Perry

Hewitt

Author: Perry Hewitt

6 ways to create findable, useful website content
Search engine optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), and increasingly, paid social media placement can achieve remarkable results. Using smart keywords and accessing segmented, up-to-date user data troves like Facebook’s can produce the kinds of attention that drive revenue, and occasionally even “go viral”.

But sometimes these tools lead people to believe they can omit the first, essential step: creating findable, useful website content. That’s like crafting the most compelling guest list, designing the most elegant invitations, and concocting the cleverest seating plan — only to serve cold Big Macs. So before you put out that RFP for the SEO makeover that vendors assure you will forever transform your site’s metrics of attention, engagement, and revenue, start here:

You should regularly publish high-quality, structured content with the right metadata to your mobile-optimized website, while using analytics to test and form hypotheses.

Defining the terms above:
- regularly: Create a content calendar to drive a regular publishing schedule. Publishing regularly is good for your readers, and for search engines that reward updated content.
- high-quality: What makes high-quality content? Build readership by going deep into fewer subjects, and by creating evergreen content that may be relevant to users over longer periods of time.
- structured: Structured content enables you to “create once, publish everywhere” (COPE), allows others to re-access and use via RSS or APIs, and makes it easier for search engines to find and display.
- metadata: Metadata helps both humans and search engines find your content. For example, metadata pulled in when an article is shared to social media improves user experience, and correct metadata for sites, pages, and posts helps search engines assess your content.
- mobile-optimized: Mobile matters not only to your users but to search engines that increasingly reward mobile-friendly sites.
- analytics: Use analytics to measure what matters — including how users are finding your site from search and other referrals. Form hypotheses about what might work, and then iteratively test and measure.
None of this is breaking news or rocket science, but these elements are surprisingly often under-invested in or even completely overlooked. When I am asked to weigh in on SEO/SEM/paid social initiatives, conversations often reveal that the organization hasn’t yet solved the underlying web content problem. You can have a killer CRM implementation, the best SEO protocols, and a hefty budget for paid social — but solving the web content challenge will yield guaranteed returns for your investment.

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September 8, 2015
Friday 5 — 9.4.2015
1. When Instagram changed photo sizes to allow more options than square, there was predictable hue and cry. Eugene Wei eloquently explains why social networks should not adhere slavishly to features, but focus instead on the power of their network of users.
2. There’s a lot of rhetoric about what it means to be “digital first” or “digital by default”. The UK Government summarizes in 18 concise points what digital by default looks like, and how it can be measured. The points are applicable beyond government to virtually any enterprise tech service.
3. What are the trends in email newsletter typography and rendering? An analysis of 50 newsletters reviews elements like line width, message weight, and how serif or sans serif fonts are used. Related: Google switched this week to a sans serif logo, and the design community seems mostly to approve.
4. If you’re a publisher serving ads on mobile, you are probably anxious about the new ad blocking capability coming to iPhone and iPads with iOS9. And the impact may extend beyond ad serving, and affect organizations using analytics software like Google Analytics and Chartbeat.
5. It’s no secret that Facebook and Gmail analyze your profile and email behavior. It may be surprising that they can use that information to discern your political leanings, and serve advertising accordingly. This initial research from Harvard created Republican and Democratic profiles on both services, and documents the results. One consideration for email marketers: Gmail may eventually relegate messages it feels will not resonate to the “Promotions” rather than the “Primary” tab.
Weekend fun: Most people’s Instagram photos of their flawless beach days and bouillabaisse provoke FOMO; hipster Barbie takes it to a whole new level. Maybe just give up and embrace your inner geek — why not build a drone with 54 propellers, and take flight?

