO people - part-time or contract should suffice for many businesses:
- Digital Immigrant but Seasoned Journalist: To write Case Studies, E-books, White Papers to go on your website. These are powerful ways to spread value-add content through the Internet/blogosphere. Invest in some basic web writing training for this hire so he/she can help write the company blog, too.
- Digital Native: To set up accounts at social media sites (YouTube, Flickr, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), to upload digital assets to these profiles and maintain them.) You likely have a Gen-Y employee who is a rabid fan and user of social media - tap into that passion, which might be lacking in your older employees.
Look Beyond Print Journalists
Experienced writers, reporters and editors of magazines and newspapers are a great bet for generating online content for your company… but don’t rule out other types of journalists.
Radio and TV journalists (not the talking heads who wear lots of makeup as anchors behind desks) are great at getting the right quote, fleshing out a story, digging for details, and pulling it altogether as a cohesive, compelling story.
(I’d stay away from new grads from J-schools and definitely away from self-taught writers!)
Anyway you slice it, hiring a professionally trained and experienced journalist makes great sense at a time when Content is Online and King.
April 14th, 2009 — writing
I really think I am going to scream the next time I hear “at the end of the day…” in another interview.
My country’s public broadcaster has always been my choice for radio listening as I have no patience for commercials and, generally, the quality of content is high.
BUT every time someone is quoted in a news story, or interviewed about ANY subject, inevitably the phrase, “at the end of the day” works its way in. And I am NOT exaggerating. I started tracking it, but got too depressed to continue.
This is not new; the overuse of this meaningless cliche has been going on in CBC Radio circles for years. I only didn’t mention it before because I didn’t want to be petty.
Now I want to be petty.
Don’t get me wrong; cliches worm their way into my life too, despite my snobbish outlook on language. (Words have been, like, my whole life.)
I read Leslie Savan’s book, “Slam Dunks and No-Brainers: Language in your Life, the Media, Business, Politics and, Like, Whatever” (OK, I couldn’t finish it, due to risk of choking.)
Nowhere in the book did I come across “at the end of the day.” That could be due to a cultural difference; I’ve heard that this cliche is uniquely British/Canadian. Lucky us.
What about other decent cliches that mean the same thing as “at the end of the day”?
How about saying: “When all is said and done”? Or, “The long and the short of it…”?
Some diversity in expression, pleeeease!!
Because, at the end of the day…. it’s evening.
April 1st, 2009 — design
I had a great meeting in Toronto last week with a cool design shop that builds high-end Flash websites. Modular white office in a derelict-come-trendy neighbourhood, eccentric business owners with fabulous design talent…
The owner had heard good things about my SEO business from a colleague and wanted to bring me in to chat about a potential partnership wherein my SEO and SMO (social media optimization) services would complement their Flash design offerings.
Fabulous idea re: SMO - given just how much rich media goes into one of their Flash sites: those high-quality, engaging videos really should be tagged, linked and placed strategically in video-sharing sites such as YouTube, Metacafe, Viddler, Vimeo and many others. Ditto re: their great photos optimized on Flickr, Facebook, PhotoBucket, etc.
BUT, for the SEO piece - what luck could I have working my keywords and writing strategies on Flash content?? (Google has long said that it can’t crawl videos, images or FLV files because they don’t have text content.)
Adobe Steps Up its SEO Game
Turns out, the world is changing quickly these days when it comes to Flash and its compatibility with SEO best practices!
Last week, Adobe launched its SEO Technology Center to finally address the incompatibility between their Flash technology and the ability to optimize those elements for search engines.
The Toronto Flash design company I visited says they’ve gone even further than Adobe; they sent me the white papers they’ve written about “SEO-Friendly Flash” and how they’ve gotten around the text-deficit problem.
Like Chocolate and Peanut Butter
It’s all fascinating stuff - but if you’re the average non-designer, non-techie person, what does it really mean?
It means you can have the very best user experience on your website AND have the search engines crawl your site and place you on Page 1!
Flash and SEO… they’re like chocolate and peanut butter…
March 2nd, 2009 — writing
I was making a sales call with a local retailer last week, when an entrepreneur walked in off the cold streets of Oakville, ON with flyers in hand. He waited patiently until my pitch was done, then handed both myself and my soon-to-be client some business cards and attractive, colored flyers.
I flinched. Both the flyer and the card had a spelling mistake IN HIS COMPANY NAME… ditto in his website domain name.
I felt really bad for this gentle, somewhat home renovator/carpenter out peddling his wares… not so much because he was driven in these harsh economic times to peddle door-to-door, but because his error was spelt: I-N-E-P-T.
To me, that is…
I am aware that spelling isn’t such a big deal to everyone, and by that, I mean Generation Y (the 20-somethings). I’ve employed many Gen Yers in the past few years for whom spelling is an option - and not even a very popular option at that.
MEMO TO GEN Y: A lot of business customers are my age (45) or older, and for us SPELLING MATTERS! So much so that we will make a knee-jerk negative judgment of a product or service if we see a spelling mistake. Maybe that doesn’t seem fair to you, but it is entirely true.
My generation, and my parents’, were raised by old-school grammarians - some of them even had the hard edge of a ruler come down on their knuckles for improper sentence structure and misspellings.
