Get excited! We’re talking HTML meta tags. Yes, today these annoying details we love to ignore are front and center. Metadata is not a sexy topic for most people, and HTML meta tags even less so. But they’re on our web content checklist — or they should be — so let’s have a plan. HTML meta tags are used to inform search engines about your webpage content. What is this page about (meta description element), and what are the subjects … [Read more...]
Developing a Progressive, Multiplatform Content Strategy
August 17, 2011 by
As web communicators, we operate in a multiplatform world, and our content strategies have to take that into account. Often, however, due to lack of resources, time or a sense of how we might use a particular channel, we don’t dive into all platforms at once. Josh Cole from Tippingpoint Labs says that we should account for this growth over time, but that we can also plan that trajectory from the outset. Cole explains that even if we start … [Read more...]
Save the Date
August 5, 2011 by
An editorial calendar is invaluable in ensuring up-to-date, well-organized, on-task content. But to make it work, you can't just use an Excel template you found via Google and call it a day. An effective editorial calendar, says Brain Traffic's Melissa Rach, has to be customized to match both the purpose and the prioritized particulars of your content. While it requires a bit of work up front -- and, as we wrote about earlier, an editorial … [Read more...]
It’s the Strategy, Stupid
July 28, 2011 by
What do the letters "CMS" mean to you? Do you read them as "cry myself to sleep" because your campus content management implementation has been largely ineffective? If so, where does the problem lie: with the tool, or with the strategy supporting it? If you let the tool lead the process, you end up ignoring the pressing content needs and concerns that, ideally, should shape both the selection and implementation of a CMS. This is why at last … [Read more...]
Building a Campus Content Group—In the Wild West
July 27, 2011 by
Many of us work at institutions without top-down content strategy and may be “lone rangers” when it comes to content at our respective schools or departments. It can even be lonely at the top (a.k.a. central administration) if we’re not in the loop with others around campus. But if we look beyond our own dusty saloons, we’ll see many folks just like us, trying to bring the rule of law to the wild west of content. The challenge—and … [Read more...]