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective pointers to compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally. Try out the Friday 5 archive, or sign up for a weekly email.
September 4, 2015
Friday 5 — 8.28.2015
1. Why do some videos go viral while others seemingly underperform? HBR looks at how psychological response and social motivation drive video sharing. Apparently it doesn’t hurt to reach the “supersharers,” who are responsible for 82.4% of total video shares.
2. Slack’s integrations — from GitHub to Giphy — make the team collaboration app delightfully sticky. This week Slack announced a new feature providing apps with the native capability to “Add to Slack.” This feature debuts in 13 apps (including my daily favorite, Nuzzel) with more soon to follow.
3. As voice communications continue to spiral — does anyone remember the concept of “rollover minutes”? listen to voicemail anymore? — messaging apps proliferate. However, there are regional differences in adoption. Quartz reviews why WhatsApp lagged in U.S. markets compared to Snapchat and Kik, and what these apps will need to do to fend off Facebook Messenger.
4. The shooting of a news team in Virginia this week, and the rapid dissemination of footage online, led to some somber consideration of the implications of technology. These include the autoplay video behavior on Facebook and Twitter that can cause involuntary viewing, and the phenomenon of a senseless murder planned expressly with social media in mind.
5. Good manners are about making other people feel comfortable, and what feels comfortable has a way of changing over time. Pew breaks down for us all what mobile phone etiquette looks like in 2015. Related (in case you missed it): an excellent primer on how to be polite.
Weekend fun: Ever wanted to just pull up stakes and go? This clever art project has married census data to a “Why I am leaving X” letter format to make your parting thoughts painless. Or stay put; Harvard research says you can manage your stress by getting a dog.

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective pointers to compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally. Try out the Friday 5 archive, or sign up for a weekly email.
August 28, 2015
Friday 5 — 8.21.2015
1. A new report from Pew delves into mobile messaging for the first time, and updates social media trends. Mobile messaging apps like WhatsApp and Snapchat continue to grow, with 49% adoption among 18-29 year old internet users. Also of note: 59% of Instagram users reported using the app daily,and 35% several times per day.
2. Giphy doubles down on its bet that GIFs will grow as a popular communication tool with the launch of its new iOS app, GiphyCam. GiphyCam simplifies the creation of GIFs so you can put yourself (or your pet) in the picture.
3. There’s increased attention paid to user experience design for products, but a risk that these efforts are undertaken screen-by-screen. Here’s a compelling, in-depth explanation of why and how you should shift your thinking from a deliverables-driven to platform-based approach to user experience design.
4. Still trying to tell your Bitcoin from your blockchain? The Berkman Center has you covered with a podcast demystifying digital currency and its implications.
5. Slack has plans for its customizable robot Slackbot well beyond jokey remarks and useful reminders. Stewart Butterfield explains how Slackbot will become more useful as a meaningful personal assistant to team members, as well as a repository for organizational knowledge.
Weekend fun: Emojis are at least partially responsible for the decline of LOLers. This emoji usage map lets you track regional variability in emoji use, and confirms that Massachusetts natives are obsessed with modes of transportation. I have no theory re: the hatching chick.

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective pointers to compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally. Try out the Friday 5 archive, or sign up for a weekly email.
August 21, 2015
Friday 5 — 8.14.2015
1. Are you getting started on Slack to increase your productivity, reduce your email, and fuel your dependence on animated GIFs? Here’s a helpful how-to explaining all the basics.
2. Technology has consequences, positive and negative. This week a new refereed online publication forum, Technology Science, launched as a place to share timely academic papers exploring the benefits and adverse consequences of social, political, organizational, and personal aspects of technology. They’ve already hit the headlines with a piece on discovery of a Facebook Messenger privacy flaw and price discrimination for travel to the U.S.
3. Nieman Lab’s Joseph Lichterman has a collection of articles on news alerts, those mobile notifications sent by major news organizations that let you know an earthquake has struck or that Serena Williams has won again. Helpful for understanding the what when and how, but it can be surprising what rises to the level of an alert from the New York Times. What did I click or not click that has them notifying me when Sesame Street moves to HBO?
4. Peter Shankman pulled together four tips for how to send an email so that it’s actually read. He includes my main pet peeves: lack of descriptive subject lines and inclusion of attachments.
5. While everyone else is talking Snapchat, don’t lose sight of Vine which delivers an impressive 1.5 B video views (or “loops”) per day. Quartz explains why this mobile-friendly, snackable video service has taken hold.
Weekend fun: Now shorts on the internet can get you a real live Hollywood movie deal. This six-minute, apocalyptic short is the latest example of Vimeo-to-studio. Dystopia not your thing? Then check out this oddly gratifying video of a an eagle talon-punching a drone out of the sky or just turn off the damn computer and play Guess Wu.

