First off, I would like to begin by taking a moment by entering godaddy and making sure all the preliminary steps and purchasing is ok.
Another busy week has caused me to fall behind in site development. This Blog is about the July 18, readings. So I will be on track with the syllabus. Worked with site the other night and resigned in frustration. The Sydney theme has some glitches that I do not like and cant seem to get around.
Plan to spend time this afternoon working on lower part of home-page. Home internet speeds really suck, and that builds the frustration.
This week’s readings were about headlines and SEO.
Headlines are a weak point of mine, since the editor of a local newspaper adlibbed my first few. I treat headlines as an afterthought, not as a guidepost. I printed off the NPR list.
SEO, search engine optimization, is only a concept, never really practiced. Burt Speakman touched upon Seo in both classes that he instructed. He showed the online journalism class how algorithms vary per machine.
The readings discussed how some editors hold the metrics as a value standard in journalism writing. I disagree. However, Metrics can be useful as a tool to see how you can improve.
Burt taught: cram as many keywords into your headline that you can. This will improve SEO. There are many facts learned through Burt’s Classes and the Vico class, but they don’t necessarily piece together. Hopefully we can find a way to make the random organized. A right triangle has a 90 deg. angle, but what are the other two. 45+45 – 60+30? Reality says they must add to 90, but what is the formula?
I looked ahead to try to get a jump in my progression and printed the 11 hacks article. I found it to be very logical and similar to the blog I wrote the other night. It pushes: a clean (tidy) design that should be easy to read, fortified with snappy pics, hyperlinks and video will keep a viewer on your page longer. However, it doesn’t stress hierarchy. (I have a question about swapping call to action with Our Story – About Us – Mission Statement.)
The next reading is long form. I will read it more deeply in the coming days, but I have the urge to create a story about my venture into this summers racing journalism. It can make a fine long form blog.
We should be ready to discuss these topics and what direction to take when we meet later this morning.
Thanks, MM — Oh, and placing pics and fitting text.
