Why Every Online Publication Needs an Editorial Calendar

An editorial calendar is essentially the plan for the next month, or even several months, of what's going to be published on your site. The length will depend on how often your publish, but even those who don't publish every day or every week can still find value in an editorial calendar. Here's why every blog or online publication needs an editorial calendar, whether your publish four times a day or four times a month.

It Forces You to Come Up with Article Ideas in Advance

Consistency is huge when running an online publication. Miss a day or two and your audience will notice that something is going on. The more often you publish, the more consistency matters and the harder it is to deal with writer's block or getting something out in a time crunch. This is where the editorial calendar comes in. If you need an idea, then simply refer to the calendar. If you release a new post every Wednesday, then all you need to do is look at the calendar on Monday or Tuesday and get writing. No longer will time be wasted scrambling for an idea because that time would have been spent beforehand coming up with all sorts of ideas to fill your calendar.

Note: This doesn't mean that you can't do something in response to breaking news, or a post on something you thought about that day. The editorial calendar and impromptu writing are not mutually exclusive. This tool is there so you don't have to waste time staring at a blank screen coming up with an idea. You have a whole list of ideas to choose from.

It Can Help Attract Advertisers

If you are making money from your blog or online publication, or want to start making money, then think of the editorial calendar as a way to attract advertisers that match the content you will product as well as your audience. For example, if you are a tech blog, and you are going to spend a week in October entirely on apps, then you can use your editorial calendar to show potential advertisers some of the topics that you are going to cover. If you are going to have an article or two about health apps, then potential advertisers might want to advertise on that day or week. They may also want to contribute sponsored content that adds an additional perspective, as a such a topic will interest very specific brands. The revenue is not only valuable to you, but the advertisers benefit from targeting that's based on who will read that article, and not just who will read your overall site.

It Can Be More than Article Ideas

The most basic editorial calendar just has topics or blog post titles listed when they are supposed to be published. That's great, but the editorial calendar can also include much more information than that. Below are some good ideas to include on your template (or use this one from HubSpot, which is really good).:

• Category/Type (ex. Recipe, How-To)
• Tags/Keywords
• Photo/Illustration
• Author
• Status
• Publication Location (if you have multiple blogs or often guest post)
• Note
• Deadline
• Reception (keep track of how many tweets, likes, or pins the post got)

If you don't want to create your own or use the one from HubSpot, then Wordpress has two really good editorial calendar plugins: Editorial Calendar and Edit Flow. Anyway, the point here is that it can be for more than post ideas. Use it to come up with your tags and keywords prior to writing the article. Use it to track the success of your articles after the fact. It's also a good tool if you have several writers on staff, so that you can manage what all of them are doing and what progress they are making with a little more ease.

Overall, the editorial calendar is an incredibly handy tool. Even the solo blogger who is writing for fun can benefit by saving time and reducing the stress of what should be a hobby and stress-relieving activity. There aren't many reasons why you shouldn't use an editorial calendar.

Related Links:

How to Write a Press Release for Your Blog

Why Every Online Publication Should Have a Style Guide

How to Treat Your Blog as a Business

PR7J2ES2CCQG

46 Article Ideas You Can Use for Your Blog Right Now

Maintaining a blog or online publication isn't easy, and one of the toughest aspects of maintenance is coming up with things to write about! Even if you're preparing an editorial calendar for the next month, or even the next few months, the ideas aren't always flowing. If you need a little help, or if you need something to write about right now, then consider one of the 46 article ideas below. Surely, you can find something here that's compelling to do and to share with your audience.

