You cannot get high ranking with meta tags.

What is the fascination with the Keyword Meta Tag? In November of 2008 I wrote a blog about Meta Tags. I figured by now, clients would have stopped asking for “Keywords” or “Meta Tags”, or at least for the reason’s that they do. I find that people ask me about meta tags solely for the purpose of ranking high on Google. For some reason, perhaps just lingering rumor, folks think that meta tags help rankings, this is not the case. Let me restate that, “You cannot get high ranking with meta tags”. The primary reason for this is that Google doesn’t care about it. Even Google told us that in September of 2009. Here is a video from Matt Cutts of Google, you can see the proof for yourself. Read the rest of this entry »

This is when many people would say, “Whew! We finally got all that posted. Glad that’s over with!” But they’d be wrong. This is only the beginning.

Now comes maintenance. This involves the same three steps as creating the original content (see Step IV illustration). The purpose is to maintain relevancy, reinforce your brand identity, and provide a means to attract new viewers (and customers) while providing a reason for current customers to come back frequently. Read the rest of this entry »

This step is where many projects become critically bogged down. Web developers are particularly susceptible to crippling delays at this stage as clients get stuck on details such as product specifications, third party endorsements or approvals, legal concerns, and any number of copy points that can cause content approval to drag on for weeks and even months. This is often referred to in marketing circles as “death by committee.” Read the rest of this entry »

Now it’s finally time to put pen to paper, keystroke to keyboard. If you’ve hired an outside writer, be sure that he or she understands any industry terms and usage they may encounter in the process. Does your company or organization have a standards manual or written communication guidelines to ensure that your new content aligns properly with the rest of your marketing communications tools? Read the rest of this entry »

Now that you’ve determined your Key Content Theme, you need to figure out how you’re going to create all that content:

• Who’s going to be writing the content?
• Where’s the information for it coming from?
  • “Tribal knowledge” – the collective wisdom and experience of individual employees that may exist only in their heads
  • Existing literature – in-house as well as public sources such as other websites & trade magazines
• Who’s going to gather and manage the information – the writer, the project manager, someone else? Read the rest of this entry »

This is where the heavy lifting begins. Before you even begin to write, you need to analyze several key factors that collectively form the addends of a simple equation, the sum of which is – you guessed it – the key theme that will anchor your content strategy:

Step 2 - Theme Development

Read the rest of this entry »

This is the process of determining what content already exists and its condition. Is it out-of-date, can it be refreshed, does it need to be rewritten, or is it easier to just junk it and start over?

Start by answering some basic questions.

To accurately assess existing resources, you’ll need to start by answering these basic questions: Read the rest of this entry »

Click here to read Content Strategy – Six Steps to Better Content: Introduction – Part 1

Understanding Content Strategy

To understand content strategy, you need to understand that creating good content is more than just putting words and pictures together. Good content involves: Read the rest of this entry »