Keywords: How to zag when your competitors zig

Instead of competing for the keywords that everyone in your market is using, Timothy Martell at Wikimotive says you should avoid the big head and discover keywords in the long tail:

The main benefit of long tail keywords is that they’re so specific. This means that even though you get less searches per term, the searches you DO get will be more targeted, and thus more readily convertible. Additionally, because these long tail keywords aren’t as commonly seen on analytics tools, they are generally less competitive for both organic and paid search marketing.

Click through to read a neat infographic that puts all this into perspective.

Are you ready to play by the new rules of search?

We just hit the two-year anniversary of Google's Panda update. Many sites are still trying to cover, and some owners are asking: Are we better off adapting our current site to the new reality of search, or shutting our site down and starting over?

 Eric Ward at Search Engine Lane answers: 

After two years of trying (and not succeeding) to get back to where you once were, does it make sense to shut down your site and start over? 

I know people are still asking this question because I’m being asked this question by many people who for years made fun of the content driven approach. Why go the the trouble and expense of being awesome when it’s easier to just fake awesome, especially since so many of the sites that rank high are awful? 

It would be nice if there was a standard test you could take where you answered a series of questions about your site, and at the end of the test you were given a simple Start Over/Don’t Start Over answer. 

But, the answer to that question begs another question: Are you going to do things differently with the new site than you did with the old site? 

If not, then it really doesn’t matter anyway.

Why is my daughter already kicking my ass on Twitter?

"What can you tell me about Twitter?"

This was my 25-year-old daughter asking me, her 55-year-old dad, for help with social media. It was an out-of-body experience.

Meredith is an artist with a BFA from Sam Houston State. She's now applying to graduate programs to pursue her MFA. Up until now, she's been all about Facebook. But it turns out that her peers in the fine arts prefer to communicate on Twitter. So she's decided to widen her online footprint to include tweeting.

So I told her about tweeting and following, retweets and hashtags. Gave her a 10-minute orientation.

Later that evening, she freaked out.

"Holy crap," she said. "I just got 143 retweets and 60 favorites for something I posted about two minutes ago."

Don't know about you, but I've never come close to a response like that from Twitter. I get excited if one of my posts gets retweeted twice in a day.

Today she's got 163 tweets and 74 favorites.

Here's is her tweet.

The switch from bandage to eyepatch takes The Governor from victim to warrior. Work it! #OwnIt #TheWalkingDead#DontBackDown

So there are some obvious things she did right.

• She used the #TheWalkingDead hashtag to tap into an ongoing conversation.
• She posted her tweet during the show, when the conversation was hottest.
• She offered a pithy, relevant and original thought that the Deadverse found to its liking.

I may have 2,100 followers, but my daughter is kicking my ass without really trying.

Infodeck: The only goal of your lead paragraph

Copy Makeover No. 2: Restaurants.com from Rusty Cawley

Here's a news release with a story that might actually attract attention from a TV crew or a feature writer or even a news photographer. But the C-Suites insisted on putting their fingerprints all over this one. Typically, they have buried the interesting parts of the story under a ton of useless corporate debris. Today, this poor abused release gets a makeover.

How to use a photo to get more clicks for your tweet

Jennifer Wong at Search Engine Watch says: 

A recent photo in a tweet vs. no photo in a tweet experiment revealed that a linked photo results in 120 percent increase in engagement and 350 percent increase in clicks for a tweet. 

Additional findings from the experiment include:

• Retweets, replies and favorites aren't affected by tweet with a photo link vs. a tweet without a photo link.
• Visits to a site from a tweet with a photo link vs. a tweet without a photo link are the same even though a tweet with a photo spends twice as many advertising dollars.
• Within the same tweet, a photo link gets as many clicks as a URL link.

Depending on the goal of your Twitter campaign, adding a photo to your tweet might add additional value in terms of engagement but it also might just add costs with no additional benefit if you’re trying to optimize for website visits

12 easy ways to create content for SlideShare

So why aren't more companies using SlideShare? It's easy. It's free. It's popular.

Roger C. Parker at the Content Marketing Institute has a theory:

In a way, content itself is the biggest obstacle keeping marketers from taking better advantage of SlideShare — that is, the obstacle of coming up with content ideas for SlideShare presentations. 