1. Live blog what's happening at a conference, event, or trade show.
2. Attended a webinar, conference, event or trade show recently? Share what you’ve learned.
3. Instead of recapping the conference or webinar, review it! What would you have wished to learn? What could they have done better?
4. Did you just hold your own event? Do a recap.
5. Will you be holding an event? Do a post about it and why people should come.
6. Do a roundup of niche-related news articles that your readers may have missed.
7. Write a follow-up to one of your most popular blog posts.
8. Respond to comments made on a previous blog post.
9. Write a counterpoint to a post from another blog.
10. Agree with a post from another blog.
11. Ask another niche blogger to do guest post.
12. Ask another niche blogger if you can reprint one of his/her posts. Make sure to write your own introduction and give credit to the blogger.
13. Look at what your competitors are blogging about, and write your own post on something they’ve done.
14. Take a current event and show what your niche can learn from it.
15. Take a seemingly unrelated current event and show what it means to your industry.
16. Find a recent news article on your industry and add your own angle.
17. Compare your niche to something from pop culture, like a TV show or a new dance craze.
18. Counter a prevailing niche trend or perspective.
19. Affirm a prevailing niche trend or perspective.
20. Bust a myth or two about your niche/product/service.
21. Confirm a rumor or fact about your niche/product/service.
22. Make a prediction on an emerging trend, or on something else happening in your niche.
23. Define some niche lingo or key terms.
24. Are there any new research findings or statistics related to your niche? Write a post on why that new something is important.
25. Present the history or some little known facts about your niche.
26. Outline a solution to a big niche problem.
27. Or, just rant about that problem. That’s okay too.
28. Ask several niche leaders about an issue related to your niche. Post the responses.
29. Create a beginner’s post to your niche (think of it as a very quick 101!)
30. Conduct some research on something related to your niche and share your findings.
31. Create a “recipe of success” for your niche.
32. Create a “5 Pillars” or a “10 Commandments” for your niche.
33. Answer a frequently asked question related to your niche.
34. Make a list of the 10 best other niche blogs or news sites.
35. Make a list of the biggest lessons you’ve learned in your niche.
36. Compile a list of the best apps for your niche.
37. Make a list of your favorite quotes related to your niche.
38. Make a pros/cons list of something in your niche.
39. Review a book related to your niche.
40. Ask your readers what they’d like you to write about.
41. Write about the best idea(s) suggested.
42. Conduct a poll.
43. Post the results to that poll.
44. If there’s a movie about or involving your niche, write about what it gets right or wrong.
45. Ask for reader submissions (can be posts, pics, or vids).
46. Share the best ones!

Copy Editing 101

Copy editing is the process of improving the formatting, style, and accuracy of the text. This is different from proofreading, which looks as spelling and grammar errors and corrects just spelling and grammar errors. Copy editing involves making sure that the facts states are correct and properly cited, that the entire article is understandable from start to finish, that words are used appropriately, among other things. Copy editing is very important for blogs and online publications, which often don't have a dedicated person to assess each article in this way. Here's an introduction to copy editing and a brief overview of what needs to be done when checking your blog posts or articles for formatting, style, and accuracy.

The Five C's of Copy Editing

When evaluating the formatting, style, and accuracy of the article, there are five "C's" that need to be examined. It's important that your article has each of the following before it's published. To evaluate this, you need to ask certain questions and make the necessary changes. The five "C's" are:

1. Clear - Is there anything in the article that could be confusing, such as acronyms, sources, locations, references, words etc? Is there a better word or a better way to say something? If in doubt, ere on the side of caution and do what it takes to make it clear.
2. Correct - Are the facts correct? Do people have their names spelled correctly? Do they have the right titles associated with them? Are statistics cited and stated correctly?
3. Concise - If a sentence is 10 words long, can it be said in eight or seven without changing the meaning? Are there words and/or sentences that are redundant? Are there words and/or sentences that don't provide any meaning or value to the overall paragraph or article, and can be removed?
4. Comprehensible - Can the article be understood from start to finish? Does it use any industry jargon that needs to be defined or explained? Is the information organized in a way that is logical and easy to follow?
5. Consistent - Are things like tone, perspective, and the spellings or proper nouns the same throughout the entire article? Does the article fit your brand and the topics that your blog/online publication covers?

