Monday, January 31, 2011

How to designate a "best answer" on LinkedIn

"How do you pick a best answer on LinkedIn?"  the man asked me.

I'd answered his LinkedIn question.  He wrote to tell me how he'd decided to use the information that answerers like me had given him.  I reminded him that people liked the "best answer" badges, and that somebody would appreciate it if he chose their answer as "best."  So he wanted to know how to do that.

And, you know, I couldn't find anything in the help guides about it.

This morning I've closed my very first LinkedIn question.  I can tell you authoritatively how to designate the best answer to your question.

  • Go to My Q&A.
  • Select the question.
  • Click "close question."  When you do that, LinkedIn will ask:

  • Close Question: Select Good Answers
  • Select all of the answers that are “good.” If you choose just one, that answer will also be marked “best.”
If one of the responses is clearly outstanding, mark it as the "best."  That person will get an "expert" badge on her or his profile. 
 
If you have useful information from several people, mark each of those answers as "good." They don't get badges, but they do know how much you appreciated their contributions. 
 
When you choose several good answers and click "close question" LinkedIn will ask again


  • Below are the answers you marked as “good.” Please select one as the best answer.


 Go ahead, I say.  Choose a best answer.  Make someone's day.
 
 

 

 


 

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Site Templates Are Your Friends

When you start your first website, you probably don't need a lot of fancy features.  You need to get comfortable putting your message on the interwebs--you can always change it up later.

Templates are your friends.  They give you a variety of looks for your site--maybe not as much variety as you want, but still.  If you decide it's really not you, press a button and it's gone.

If you have a blog, you already know how templates work.  Was I surprised that setting up a "real" website is just as easy.

So find a template you like and concentrate on the more important issues: what you want to say, and your domain name.  I'm happy to help you with both, of course.  But I want you to learn how to update your site yourself, so that you can keep it fresh and keep readers (both human and search engines) coming back for more.

FYI, I created my own website, KatharineHadow.com, using a template. :)

Friday, January 28, 2011

Stress One Now

To continue on the topic of automated answering systems, you may enjoy the chapter "Stress One Now" from Whoopi Goldberg's 2010 book Is It Just Me? Or Is It Nuts Out There?

If you are a current customer, say 'yes.'"
"No."
"So, to confirm, you are a current customer, correct? If so, say yes."
"No."
"Good. I'll connect you to current customer relations. Your wait time is approximately...horty-hoo inutes."
(I find that yelling "Operator...assistance...human being." into the phone connects me to the right department about 15% of the time.)

Goldberg's other chapters include "Louder, They Can't Hear You in the Lobby," and "Road Rude."  She says some unkind things about bloggers, but I'll overlook them, since I agree with her on many points.

I'm a little surprised that even though she's a famous star Goldberg knows about office nuisances like people leaving science projects in the fridge, and not refilling the photocopy paper.  I assume she has assistants to research things like that.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Price

The next big decision our cookbook committee faces is the price.

This book is a fundraiser, after all. It doesn’t serve the organization to think small. And let’s not forget that cookbooks are the second-best selling book genre after mysteries. (Have you noticed how many mysteries feature recipes at the end? Coincidence? I think not.)

Some people are timid about the price, recalling another cookbook 30 years ago. “We had trouble getting rid of all the copies.” 

That’s backward. The question should be “What was the return on investment?” Before they scrapped the remainders, how much money did the book make? 

Here’s why this project is different:

  •  It’s not your ordinary community cookbook. The cookbook has delicious recipes like sachertorte. It also offers offbeat ones like “goo on rice,” inspiring witty prose, if I do say so myself.
  • Many people don’t read cookbooks for the recipes, but for the text that sets the recipes in the local culture. We have a lot of that, as well as pictures, not of the food, but of the community.
  • The text doesn’t center around the church, but around the community, Summit, NJ, which should trigger wider demand.
  • Yeah, yeah, we should be asking what recent local cookbooks sell for, but I don't think you can compare a collection of recipes to our value-added production.  Honestly, if Tabasco still offered its community cookbook award, we'd enter this book, after making sure we had quite a few recipes with Tabasco in them.
  • Besides me, the committee has experienced marketers with retail experience. We know how to push and pull, but do we know how to price? We’ll find out soon enough. Advance orders will be available next month, after our pricing meeting.