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective pointers to compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally. Try out the Friday 5 archive, or sign up for a weekly email.
August 14, 2015
Friday 5 — 8.7.2015
1. Smaller color palettes, large fonts, and meaningful microinteractions are among the trends highlighted in this article on the current state of mobile UI/UX.
2. A recent Pew report highlights ways video games, social media, and mobile phones play a role in teens’ friendships. Interesting findings include: Boys are more likely than girls to make online friends: 61% of boys compared to 52% of girls. And video games play a critical role in the development and maintenance of boys’ friendships.
3. Highly visual content gets more clicks and, done right, can boost the power of your storytelling. Here’s some practical advice on how to set up an image creation workflow for blog or social posts.
4. Voice and text messaging apps are emerging as dominant social networks, and as important traffic drivers. Read a16z’s primer on WeChat to understand how the Chinese app with over 500M monthly users is moving beyond messaging to take on commerce and the physical world.
5. We’re a long way from the web’s early days, where “hot or not” style quizzes were primarily time-wasting diversions. Interactive content reached a legitimacy milestone a few weeks back when the New York Times homepage featured a substantive interactive assessment tool — and this progression has implications for both media and marketing.
Weekend fun: Celebrate the power of the hashtag to illuminate the pitfalls in the pursuit of science: check out these field research failures, like gluing yourself to a live crocodile.

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective pointers to compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally. Try out the Friday 5 archive, or sign up for a weekly email.
August 7, 2015
Friday 5 — 7.31.2015
1. Optimizing your business for local search starts with working through the fundamentals. Brush up on your tactics with the ultimate guide to local SEO ranking.
2. Looks matter. An experiment revealed that news site homepages get more pageviews and user engagement when they have contemporary image-rich and modular layouts. Modular pages have discrete blocks of customizable and portable content, rather than a running list of stories. Another interesting finding: users of the contemporary layout also retained more information about the homepage content.
3. Animation in interface design is magical when well implemented — it can illustrate a function, effect a transition, or prompt feedback. Too often, though, animation is added thoughtlessly, and is irritating and disruptive. Learn from an interactive lesson on when to use animation in design.
4. A new Pew report shows similarities and differences in news consumption among Facebook and Twitter users. Least surprising finding: younger users are more likely to cite the social networks as a primary source of news.
5. Hate waiting in line? Google will now show you how busy it is at that trendy restaurant. It’s yet another example of Google surfacing relevant information (sports scores, movie times, plane status) right into search results.
Weekend fun: Census data is usually displayed in aggregate — monstrous spreadsheets or useful, summary chart. This Twitterbot does just the opposite by mining rows of census data and turning them into mini-narratives. Have a good weekend, and beware of spiders — even the cute ones.

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective pointers to compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally. Try out the Friday 5 archive, or sign up for a weekly email.
July 31, 2015
Friday 5 — 7.24.2015
1. Social media success is about much more than mastering the platforms and tools. Finding a voice that resonates, developing terrific content, and building an engaged community require a culture of experimentation and continuous learning. Quartz reports how NASA developed a smart social media strategy that fueled its global reach.
2. Instagram has enabled desktop search for users, hashtags, and locations. It’s another sign that the social network is moving beyond its savvy, mobile-only origins. Its next phase of growth will require enabling consistent cross-platform experience, and driving web embeds of its wealth of user content.
3. Strategy, not technology, drives business transformation, according to this recent report from MIT Sloan. The study also found that a company’s digital depth is a hiring and retention differentiator; the vast majority of respondents of all ages reported wanting to work for digitally enabled organizations.
4. Is the web fundamentally about connecting knowledge, people, and cats; or fixing the world with software — or something else entirely? Read this presentation on the first 100 years of the web, which raises questions about the internet’s purpose and continued rate of change.
5. Curious about content marketing? This article reveals results of an experiment conducted on the Hubspot marketing blog. The idea for the experiment started with a Twitter conversation, and resulted in months of testing post frequency and type (tactical, top of the funnel, promotional for gated content, etc.). Their findings conclude with a practical summary of ways to conduct a similar test, and how to think about altering your publishing approach.
Weekend fun: If you typically wind down by reading in the evening, see Product Hunt’s new foray into books for suggestions that skew geeky. It’s way better than the social media scrolling alternative.