Why Copy Editing is Important

Copy editing is important for any blog or online publication because it is the last defense against bad writing and serious mistakes that could end up hurting your credibility. Instead of publishing an article that is confusing, or has a factual error in it, taking the time to edit the copy in this fashion can prevent those mistakes from getting published. You don't necessarily need to have a person dedicated to copy editing the way that newspapers and magazines do, but taking this extra step will set you apart from the rest. Everyone understands that your articles need to have correct spelling, great grammar, and need to be original. However, not everyone understands the difference clear, concise formatting makes to an article, or the difference in quality when industry terms are properly explained or when the best words are used.

Of course, copy editing saves you from embarrassing headlines and text fillers that shouldn't have gone live in the first place. It also provides an extra set of eyes to catch mistakes, or simply allows one more run through of an article before it goes live. Sure, it's a digital world where things need to get published quickly and where mistakes can be changed without everyone knowing that the mistake was made in the first place.

Hopefully, you want to be better than everyone else. Copy editing is a way to do that because hardly anyone else is paying attention.

Related Links:

Homonyms and Frequently Misunderstood Words for Content Creators

Additionally Commonly Troublesome Words for Content Creators

An Introduction to Trademarks

Determining a Conflict of Interest: An Introduction

If you're just blogging or writing an online publication on your own, then you don't have to deal with a conflict of interest all that often. It's easy to recognize within yourself, and you could perhaps use your conflict of interest as part of your branding, as part of building the business, and as part of the message you want to communicate. However, if you have a team helping you with your blog or online magazine, then you need to be able to determine conflict of interest so that you're team doesn't sacrifice the best interest of the publication for their own goals or gain. A conflict of interest is defined as, "a set of circumstances that creates a risk that professional judgement or actions regarding a primary interest will be unduly influenced by a secondary interest." In publishing, determining a conflict of interest involves figuring out if a story, or a source, that you're going to use or to publish is influenced by these secondary interests, such as money, connections etc. Essentially, you don't want to publish or use a source that isn't there based on its merit or its value, but because the writer was paid on the side to cover that topic or is covering something out of personal bias or gain. Here's a quick start to determining a conflict of interest and how to handle one that could jeopardize your blog or magazine.

Figure Out the Two Interests

A conflict of interest cannot exist if there isn't two competing interests. Of course, there are some conflicts i.e. the need to make money versus the desire to tell great stories that aren't all that bad and don't need to be investigated or vetted. Both of those interests are generic, and can work together. The point in figuring out the two interests is if the two conflicting interests cannot be compatible at all.

For example, if one of your writers wants to write about a particular company, and it comes to your attention that the writer currently works for that company, then there's a conflict of interest there that needs to be evaluated. The fact that the writer works at the company could skew the story that's written i.e. it could be overly positive because the writer wants to keep his/her job at the company. In this case, you would need to decide if the company should be covered at all (by another writer, of course) or if the story should be dropped. It's possible that the writer only wants to do the coverage because he/she supports the company, or knows that something will come from that relationship if the story gets published and produces good results for the company.

In this case, these two interests cannot work together. The writer cannot fulfill the interest with the company while fulfilling the interests of the online publication. One needs to be somewhat sacrificed for the other, and it looks like the interests of the online publication would take the hit. Therefore, this is a conflict of interest that needs evaluating and needs to be handled appropriately.

Finding the Conflict

Sometimes, finding the conflict of interest takes a little investigative work. In the previous example, it's unlikely the writer would disclose that s/he works for the company. If s/he does, then that makes things easier and you can decide to have someone else cover the story to ensure that there isn't an overly positive overtone or bias. If the conflict isn't disclosed, but you suspect one to be there, then you might need to ask a few questions or do some additional research. In a future post, we'll go over a few techniques to find hidden conflicts of interests as well as good questions to ask to find these conflicts before the story is written.