 

Friday, January 21, 2011

Balzac's Ghost

On the web, constant revisions are good. In print, they’re not.

French novelist Honoré de Balzac exasperated his editors by constantly updating his books, even when the type was already set. The printer charged him for each new set of proofs, so Balzac indebted himself thanks to his constant revisions.

When all type is composed on the computer, the deadline seems fluid. I’m working on a cookbook with a terrific committee. We made such a concerted push for recipes that now, months later, people ask if they can still submit their favorites. It seems like no big deal, right? Nothing’s gone to the printer yet. Just toss a few more words into the file, like salting a soup before serving.

In fact, it’ll still take time to organize the recipes and weave them into a coherent book. At some point we can’t accept any more contributions.

I’m starting to feel like Balzac’s editor, one with 21st century tools. I told the committee that if anyone else offered them a recipe they could call me on their cell phones. I’d shriek and gibber loudly enough that the would-be donor would put down the recipe and back away slowly.

By all means, update your online content as often as possible. For print, though, you have to be able to say, “This is as good as it’s going to get,” and mean it, or it’ll never get into print.

This cookbook, and the recipes, will be pretty darn good. Advance orders are available starting next month.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Of course I read your source code

 
Of course I read your source code--you leave it visible.
 
The question is, why don’t you? If you’re taking the time to update the content, update your meta-information, too. As long as you’re already in the source code, add a few keywords. If you want to do a great job it can take longer, but a decent job takes two minutes a page. Just pick relevant search terms that match the text on the page. Even doing it by guess and by golly is better than

  • leaving the meta-information blank
  • using unrelated keywords
  • or using the same ones on every page
The search engines don’t weigh the tags as highly as they used to, but they’re still important, and they cost next to nothing. Relevant tags stop gawkers like me from opening up your source code and asking, “What were they thinking? Were they thinking?”

More on organic SEO.

 

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

This blog ain’t big enough for the both of us


POSTED: No huntin', fishin' or hackin'

This here’s my domain. Get yer own blog. Don’t hack mine so you can insert videos into my innocent posts.

I changed my password. I deleted yer videos. A course I didn’t watch ‘em.

If you ever come back I’m roundin’ up a posse.

Sunday, January 16, 2011

A little hint about designing your corporate logo

Blue ink dries the slowest.  That doesn't matter when your presence is all online.  One day, though, when your organization needs letterhead and business cards, you may learn to your dismay that you need to wait longer just to let the ink dry.

Maybe you're super-organized and never need a rush print job.  But if you're not, think twice about using a lot of blue in your collateral.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Congressional Reform Act, Part II

More readers than I expected have visited this blog looking for information about the Congressional Reform Act.


So that I can at least give them more information than I did last week, I’ve done a little research about the “act” email circulating the country. Here’s what I’ve found.

Richard Greener at the Huffington Post thinks that the people passing around the email are dolts who’ve forgotten their civics lessons. I certainly fit in that category.

Nonetheless, here are some more facts and my responses to what Greener writes.  The quotes from the "act" are in italics.

1. Term Limits.
12 years only, one of the possible options below. (it specifies the limits)

“Nobody "owns" a seat in Congress,” Greener writes. He disingenuously claims that the responsibility for limiting the number of terms rests on the voters.

Well, yes and no. The longer a representative remains in place, the more seniority and, hence, power, he or she accumulates. Our current election system is like a Prisoner’s Dilemma. Everybody wishes there were fresh blood in our House of Representatives and Senate—just not in their own districts. So they wish everybody else would throw theirs out of office, while they continue to re-elect their own. Even when their own are corrupt, like Charlie Rangel.

No one can deny that the longer a politician is in office, the easier it is to abuse the system. Just look at Tom DeLay’s gerrymandering in Texas. Mandatory term limits might not eliminate, but they would stem this kind of abuse.

2. No Tenure / No Pension.
A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.

Greener writes, “The "reformers" appear to believe that Congressional pensions are both free and instantly available to anyone who's ever served.”