After all, once you decide on a concept and structure for a presentation, finishing the presentation usually moves forward quite nicely. The hard part is coming up with the initial idea. 

To help you get over that hurdle, here are 12 easy-to-create SlideShare ideas — enough for a year’s worth of monthly presentations. These ideas are followed by tips for putting them to work, and for leveraging your completed SlideShare presentations.

7 steps to creating your infographic -- including a tip for optimizing for search engines

If you are like me, you are fascinated by infographics. But you have no idea how to make one work.

They look simple. Until you try making one.

Here's a useful post from Rosalie Morton at The Buzz Bin at the Buzz Bin that offers a seven-step workflow for putting together an infographic. No. 6 answers a question I've had for a long time: How the heck do you optimize an infographic for search engines:

Infographics are perfect for generating inbound links. But, it’s your job as the infographic’s creator to optimize it properly. You can do this with a simple WordPress plug-in, Embed Code Generator. This plug-in creates an embed code for your infographic, ensuring that it’s easily shared and generating links back to your site.

The accidental journalists: Why Russian motorists were able to capture stunning video of the falling meteor

Thanks to the spread of cheap mobile communications tech, the accidental journalist is more common than ever. Take for example all that great video of a 10-ton meteor exploding over Russia last week.

A decade ago, we would more than likely just read about the event. Today, we can see it happen on YouTube, thanks to the dash-cams that about 1 million Russians use in their vehicles.

Mashable explains:

According to a report last year by Al Jazeera, an estimated one million Russian motorists have dashboard video cameras installed in their cars. This is not to capture moments like the meteor flight or even miraculous survivals of horrifying highway crashes. No, Al Jazeera reported that the cams are there to help stamp out police corruption. 

New York Blogger Marina Galperina, who originally hails from Russia, wrote a fascinating piece last year about Russia's dash cam culture. Galperina called the cams "Russia's last hope for civility and survival on the road." The country's roads are "perilous" and, she wrote, "psychopaths are abundant." However Galperina also points to police and government corruption as a driving force behind the Russian dash cam explosion.

Infodeck: How to turn bad writing into easy-to-read copy

Copy Makeover No. 1 (SuperTel Hospitality) from Rusty Cawley

This is the first is a series of infodecks where we will look at how to apply the techniques of readability to turn poorly written copy into easy-to-read prose. Today, I pick on a news release from SuperTel Hospitality.

4 ways you can make your content evergreen

Miranda Miller at TopRank blog says:

1. Remove any timely elements from your post. There is a time to refer to a recent study, share news, or tie your post to a trending topic, but this isn’t it; this can quickly make it appear outdated.
2. Invest time in making it awesome. If you really want a piece of content to be a source you’ll refer your readers back to for the foreseeable future, don’t do it halfway.
3. Incorporate multimedia elements like photos from Flickr, SlideShare presentations or videos embedded from YouTube. Images and video can be helpful in explaining concepts and add visual interest. Plus, each is searchable in its own right and when linked, can lead visitors from those properties to the helpful resources on your blog.
4. Optimize each piece for search engine discovery and social sharing. This is best practice for any type of content, but especially important to keep it living after the initial buzz of a newly published piece dies down.

Are you stuck on finding a new idea for content? Steal one

Lauren McCreat at Ignite Social Media offers 17 ways to come up with new content ideas. Her ideas share a similar theme: Look outside.

It's tempting to try to come up with every idea yourself or with your staff. Problem is: After awhile, even the most creative folks get tapped out.

We all need inspiration. We all need grist for the mill.

Some of the best ideas are to be found by talking to customers, or taking a poll, or checking the comments on your blog, or going to a conference.

As one former boss used to tell me when I got stuck, "The best ideas are stolen ideas."

So look around. If you see something you like, take it. Adapt it to your needs. Make it your own.

Andy Warhol did it. David Bowie did it. Certainly Steve Jobs did it.

So can you.