8 Factors in Search Engine Rankings You Probably Don't Know About

I just found out from a colleague that Google uses over 200 ranking factors when determining which pages go where in the search engine results. I knew there were a lot, but I didn't realize there were that many and how they impacted the search engine rankings of my website and the sites of my clients. The link is above if you want to review 200 yourself, but here are eight Google ranking factors that I didn't know about, and you probably don't know about either (until today):

1. Exact Match Domains - An exact match domain is a domain name that's an exact keyword, such as contentmarketingservices.com or greenhomecleaning.com. Exact match domains have always been a Google ranking factor, but they have lost strength in the last few algorithm updates. However, if your exact match domain offers high quality content, then it should still give you an edge, but more so because of the content and not because of the exact match.
2. Page Loading Speed - Yes, it is a direct ranking factor. If your page takes too long to load, then it could hurt you. Google considers page loading speed, and several other factors, as part of the user experience. The better the user experience, the increased likelihood that the website offers quality content and is regularly maintained and updated, which is essentially what search engines want to show people in the search results.
3. Image Optimization - This is one that's worth noting as its a Google ranking factor that may business bloggers and online publications miss. Google can't see images, so it "reads" them according to things like the caption, description, title, file name, and alt tag. When including images on your blog posts and web content (and please include images), include the keyword you want that page/blog post to rank for in each of those sections for the image.
4. Contact Us Page - Supposedly, if your contact page actually has information on it (and isn't just a form), then that will improve your rankings. Although, it could just be for that page, but at least this is one more reason why a contact form isn't good enough for a contact page.
5. Guest Posts - Guests posts, especially the backlinks, are very valuable for search engine rankings. However, links in the author bio aren't as valuable as those within the context of the article. This may be a little difficult to achieve, since some online publications are picky about the links that can be included in their blog posts, but it's something to keep in mind if guests posts are a big part of your online marketing strategy.
6. Wikipedia Source Links - Bad news on this one! All Wikipedia links are 'no follow' so none of them count as part of your search engine rankings. As great as it is to have a link from Wikipedia, it does not count as part of your Google ranking factors. This also means that creating a Wikipedia page about your company may be good in that's in one more thing that can come up when people search for your company, but the links you include in there won't mean a thing.
7. Word Count of Linking Content - A link from a 1000-word post is more valuable than a link inside ofa 25-word snippet. Who would have thought? This is a good reason to publish longer, more comprehensive content, as it boosts the value of the backlinks you provide to others.
8. Brand Signals - This one actually encompasses several factors, but Google does like pages and social presences that indicate that your company or your website is, in fact, a brand. Make sure that your company has strong, fresh, and active brand signals, such as an official LinkedIn company page (using a personal profile is against the site's policy, so stop that if this is you), brand name anchor text, a Google+ local listing, and the number of blog/RSS subscribers you have.

Not only are there eight more ranking factors (well, more actually, if you count brand signals as several) to be aware of, but hopefully there's an additional understanding of things you can do to improve your SEO strategy. Keep in mind that search engine rankings aren't just based on one or two big things, but on a huge conglomerate of things that contribute to the user experience and what you have to offer a web visitor.

4 Things to Think About When Starting a Blog or Online Publication

Starting your own blog, online publication, or online magazine may be easier and cheaper than ever, but that doesn't mean the venture is a simple or smooth road. There is plenty to think about when getting started, with everything from the name and the design to what you're going to write about every day, every week, or even three or four times per day. To help you get started and to build a successful and awesome blog or magazine, here are four things to think about long and hard

Topic

This is one of the easiest, yet hardest, things to think about. Sure, you might know that you want to do a tech blog or a magazine covering the local nightlife scene, but you might have to narrow yourself more than that. There are TONS of tech blogs out there, and there might already be one or two magazines covering the local nightlife scene. How are you going to compete if you plan to write about the same topic?

When thinking about your topic, you want to think about your competitors and what they are covering. You can't just cover what they cover, as your competitors (some of whom may have been online for a long time) will have an edge over you. You have to know that you are doing something different, whether that's covering a more specific niche, or offering different perspective, or writing longer, more thought-provoking articles.