Greener attacks a straw man here. This article at congress.org explains that they may not receive full pensions, but that many congressional reps are eligible for at least partial pensions--including those reps convicted of felonies before 2007.

3. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security. All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people.

“Make Congress pay into Social Security,” Greener paraphrases. “Well, what is there to say about people who are that ignorant? 26 years. A generation! That's how long it's been, since 1984, that members of Congress have been paying their Social Security tax just like the rest of us.”

Perhaps he had a different version of the “act” than I have. My version above doesn’t deny that Congress participates in Social Security. I think the operative part of the statement is that the retirement funds in (2) above be folded into and administered by Social Security. Which, in my opinion, will never happen because we all know that Social Security will go bankrupt the year I’m scheduled to retire.

4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

Greener writes, “Make Congress pay for their retirement plan. Please see above for the answer.” I respond, “Please see above for answer.” And I add that many former politicians seem to make plenty of money from speaking and consulting engagements. See #8 below.

5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

“Congress has NEVER been able to raise its own pay,” responds Greener. "All pay increases voted by Congress must be for future Congresses, not for those currently serving.” True, but, given #1 above, enough politicians can count on re-election that even if they don’t receive the raise in that term, they expect to succeed and receive it in the next.

6. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

Greener writes “Where did the idea come from that members of Congress get free medical care?”

Hmmm, maybe from stories like this on ABC News http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/OnCall/congress-health-care-clinic/story?id=8706655

When I was without health insurance I couldn’t just saunter in to a clinic and receive high-quality medical care. How can anyone who pays $503 a year for comprehensive medical care understand how uninsured people have to deliberate every medical decision?

Some of those congresspeople didn’t pay at all, but they still received care. Schweet.

7. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

Greener’s response: “It doesn't take very long to find out that the only laws Congress is exempt from are those that pose a constitutional dilemma if Congress were subject to the terms of those laws. We do have (remember?) something called separation of powers.”

I confess that I don’t understand this one. I’d like to come back to it in a separate post after I’ve given it due thought.

8. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/11.

This may be semantic, but “Congress should void all contracts made with former members,” as Greener puts it, just doesn’t mean the same thing. He continues, “In a list of strange demands, this one takes the proverbial cake. These "reformers" fancy themselves as defenders of the Constitution. But they apparently have never read Article I Section 10, which forbids the interference in any contract. That includes a contract with a former Congressperson or any contract at all with anyone. Contracts are constitutionally protected. Who knew?”

(Now I’m confused, because when I looked up Article I Section 10, it was about powers states were not allowed to assume. States can’t impose customs duties, for example, or declare war. Nothing about congressional contracts. I assume Greener’s fingers slipped and his editors forgot to double-check. Could happen to anyone.)

I think Greener reads the letter but not the spirit of the email circling the country. Nobody believes that they could wave a magic wand and dissolve all contracts with congresspeople (in their connections as congresspeople) as of a certain date. But they wish they could make it impossible for representatives to sign contracts while in office that offer benefits while out of office, or vice versa.

It’s easy to point out all the holes in someone else’s document. Writing this, for example, was very satisfactory. (Don’t take it personally, Mr. Greener. Your strong search results led me to conclude that that a lot of other people had already read and considered what you wrote, and perhaps dismissed the "act." Since yours was popular, it seemed like a worthy essay to contest.)

It’s harder to listen seriously to people who feel disenfranchised, to help them articulate their thoughts and then to make a plan of action that would benefit them and their communities. And that’s what we need to do.

Happy Birthday, Wikipedia


Today Wikipedia celebrates 10 years online. Let's wish Wikipedia and all its editors a happy anniversary.

One of the most interesting things I learned in the media coverage building up to the event was about who Wikipedia's editors are. An NPR story about Wikipedia and its founder Jimmy Wales described the demographics of Wikipedia's editors.

"The average age is around 26," Wales says. "We're about 85 percent male, which is something we'd like to change in the future. We think that's because of our tech-geek roots."

Learn more about Wikipedia 10th anniversary celebrations around the world--there's probably one near you--at http://ten.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Friday, January 14, 2011

Another reason to respect copyrights

I sing, both in choirs and as a soloist. The sheet music salespeople are well primed to explain copyright issues to choirmasters. Choirmasters in turn explain to choirs that if the choirs are discovered to be singing off unauthorized photocopied music, the choir is liable for thousands of dollars in fines.

