Communicators want their online material to be helpful and easy to find. Google offers a series of tips for making your site Google-friendly, including: give visitors the information they’re looking for, make sure that other sites link to yours, and build your site with a logical link structure. There’s also a list of things to avoid.
In addition Google offers detailed Webmaster guidelines and how to add your site to Google’s search results.
There. Now I expect to see your site in the Top 10.
Making your site Google friendly
July 12, 2006
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Posted by paul baker
Evaluating your PR *outcomes*
June 23, 2006Here’s a guide to evaluting a project based on its outcomes. I see lots of applications for public relations, marketing, and outreach.
Outcomes evaluation looks at programs as systems that have inputs, activities or processes, outputs and outcomes. Among the several myths this paper addresses and debunks are:
Evaluation is an event to get over with and then move on!
and,
Evaluation is a whole new set of activities – we don’t have the resources!
(via Intelligent Measurement)
Leave a Comment » | how-to | Tagged: measurement, public relations, Strategy | Permalink
Posted by paul baker
A successful PR campaign
June 19, 2006Campaigns are a significant part of the public relations profession and should be carried out with meticulous planning and thorough management, writes Stephen Davies. Specific step-by-step measures should be taken when planning any PR campaign to ensure it meets the objectives set or, in other words, achieves what needs to be achieved. Davies, aka PR Blogger, lists 12 stages of planning a successful PR campaign.
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Posted by paul baker
Lindenmann writes about PR research, planning
June 19, 2006This paper by Walter Lindenmann outlines and describes the various tools and techniques that public relations practitioners ought to consider when designing and carrying out research projects for PR planning and for PR measurement and evaluation purposes. (PDF, 33 p.)
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Posted by paul baker
More tips on increasing readership
June 19, 2006Whether you are selling advertising, a product, or just your own set of ideas, you want as large a readership as possible with most blogs, writes Scott Paton. So if that is the case, then it is important to know how to draw readers to your blog. He ofers four to increase your blog readership.
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Posted by paul baker
Top bloggers discuss tools of the trade
June 16, 2006B.L. Ochman shares the search tools and measurement tools used by some of the A-list bloggers, including Doc "Cluetrain" Searls, Steve Hall, Bob Cox, Shel Horowitz, and journalist and blogger Graham Holliday. They answered the question, 'How do you keep up with all the information coming at you from every direction?'.
(via CyberJournalist.net)
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Posted by paul baker
Increase your blog traffic!
June 12, 2006Sounds like a spam header, doesn't it.
But there are some useful ideas on Seth Godin's post. For one thing, it reminded me that I had fallen out of the habit of posting to Del.icio.us, so I started catching up.
I also particularly like his tip #7. Share your expertise generously so people regcognize it and depend on you, and #25. Encourage your readers to suibscribe by RSS, and #30. Point to useful but little-known resources.
When you read through the entire list, though, you begin to notice the 5 or 6 pairs of tips that contradict each other, a reminder that anything carried too far becomes a gimmick.
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Posted by paul baker
Beginner’s guide to using WordPress
June 7, 2006Here's a well done beginner's guide to blogging with WordPress, created by Kary Boan. This is a 15-page PDF of a workshop presentation. Kary also offers a list of dozens and scores of tutorials and other resources related toWordPress, WPMU (WordPress Multiple Users), Edublogs and blogging in general.
(By way of Edublogs.org)
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Posted by paul baker
Update on Google News
June 6, 2006Thanks to Dan Karleen for pointing out how one can subscribe to Google Alerts via RSS feeds. I personally prefer this to receiving emails. And this solves my problem: now I can get both Google and Technorati alerts in one convenient place; namely, my news aggregator. (I use SAGE.)
All you need to do is go to www.news.google.com, then key in the word or phrase you want to track. You'll get a results screen like this:
Then you just click and drag the "RSS" icon into your news reader, and you're set.
2 Comments | how-to | Tagged: RSS | Permalink
Posted by paul baker
Search tools complementary
June 5, 2006I've found two search tools, one automated, one partly automated, that help me track subjects of interest in the blogosphere and on the web in general.
Google Alerts notify me via email as soon as Google notices one of my selected keywords or key phrases on the web. You can choose to be notified right away, via email, or have your notices batched and sent all together, once per day. When I get an email alert, I open it and get something like this:
Technorati's Watchlist tool tracks my key words and phrases, too. But Technorati follows blogs, not the web in general. So this function complements Google Alerts.
But it's not as convenient. I have to log in to Technorati and click on Watchlist, then click on each key word or phrase to see whether anything is new. Often, in fact, there is nothing new, but I won't know that until I check.
correction: Technorati offers an RSS service at no charge, so one can check updates in a news aggregator.
Nevertheless, I'll continue to use both tools to track what's being said about education research, public relations, and related things.
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Posted by paul baker