Audience

Anyone and everyone doesn't count as an audience, at least not today, when there are too many things competing for everyone's attention. To have a little more edge when competing for that attention, you need to think about who your target audience is. If you're doing that local nightlife magazine, for example, then your audience would probably be middle-class twenty-somethings in your area who are probably also interested in drinking, fashion, events, and other aspects of nightlife. Knowing your audience makes it easier to come up with article ideas that would interest your target audience (obviously, this is much easier to do when your audience is narrower than everyone and anyone).

Blog/Article Ideas

Of course, this is something that you're going to think about constantly, but before launching and writing that first article, you'll want to come up with several blog and article ideas to get you started. This way, you don't have to deal with writer's block right away and you'll have something to keep you going right after you launch. Or, what you could do is come up with the ideas, and then write all those articles before the launch so you can focus on promotion and generating buzz. After all, you're not launching much if you write one article, and then take two weeks to come up with a few more ideas and to get the next article out.

Goals

Of course, if you don't have any goals for your new blog or online publication, then there's really no reason to be doing it in the first place. Hopefully, you have a few things that you want to accomplish with your content, whether that's filling a niche that hasn't been filled, or to do better than your competitors, or to share great content about great things, or all of the above. Data-based goals are also good, such as shooting for certain number of subscribers, visitors, and social media followers. When you have your goals in mind, or when you're taking the time to come up with a few goals, make sure to write them down and put them where you'll see them everyday. This tactic increases your chances of reaching those goals while reminding you of what you want to accomplish.

Those aren't the only four things to think about when starting a blog or online publication, but they certainly are four big things to think. If you fail to plan, you plan to fail, so plan at least these four things when starting out.

4 Ways to Catch and to Prevent Plagiarism

Nobody wants plagiarism on their blog or online publication, but it can be tough to prevent and harder to catch. It's tempting for some to plagiarize with the ease and wealth of information out there, and a misunderstand of what plagiarism is can mean false positives (and false negatives) upon your editorial review. To make this process as painless as possible, here are four ways to catch and to prevent plagiarism.

Use Google Instead

Instead of relying on those services that not only cost money to use extensively, but aren't as reliable as we need, use Google and search engines instead. Not only is it free every single time (and it probably searches more sites than those services), but it's also a lot easier to check for attribution, to check if the text even needs attribution, or to see if the text should remain as is (such as a direct quote or a definition). It's also easier to check for those other forms of plagiarism, such as taking another's idea and passing it as one's own.

Encourage Writers to Create Original Stories

If  all your publication is doing is rehashing the news and stories of others, then you risk more plagiarism then you may think. As we said our introduction to plagiarism article, just because the text doesn't match anywhere else online doesn't mean that it's not plagiarism. If you're writing about a hot topic, and simply reciting the analysis of others, that is plagiarism unless the ideas are properly cited. To avoid this problem (and to avoid looking like you need to piggyback on everyone else's news stories to build an audience), encourage your writers to find their own news stories, or to come up with their own angles and analysis to current news. It may feel like you need to content out there as soon as possible, but doing that doesn't mean anything if it's just the reinvention of someone else's content and ideas in the first place.

Trust Your Writers

If you make it known that your going to screen every article that comes through, only to send it back because one sentence happens to match another somewhere online (or it includes a phone number or a book title, both of which these services will catch and mark as plagiarism), then you risk scaring away good writers who do good work but are afraid of being accused of plagiarism. You will then be stuck with the writers who will game the plagiarism-catching services to make sure the content passes, or you will get writers who write so poorly that it's not anywhere online (it's so bad that no one else would take their work)  Also understand how easy it is to game the plagiarism software. All one needs to do is change every third or fourth word and it passes. If you trust your writers to do the right thing, then you'll get the writers that are worth trusting. Of course, if you suspect something, use Google.

Also understand that having a sentence or two in one article match another's content somewhere out there isn't going to hurt your search engine rankings and isn't going to get you blacklisted. Your site isn't going to make anyone mad by doing that. Relax, and worry about providing awesome content to your readers instead of pleasing the search engines. Search engines don't read your articles or buy your products anyway.