People who sell large quantities of text have face-to-face contact with their buyers (choirmasters and academics come to mind). During those visits, they can to explain and threaten (maybe over a nice lunch). Amazon’s and Barnes & Noble’s relationship to their buyers is far more distant; it’s harder for them to stress the copyright issue to us.

Choirmasters and academics are probably more likely to want to cooperate with publishers for another reason: both want to publish before they perish. If they succeed in publishing one day, they don’t want to think that they may lose royalties because somebody thought it was cheaper and easier to use the photocopier than to order new copies.

Handel and Haydn should be in the public domain, right? Maybe. But publishers are businesses. They need reasonably profitable backlists in order to take chances on new composers. One of my favorite choirmasters published a few choral works. I think I’d have heard if they were runaway successes. Probably not. But what a thrill it was for him and for those who knew him to see his success, which was only possible because the publisher was making money from better-established works.

So, yeah, people may wish that sheet music were cheaper, but they don’t begrudge publishers their profits. If Hal Leonard moves into the Fortune 5000, though, let me know. I may change my tune.

An interesting note about musical copyrights: One of the first copyrights in England belonged to composers Thomas Tallis and William Byrd. In 1575, Queen Elizabeth granted them a patent to print and publish music, a decent monopoly, I’d say.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Three reasons why PR cares about copyright



Your PR department is probably the department most concerned about copyrights (outside the legal department, of course).

Here are three reasons.

Many PR people come from professional journalism backgrounds.  They’ve published or broadcast their thoughts and research.  They don’t want to see someone else casually benefiting from the fruits of their labors.

Even PR people without publishing or media experience are writers.  Humble and anonymous though the press release be, a PR person actually does write each one.  

Professional journalists and flacks, we all hope to produce a sentence, poem, paragraph, essay or book that lives on after us.  And when we do, we want our names on it, not the name of the person who hits the “copy” button or control-C.

Most pragmatically, PR people need positive relationships with media people.  Media people count on royalties or higher payments based on how many people read or see their work. 

What if I were a journalist and I discovered that the website of a company that was wooing me contained reproductions of my copyrighted work?  I’d be indignant.  I probably wouldn’t give that company good coverage. 

Unauthorized reproductions happen all the time.  A well-meaning and unsophisticated person scans a magazine article and puts the PDF up on the website.  Or the person exceeds the “Fair Use” doctrine and plagiarizes.  This happens in print, too, but it’s harder to spot.

If I were a journalist, I’d know that the job of the PR person at that organization was to cozy up to me.  I’d expect her or him to defend my copyright on my behalf, to stay on my good side.

Sometimes, as the PR person, I’ve noticed shocking plagiarism.  One example is a news site in a developing country reproducing entire articles without attribution.   I’ve pointed those violations out to the reporters whose words were stolen.  I didn’t do it to be righteous.  I did it because I wanted to strengthen the bond between the reporter and me.

As a PR pro, then, I occasionally make myself unpopular pointing out that, no, we can’t just reproduce copyrighted material.  I do it because it’s important in media relations.  But I also do it because I hope, one day, to write some immortal words.  And when I do, I don’t want Jim Bob’s Blog ‘n’ Bait Shop to take credit for them.

Monday, January 10, 2011

SEO Cheat Sheet


Search Engine Optimization for Dummies

When I first decided that I wanted as many people as possible to read my words online, I turned to a brand I trusted: the For Dummies books.  Search Engine Optimization for Dummies is such a great book that the person I lent it to still hasn’t returned it.

Now I see that the For Dummies people have a cheat sheet online to help beginners start to plug their websites:


It's the stuff you absolutely must know about how to promote your blog or website.  Cheers!

Sunday, January 9, 2011

Congressional Reform Act of 2011

1/15/2011 Thanks for visiting!  So many people have checked this page that I thought you'd like to know that I expanded on it today.  The new post is here. KH

My mother just forwarded me this email:
The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months & 8 days to be ratified!  Why?  Simple!  The people demanded it.  That was in 1971...before computers, before e-mail, before cell phones, etc.

Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or less to become the law of the land...all because of public pressure.

Congressional Reform Act of 2011

1. Term Limits.
  12 years only, one of the possible options below..
  A. Two Six-year Senate terms
  B. Six Two-year House terms
  C. One Six-year Senate term and three Two-Year House terms

2.  No Tenure / No Pension.
A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.

3.  Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security.  All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately.  All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people.

4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.  Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

6. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

7. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

8. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/11.  The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen.  Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves.

Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career.  The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.

Actually, only some of the Founding Fathers, such as James Madison, envisioned a citizen legislature.  Federalists such Alexander Hamilton and George Washington favored professional legislation.  Learn more about this by reading the chapter on Shays Rebellion in 10 Days that Unexpectedly Changed America.    I have to add this because I believe that eisegetic reading of important documents, such as the US constitution and religious literature, foments discord and is ultimately dangerous.

Nonetheless, I agree that our elected representatives isolate themselves from the rest of US citizens by swaddling themselves in lifelong privilege.  They'd care a whole lot more about the state of US health care and about our entitlement programs if they knew they had to share in them.

Everyone who participates in our government (even by voting or abstaining from voting) should care a lot more about who's governing and why.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Copying Copy


The point of a blog is to update it frequently, with interesting content that invites readers to stick around, leave a comment, and return to read more.

I don’t have that much to say.  If I had, I’d write a book.  The truth is, my noteworthy insights are rare.

Most of what you find here is what the legacy media would call evergreens, articles that you can hold in a drawer (or on a thumb drive) and run any time.  Many professionals already know what I tell you about the basics of SEO, for example.  It’s true--it’s just not really news.

Then why do people from all around the world read this blog? They can easily find information about SEO or public speaking on better-known, easier-to-find websites. 

Could it be the very obscurity that draws them here?  Search engines look constantly for fresh content, as we’ve said.  So everybody wants new words on their websites.

At the same time, search engines penalize duplicate content.  If they find the same text on multiple websites, the search engines figure that somebody’s trying to game the system.

So what’s a site owner to do?
a)      Write fresh material every day.  It doesn’t have to be newsworthy.  It just has to be new
b)      Find fresh material, um, somewhere else and copy paste it
c)      Find fresh material, um, somewhere else, and mash it through article rewriting software to change the nouns and the verbs

A relatively obscure blog like this one is a good place to find words to copy, because other people are unlikely to find it and copy it.  
I'm not really worried about duplicate content yet.  I am worried about looking ridiculous.  Spammers have run my press releases through rewriting software before.  The results would have been hilarious--if my name hadn’t been on them. 

If this blog is your, “um, somewhere else,” and you’re here to borrow copy, I can’t really stop you.  All I ask is that you
e)      Take only the evergreens.  They have better search terms anyway.
f)        Make substantial changes, like more than 40%
g)      Please, leave my name off your final product.

If you’re here to read, hi there and welcome!  Please leave a message and tell me what else you’d like to read about.

Friday, January 7, 2011

Sales Enablement

 
Insightful messages are great, but Tom Pisello reminds us that if they’re not what the B to B sales force needs, they’re useless.

In Is Marketing Too Busy?  The Forgotten Sales Professional, Pisello, the “ROI Guy,” recommends a Content Marketing Institute article by Jennifer Watson, The Audience Content Marketers Can’t Afford To Ignore – But Almost Always Do.  

I agree with both Pisello and Watson.  It takes humility to acknowledge that you’ll never know product attributes and how they meet the needs of potential customers as well as the sales people do.  Given that, once you do your best job, it takes creativity and ingenuity to figure out a way to make your sales enablement programs easily available to the sales force with the tools they use daily.

Watson includes a link to an eBook, The New Rules of Sales Enablement by Jeff Ernst.  Whether you’re from sales or marketing, you’ll want to have a look at this book and forward it to your friends.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

What if the media call and you’re not ready?



High-profile employees at large firms receive training in public speaking, including speaking on camera.  If they suddenly have to speak up on behalf of the company, they and their bosses are confident that they’ll come across well.  In the best cases they’ll express exactly what they’re supposed to.  They’ll be articulate and poised.