Yes, I know it’s the day and age of cellphone texting (”ur late 2day”) and Microsoft Spellcheck (which totally doesn’t catch everything and forget it if you’re Canadian or British, MS doesn’t care about that form of spelling).
Spelling matters - to me and others in positions of authority. And if it doesn’t matter to you… IT SHOULD.
(end of rant)
February 23rd, 2009 — social media
In the “olden days” - say, um, last year - I was teaching companies how to get their corporate site on Page 1 of Google search results using SEO techniques. (Two years ago it was plain ole text SEO; last year I started doing more local SEO, followed swiftly by Universal/Blended SEO and Video SEO).
But this year - the fairly brand-spanking new 2009 - I’m teaching companies how to get more than just their corporate site on Page 1. Afterall, why settle for just a single Page 1 sighting…?!
That’s right: now you can get your company featured on Page 1 via:
SMO: Phase II SEO (and more)
I take my SEO clients to the next logical step: SMO - Social Media Optimization. Share all your digital assets across the most popular social media sites - tagging them for the internal search function within each of those sites - and you”ve got a whole new way of folks finding out about you… make that a whole BUNCH of new ways!
Single placement on Page 1.. that’s like, sooo 2008 
February 14th, 2009 — life
My 13-year-old son came home from his bowling league this bright Valentine’s morning and dropped a ziplock baggie full of candy hearts on top of my Macbook on top of my chest as I lay on the couch.
I reached into the bag of colorful goodies - and what to my wondering eyes did appear…?
These three candy hearts. No, really.. that is their message!
Sigh, is this Valentine’s Day trying to tell me I should love more than, um, my job?!
February 12th, 2009 — public relations
Yesterday I was at an annual conference of one of my clients - a national company with decades of history with the Canadian consumer - and I was impressed by more than the 1,500 attendees and great speakers.
I loved what the president said to me: “We’re a small company - with a big brand.”
Now, this client is not a traditionally “small” business, given they have dozens of staff at head office alone. But benchmarking his company against other national organizations in his industry, he says his company weighs in on the light side re: resources.
Small company. Big brand.
What the president’s comment meant to me was the fact that search engine optimization and social media optimization are the great leveler for small business competing against global brands whose ad budgets are likely greater than all the revenues of a small business put together!
That’s precisely why this savvy CEO hired me to work on his company’s social media strategy, working hand-in-hand with his internet marketing team that has organic and paid search strategies already in place.
What a pleasure it is for me to work with leaders like this - who GET that size truly doesn’t matter online; that listening to your consumers, and having a honest dialogue back, is what matters.
And any company, of any size, can do that!
February 4th, 2009 — social media
After a few days’ labor, and a relatively painless delivery, we are proud to announce…
It’s a bouncing new social media business site!
PROsocialmedia.com - younger sibling to writingSEO - has undergone a transformative redesign that reflects the kind of dramatic growth we’re seeing in clients wanting social media services.
SEO still sells - how could such a rock-solid generator of page 1 Google results not? - but SMO (social media optimization) is sizzling right now.
Why?
- Social media is in the news big-time these days, what with my.barackobama.com and his participation in 16 social media platforms before and after the US election;
- Optimizing one’s digital assets across the various social-sharing sites is a great way to secure multiple page 1 Google search results!
So now, the line of logic is: Get Found. Get Read. Get Followed. Get Leads.
(That could be your business… Email for a free social media consultation.)
January 30th, 2009 — social media
Does Captain Cook look like he likes sauerkraut (or anything)?
Apparently, when famous British explorer James Cook wanted to combat scurvy on his ship, he tried to make his men eat sauerkraut. They hated the taste and refused.
In a flash of insight, he said only the officers could dine on it, the crew was forbidden from eating it….
The crew immediately requested it be put back on the menu!
OK, let’s say today the sauerkraut is social media - only now it’s the officers who don’t want to consume it. (That can often be the case with captains of industry, who tend to be older and more conservative.)
Nowadays, crew members (young navvies swabbing the corporate decks) are first to taste and enjoy social media. Indeed, they’re having it for breakfast, lunch and dinner!
Using the same reverse psychology as Captain Cook’s, if we make social media off-limits to the officers will they want it more?
How do we get them to take the first bite or, better yet, make a meal of it?
Social media consulting and optimization companies like mine are dealing with that challenge every day. Here are my tips - gleaned from experience in boardroom and “on deck”:
- Go slow: Officers aren’t always quick to jump into something because others shout, “C’mon in, the water’s fine!”
- Document it all: If you can prove, empirically, that the sauerkraut is nutritionally valuable, you have a much better chance of getting it down their throat. (OK, this analogy is starting to make me choke!) Hence the value of social media metrics.
- Address fears head-on: Anxiety and scepticism about the unfamiliar is standard human behavior so start the social media education process by dealing directly with the fears. (Reality is rarely as scary as we imagine!)
- Benefits galore: Highlight to management the objectives they’ll meet with social media: Increased brand awareness, “fan-sumers”, free online market research/focus groups, increased traffic leading to lead generation and sales!
Whether you’re crew or officer, let me know how the art of persuasion is coming along in your organization when it comes to social media.
(P.S. It worked: Because they ate the sauerkraut, not one of Cook’s crew died of scurvy!)