Set a Policy and Make Your Writers Aware of It

It doesn't help if only you know what plagiarism is and your writer's don't. This will only lead to misunderstandings. If you don't yet have a policy on plagiarism, set one and let your writer's know what this policy is and what counts as plagiarism. If you do have one, then make sure this is something everyone understands and is held accountable for when they join the team. Not holding people to the policy is just as bad, if not worse, then not having one at all.

Plagiarism 101 for Blogs and Online Publications

Plagiarism is the cardinal sin of online writing and publishing. No one wants it to happen on their website because it ruins credibility, quality, and search engine rankings. It's understood to be a huge ethical problem. However, with the Internet, it's easier than ever to plagiarize while being just as difficult to catch it or to stop it. Here's what every blogger or online publication needs to know about plagiarism, and what constitutes plagiarism:

So, What Is Plagiarism?

According to Wikipedia, plagiarism is:

"the mere copying of text, but also the presentation of another's ideas as one's own, regardless of the specific words or constructs used to express that idea". Meaning, in order for text to be considered plagiarized, it needs to be a copy or close copy of the text AND lack attribution to the original author or source"

Yes, I copied and pasted that definition verbatim from the Wikipedia. But it's not plagiarism as I attributed the definition, placed the definition in quotes, and provided a hyperlink to the very web page I pulled the definition from. A mere word-for-word copy is NOT plagiarism, I repeat, it is NOT plagiarism. It only counts if it is not properly attributed and the author is trying to pass the words and/or ideas as one's own. There are many times when a word-for-word copy would be perfectly appropriate, or even preferable, such as a definition (especially a long or technical one), a direct quote, or a set of statistics.

Why are Plagiarism Detection Services Bad?

This distinction is important to remember because many plagiarism detection services can only detect blatant word-for-word copies of text and don't take those nuances into account when looking at a block of text. Services like Copyscape and Plagium would say that most of the above paragraph is plagiarism, despite the fact that I attributed the definition, quoted the definition (showing that I didn't write those words and that I am 'quoting' someone else), and provided a link to the exact web page I found the definition.

The word-for-word copy also doesn't account for another form of plagiarism: taking another's idea without attribution. I can take someone's public policy idea, change around enough words to pass these services, and then write about the idea as if I came up with it all on my own. It's also possible to pass these services by changing every third or fourth word, so with plagiarism detection services, it's important to exercise human judgement and intuition when evaluating an article. It's also important to let your writer's know that passing these services isn't enough, and ought to know the difference as well.

In our next post, we'll offer a few ways to catch plagiarism. In the meantime, you need to exercise your judgement by knowing that needs to be credited and what doesn't. Knowing this will make easier to

What Needs, and Doesn't Need, Credit or Attribution

Here, then, is a brief list from the Purdue Online Writing Lab of what needs to be credited or documented:

• Words or ideas presented in a magazine, book, newspaper, song, TV program, movie, Web page, computer program, letter, advertisement, or any other medium
• Information you gain through interviewing or conversing with another person, face to face, over the phone, or in writing
• When you copy the exact words or a unique phrase
• When you reprint any diagrams, illustrations, charts, pictures, or other visual materials
• When you reuse or repost any electronically-available media, including images, audio, video, or other media

Things that don't need documentation or credit, also taken from the Purdue Online Writing Lab's page on plagiarism, include:

• Writing your own lived experiences, your own observations and insights, your own thoughts, and your own conclusions about a subject
• When you are writing up your own results obtained through lab or field experiments
• When you use your own artwork, digital photographs, video, audio, etc.
• When you are using "common knowledge," things like folklore, common sense observations, myths, urban legends, and historical events (but not historical documents)
• When you are using generally-accepted facts, e.g., pollution is bad for the environment, including facts that are accepted within particular discourse communities, e.g., in the field of composition studies, "writing is a process" is a generally-accepted fact.