How you can use blog comments to improve your rankings on search engines

Guest writer Jonathan Solis at ProBlogger offers these five tips:

1. Provide a call to action: Ask a question. Invite your readers to comment on your post.
2. Reply to all comments on time: Give a prompt response.
3. Know your target keywords before writing your comment: Do your research.
4. Use complete sentences in your comments: This gives you more opportunity to use your keywords again. It also keeps the search engines from seeing your responses as spam.
5. Reply to comments with another question: Keep the conversation going.

The science of storytelling: How a well-told story can influence behavior by changing the brain's chemistry

Paul Zak is a professor of economics at the University of Pennsylvania, where he organized the first doctoral program in neuroeconomics, a new field that integrates neuroscience with economics.

Using a series of experiments than include brain scans and blood testing, he makes the case in this video for constructing stories along a specific arc:

1. Exposition
2. Rising action
3. Climax
4. Falling action
5. Denoument

This is the structure that gives a story the power to influence behavior.

How to hook your reader in the first two paragraphs

Patsi Krakoff at the Blog Squad explains how she structures her content for maximum impact: 

First paragraph focuses on the problem using keywords important to my readers. 

Second paragraph either expands on the problem, or diverges off into a small story or personal anecdote. By the time I get to a third paragraph, I’ve often sparked a memory or an idea that could be useful to my clients. Then I make a list of solutions or suggestions. 

Then the last paragraph is a call to some sort of action. I may ask readers a question or suggest a ‘next step.’ This may include a link to contact me or call me or download a special report.

Two ways to create content that is remarkable and shareable

Brittany Klontz at Blue Glass says:

The endless entertainment options presented by the Internet create a need for content marketing initiatives to be out-of-the-ordinary, thoughtful, and most importantly, useful. Excuse me for being blunt, but it’s time to chuck the brand guidelines out the window and start focusing on other ways to build your brand through content marketing.

In this post, she offers and expounds upon two tips:

1. Present something out of the ordinary.
2. Be a resource.

Who won the newsjacking competition during the Super Bowl blackout? And how did they do it?

David Meerman Scott says the winner is ... Oreo cookies, which posted this photo on Twitter during the 30-minute blackout:

Scott blogs:

This newsjack from Oreo succeeds because it was fast, its witty and fun, its non-controversial, and it ties back to the brand and its messages. 

Newsjacking gets attention. Oreo spent many millions of dollars running television ads during the Super Bowl. But on a cost per view basis, newsjacking generated a much, much bigger ROI.

So how did Oreo respond to the opportunity so fast and so well? They were prepared for it.

Angela Watercutter at Wired explains:

Turns out they had a 15-person social media team at the ready to respond to whatever happened online in response to the Super Bowl — whether it was a mind-blowing play or half the lights shutting off. So not only did they have a regular commercial run during the first quarter, they also had copywriters, a strategist, and artists ready to react to any situation in 10 minutes or less. 

The best way to start a sentence

Great advice from Ben Yagoda, author of How to Not Write Bad:

Don’t start a sentence with an idea, a quality, an inanimate object. “Anticipation” is not a good subject. It paints you into a corner. 

Start with the person or the people doing the action.

Infographic: How to choose between text, photos or video for your content

In the days before social media and the smartphone rewrote the rules, the dominant life forms in mass media were writers, photographers and videographers.  They were specialists serving an editor who would mix and match the media as needed to best serve the story.

But in the online world … all media merge. 

Content journalists can’t afford to specialize in just text, photos or video. We must have a working knowledge of all three media

So the question becomes: What to use and when to use it?

Text – Words remain the fundamental building blocks of the online world. Search engines look for them. People use them to fuel Twitter, Facebook and any number of blogging platforms. “Text” is now a verb.  Words remain the fastest and cheapest forms of communication to produce.  Sentences can do two things. They can describe things. They can describe actions.  When you need to persuade, to explain in detail, or to tell a story, text remains your best option. 

Photo – Sometimes words are insufficient. You need to illustrate your message. You need to show instead of tell. Photos work well when you need a quick way to communicate things like shape, texture, color or environment. Good news: Becoming a competent photographer is easier, faster and cheaper than ever. If you own a smartphone, you have a professional camera. Download something like the KitCam app, and start shooting. If you get serious about photos, go to the Digital Photography School and learn more.