The rest of us may want to be that suave, but it’s not really that important, is it?

It is if you have a dream.  If you have a product or service you want to persuade others about, you need to speak compellingly.  And if you suddenly have a big breakthrough and the media want to talk to you, would you want to say, “No…thanks, really.  I’m just not a good public speaker.”?

They have other stories to cover.  While you’re gathering your wits, they’re turning to their next assignment.  Too bad, so sad.

That’s why, if you want to promote something, you need to be ready to speak.  That’s why I joined Toastmasters eight years ago. 

At Toastmasters you practice giving speeches in a friendly environment.  Fellow club members give you feedback about your speeches.  If you like speaking, you can also participate in contests.

Toastmasters needs you to fill in other roles, such as leading the meeting, being the “humorist” (telling one joke), and counting the number of times speakers say “ah” and “um.”

Toastmasters membership costs under $100 per year.  If you put in the time, you get something invaluable back—the ability to say the right thing at the right time.

Here’s the link to my club, the Murray Hill Speakers Club.

Here’s the link to Toastmasters International, where you can find a club near you.

If you’re serious about marketing, drop by a meeting for free and learn more about the program.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

gurlz ONLY


Attention, gentlemen: this post is about menopause.  You might want to click away now.

LOL!  Can’t you hear those trackballs spinning frantically?

This really is about menopause.  It’s about how I can only think of one reason why the International Sleep Products Association (ISPA) hasn’t already implemented this marketing campaign:
“Congratulations!  You’ve reached menopause.  No more worry about staining your bedding, so buy the best.  Celebrate by treating yourself to a luxury mattress.  

As a special treat, if you tell us you’re over 50, we’ll include a set of 500-thread count Egyptian cotton sheets as our gift.”
(They’ll actually card everybody—nothing like the thrill of being told you don’t look your age.)

I see spots (hee hee) on the Lifetime Channel and OWN, The Oprah Winfrey Network.  I see ads in the women’s service magazines.  I see this as huge.

The only possible reason that they haven’t already initiated this campaign is that they haven’t thought of it.  Yet.

Gives me something to look forward to.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

New Year’s Resolution, part 2



To follow up on yesterday’s post: yes, you do want to update your site frequently in order to woo (or wow) the search engines.

Not everyone has the desire or facility to come up with something fresh and witty every day.  As Gene Fowler once wrote:
Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead.
 I don’t digress when I say that yesterday I grew tired of looking at all my excess labels.  If you scroll all the way down to the bottom of any post, you’ll see a few labels, words that I thought applied to whatever I was writing about that day.  They help bloggers organize their posts, and, yes, they help the search engines find the posts.

In the beginning of this blog, I was label-happy.  I made up new labels every time I mentioned new subjects, which is why I only had one blog entry labeled “food pyramid.”  It was like setting up a filing system with paper files that only contained one sheet of paper.  After a while all those files get in your way.

I did something about those extra labels, deleting a lot of them.

Here’s the funny thing: that was good for my search engine optimization as well.  The search engines can’t really tell if I’ve just added important and timely news to my blog (only you can do that.)

To a search engine “spider” a deleted label is as much an update as is a trenchant blog post.  So’s a deleted comma.  I could edit my site every day, deleting a comma tomorrow and adding it back in the next day.  The search engines would think I was making serious changes and would think my blog had hotter news in it than the completing blog at the next IP address, which didn’t make daily minor tweaks.

I’d rather add new and interesting blog posts, but even when I do something dull like administer my labels, it’s nice to know that even that may help one more reader find this blog.

Monday, January 3, 2011

NJCommunique's New Year’s Resolution



In 2011, I will update my blog more often.

As a writer, I study ways that I can encourage more people to read my work online.  One way to do this is to write so that the search engines find it.  The more relevant the search engines think this blog is to internet users’ queries, the higher up on the page this blog appears on the search engine results.

People are impatient.  The closer a website is to the top of the first page, the more likely they’ll click on it.  If they click on my site, bingo!  I have more readers!

This process is called search engine optimization.