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective pointers to compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally. Try out the Friday 5 archive, or sign up for a weekly email.
July 24, 2015
Friday 5 — 7.10.2015
1. We all see (and rely on) many more visual representations of data these days — charts are everywhere in your social streams. Needless to say, how you set up your chart to reflect the numbers matters. Here’s a handy guide to spotting charts that lie. (Yes, Yankees fans, that chart is deceiving.)
2. Facebook is already a dominant platform for video reach — and they are getting more serious about how to measure your preferences and behaviors. Facebook will factor in engagement metrics beyond likes and shares, including whether a user chooses to take a video full screen or turn down the audio.
3. People throw around the term “uniques” as if we’re all certain we’re counting the same thing — but we’re not. The quantitatively-inclined folks over at FiveThirtyEight define “the cookie conundrum,” the impact of mobile, and the perils of relying of different companies’ proprietary models to explain why it’s so hard to measure web traffic in 2015.
4. What’s a common misstep for today’s data-driven marketer? On chiefmartec.com this week, Cesar Brea posits that it’s easy to get lost in the quest for the perfect KPI and squeaky clean data. Instead, marketers should focus their analytics efforts on getting to good-enough, and then continuously working to improve the results of the business.
5. Does it ever seem like every single person in your social network is doing the same thing? New research highlights how the majority illusion can skew perception in social networks. If the most popular nodes engage in a behavior, others overestimate how many engage in that behavior — perhaps contributing to the rise of FOMO. The challenge for marketers looking to spread behaviors is to reach those most popular nodes, the “influencerati.”
Weekend fun: Don’t miss @stephenathome’s view from the bunker on this week’s Apocalypse Dow. If you have 99 cents left after the collapse, you might just spend it on an app to troll your friends with Game of Thrones quotes.

Friday 5 is taking a break next week to enjoy the summer with family and friends, and do a little reading beyond 140 characters. (Here are some ideas for bringing books back to your daily routine.) See you back here on July 24 — in the meantime, email me the analytics approaches and text-trolling techniques I missed.

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective pointers to compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally. Try out the Friday 5 archive, or sign up for a weekly email.
July 10, 2015
Friday 5 — 7.3.2015
1. What does the White House’s new photography policy tell us about the opportunity for brand building? Read my new piece over at Harvard Business Review on the visual web’s latest victory: the White House selfie.
2. How does do Americans’ internet access and usage correlate with age? Pew has released a new report on Americans’ internet access 2000-2015. Notable findings include that a clear majority of 58% seniors now use the internet — while the overall percentage is lower, it’s rising quickly (see also: Facebook). Class and educational attainment remain access factors but are shrinking.
3. The first few years of widespread access to MOOCs have created a data trove for researchers. Ed tech thinker Justin Reich launched a series of posts on seven observations based on research during his time at HarvardX. The first one: MOOC students are diverse, but trend toward autodidacts.
4. Google released a real-time trends feature to provide live data on the 100 billion searches conducted each month. Scroll down to see the curated data sets Google has made available, and the visualizations created from them.
5. What’s the digital talent gap in marketing today? This post outlines the in-demand skills for the hybrid marketer, which include social, mobile, and data/analytics skills along with a deep understanding the role of content. With all the channels and technologies now available to B2C and B2B marketers, there’s need for a broad skillset that reflects head and heart, quantitative and creative portfolios.
Weekend fun: Don’t feel like braving the traffic this 4th of July weekend? Google Earth just turned 10, and launched some new features to help you explore the world online. Don’t miss this stunning gallery for a great escape.

Every Friday, find five, highly subjective pointers to compelling technologies, emerging trends, and interesting ideas that affect how we live and work digitally. Try out the Friday 5 archive, or sign up for a weekly email.
July 3, 2015