Video – Sometimes you need motion. You want to demonstrate a series of steps. You want to put a product into action. Video can do both. It also gives you the option of adding audio, either as a narration to provide extra personality to your content, or as ambient sound to enhance the sense of “being there.” Good news: It is also faster, easier and cheaper than ever to become a competent videographer. To learn more, check out the New York Video School's online lessons. (Amazingly cheap!)

To sum things up:

• When you want to explain, use text.
• When you want to illustrate, use photos.
• When you want to demonstrate, use video.

How to write for readers

Anyone who can converse in English can learn to write clearly.  I’m convinced of it. Not everyone can write like Hemingway. But just about anyone can learn to write to the level of an above average newspaper reporter.

It’s a matter of discipline. If you follow a handful of principles, many of them set down by the readability expert Robert Gunning, you can master the craft of writing clearly:

1. Write to express, not to impress. If you follow this principle, the others fall into line. Get past the idea that there is an “educated” style of writing.  Communicate ideas as quickly and easily as possible.
2. Keep your sentences short. This is a general rule. On average, you should compose sentences that can be read aloud in a single breath. But it's also a good practice to vary the length of your sentences to improve their flow and to avoid choppiness.
3. Choose the simple; avoid the complex.  If you expect readers to wade through a tangle of needless adjectives, adverbs and clauses to discover your point, then prepare for disappointment.  Keep your sentences lean.
4. Stick with familiar words. There are only a few thousand words we use in everyday conversation. Work with them.  Words with more than two syllables slow down the reader. Grease the wheels. Stay with one or two syllables whenever you can. Use polysyllable words as your change of pace.
5. Use precise nouns. If you find the need to use an adjective, think again. There’s probably a noun that will allow you to avoid the modifier.
6. Use active verbs. Any sentence can perform two tasks. It can describe a thing or it can describe an action. The best sentences do both. Do your best to work around sentences that use verbs like “is,” “are,” and other variations of “to be.” Such sentences lack verve.
7. Use the active voice. All sentences that are written in the passive voice should be recast.  The active voice brings power to a sentence. The passive voice drains a sentence of its momentum.
8. Prefer the concrete to the abstract.  If you wouldn’t use a word or a phrase in everyday conversation, then find another one.  Scientists, engineers and economics speak in abstractions. We’re not writing for them. Everyday people talk in concrete terms. You will get further writing for them.
9. Understand your readers. Study their wants and needs. Learn to speak their language. Relate your ideas to their experiences.
10. Write with a human voice. Avoid the legalese. Distain the corporate drone. Craft sentences that sound as if they come from a friend.

3 reasons for every brand journalist to love the inverted pyramid

For generations, newspaper reporters have depended on the inverted pyramid when they need to crank out a story on deadline.

The form has taken a beating in recent decades. The critics say it’s outdated.  They are wrong.

Think about it. Today's news cycle is both 24/7 and instantaneous, even for brand journalists.  Plus, more and more readers are choosing the smartphone as their main news medium.

We often have to write fast. We have to fit our stories onto smaller screens. Thus, the virtues of the inverted pyramid are clear. It is:

Easy to write

Unlike the story or the essay, the inverted pyramid is not designed to flow logically from premise to conclusion.

Instead, the inverted pyramid starts with a lead that answers the 5Ws and the H: who, what, when, where, why and how. After you’ve nailed the lead, you simply arrange the remaining paragraphs in the order of their importance.

This is child’s play with Microsoft Word. Just write the paragraphs in any order than occurs to you,  and then rearrange them into order by cutting and pasting.

There is a reason this is the first form a rookie newspaper reporter learns to execute.

Easy to edit 

The inverted pyramid is as easy to edit as it is to write. The editor really has only a few decisions to make. First, does the lead work? Second are the paragraphs in the right order?

Any rewriting takes very little time, even if you kick it back to the writer.

Easy to read

Readers are trained to read the inverted pyramid. They understand the rules and aren’t expecting a brilliant essay or a riveting story.  They just want the facts.

The inverted pyramid is designed to deliver information quickly and cleanly.  The reader can quit the story at any time and still get the gist.

Best time to use 

• When you need to write fast, particularly on deadline.
• When you are reporting hard news.
• When you are starting out as a content journalist.
• Anytime you are in doubt about which format to use.
• If you have a small staff with a large workload.