If I know that a lot of people search on the term “LinkedIn,” I can use the word “LinkedIn” and any synonyms I can think of, frequently within the post.  “Aha!” the search engine says to itself, “this post must be really relevant to the query because it concentrates on the subject—look how many times the word LinkedIn repeats.  I’d better recommend this page to people who want to learn about LinkedIn.”

Another way that the search engines check web pages is to see how many other web pages refer to it.  If a lot of other people recommend my page to their readers, my page must be good.  This is especially true if the website that refers to it is prominent.

I use this fact to a certain extent.  My LinkedIn profile includes a link to this blog.  If I think my friends might be interested in a certain post, I also mention it on Facebook.  If I wanted to, I could visit strangers’ blogs, leave comments there and include a link back to this blog.  I don’t usually bother.  I do have an offline life.

Another thing the search engines look at is how frequently the website is updated.  If nobody updates the website, the search engine figures it’s been abandoned or that the information on it’s outdated.  Search engines want to see sites with frequent changes. 

I like this blog to have good search engine results, which is why I vow to update it more often this year.  Thanks for visiting, and y’all come back now, you hear?

Sunday, January 2, 2011

Off-the-wall idea for churches and houses of worship

 

Houses of worship of any religion should always be looking for ways to attract new members.  Here’s one you may want to try.

Distribute a letter to recent arrivals and neighbors.

  • ·        For neighbors, use church volunteers and door hangers.  Target the houses and apartments nearby.  The more volunteers you have, the farther afield you can go.
  • ·        For new arrivals, check municipal records for property transfers and mail out the letters.

The letter:

Welcome to (community name)!   (Or “Hello, neighbor.”)  If you’re interested in joining a house of worship, the congregation at (house of worship name) invites you to visit us at (address). 

(House of worship) is special because (unique selling proposition).

Our services are at (day and time).  If you have questions, please visit us on the internet at (URL) or call us at (telephone number).

Whether you decide to join our congregation or not, if you visit us we’d appreciate your honest and anonymous feedback about how you felt when you visited.  Here’s an anonymous survey.  If you care to fill it out, please send it to (PO Box number/city/state/ZIP)

We hope to see you soon.

Sincerely,
(Religious leader name)
(Religious leader title)

PS If you’d like more information, please do call us at (telephone number).  We promise no sales pitches!

The survey

Thank you for visiting us at (house of worship).  Your anonymous answers to this survey will help us understand how new visitors feel when they visit us.

Why did you visit (house of worship)?

  • ·        I received a letter.
  • ·        A friend or neighbor invited me.
  • ·        Special occasion:
  • ·        Holiday service
  • ·        Special service such as a funeral
  • ·        Other ___________________________________________________________________

  • ·        When you visited us, did at least one person greet you with a friendly smile and an introduction?     Yes/No
  • ·        Did anyone invite you to return?  Yes/No

  •  ·        Was the building itself welcoming?  (Were there any physical barriers that made it difficult for you to participate in the service?) __________________________________________________________________

  • ·        Have you visited a (denomination) church before? Yes/No
  • ·        Was it difficult to follow the service? Yes/No
  • ·        If it was difficult, why was it difficult to follow the service? ________________________________________________________________
  •  
  • ·        What did you think was the best thing about our service or our welcome?  ________________________________________________________________
  • ·        What did you think was the least positive thing about our service or our welcome? _________________________________________________________________ 

Please answer the questions below on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 meaning “completely untrue,” 3 meaning “neutral,” and 5 meaning “completely true.”
                                                
                                                  Untrue           Neutral           True
                                                          
I felt welcome at the service        1         2        3          4          5
I might return to (house of
                                 Worship)         1         2        3          4          5

  • ·        Is there anything else you'd like to tell us about your time with us?   __________________________________________________________________
                         

Thank you so much for filling out this survey!  We’re always trying to ensure that (house of worship) is as welcoming as possible.  Your opinions will help us.

Please mail this survey to PO Box number/city/state/ZIP


A special note from (religious leader): Thanks again for visiting us!  We hope we’ll see you again at (house of worship).
(Signature)

I can’t think of any congregation that wouldn’t benefit from feedback from visitors.  You’re welcome to use this idea, and if you do, I’d appreciate your opinions!

Happy new year.