How News Websites and Online Publications Can Do SEO

Search engine optimization isn't just for businesses. If you want your content to get found online (which would include news websites and online publications, then you do need to think about SEO practices. Although you won't be implementing the exact same tactics as a company website, there are ways you can do SEO as well so that your articles show up on Google News and in general search engine rankings. Here's how news websites and online publications can do SEO:

In the Title, Put the Keyword First

Search engines actually give preference to pages with a page title that starts with the keyword of phrase. For example, if you're writing an article about a cookie dough recipe, then you have more SEO potential if the title is something like, "Cookie Dough Recipe: 10 Easy Steps", or "Cookie Dough Recipe: A Christmas Must-Have".

It's also important to make sure that your article titles are clear and specific. This actually helps SEO, rather than hurting it, because you can then target a much more specific keyword (one that has less traffic, but could generate higher quality traffic). So, even though "cookie dough recipe" is search-engine friendly, it's not all that specific and isn't enough to generate interest in potential readers. Using an example like one of those above, or finding a way to expand it so that it is more specific, is much more beneficial.

Think About All Aspects of SEO

SEO is much more than keywords within the article or title, but it's also about the user experience and some of the technical aspects. This includes proper formatting, optimizing photos, including meta descriptions, and writing long, quality content (200-word posts don't quite cut it anymore, in case you didn't know). Those tend to be aspects that news websites and online publications can miss because the emphasis on creating content, but not thinking about proper formatting, or not optimizing pictures and photos, can hurt an article's chances for ranking. SEO best practices are changing regularly, so if you intend on using search engines and/or Google News as a way to bring traffic to your site, then keeping up with them would be wise.

Don't Forget Categories and Tags

This is something online publications and news websites sometimes forget about since they are too focused on creating content on a regular pace. That's a good thing, but you do want to label each article with appropriate and search-friendly categories and tags as well. There are a few reasons for this:

1. Every time you create a new category or tag, a new page is created that indexes everything with that category or tag. So, if you create a category or tag that is a keyword or phrase, it's something that can rank on the search engines.
2. Keeping these organized and fresh shows that you, as a news website or online publication, is paying attention and understands their value. This will set you apart from those that don't pay attention.
3. Besides a search bar, categories and tags are the only other way for visitors to find articles on your site about a particular topic. Improve the user experience of your site by having clear and organized categories and tags.

Don't go overboard with these on an article either. We recommend no more than three categories per article, and no more than eight or 10 tags. Keep categories in check as well. There's no need to have hundreds

Related Links:

How to Determine What Your Audience Needs to Know

3 Big Principles for Media Creators

Why Bloggers Can't Say Whatever They Want, Whenever They Want

5 Ways to Maintain an Awesome Social Media Presence

Just like with any other type of brand or business, a blog or online publication needs a great social media presence in order to build a solid audience. You can't rely on great content and SEO to get you there, as you need to amplify your content through social media. If you need help building and maintaining a presence your audience will love, here are five ways you can maintain an awesome social media presence for your blog or online publication:

Don't Just Share Your Own Content

I know, I know, you built a social media presence for your blog or online publication to bring people to your own content. We're not saying you shouldn't share your own content. We're saying variety is the spice of social media, and that it's totally okay, even beneficial, to share something other than your latest articles. You could share insights or statistics that you audience could find interesting. You could ask them a question, or have them fill in a blank in a sentence. You could even share articles from a partner site or something that you read that day that you found interested. Just because you're sharing something other than your content doesn't necessarily mean that you're driving people away.

Do Share Things Regularly

The last thing you want to do is create your profiles and have them collect dust. Even if you only blog once a week, make an effort to share something on social media at least twice a week. It shouldn't be too difficult to find content to share if you're publishing every day or multiple times a day, but with that it can be hard to find the time to post. Use tools like Hootsuite or Facebook's scheduling tool to have things post while you're away, or make it a point to share something as soon as its published.

Tip: Take this one step further by doing more than just posting the link. You could either add something to the link, like a question or a hint as to what the article's about to get folks interested in reading it. You could also post the article as a picture, instead of a link, since pictures have been found to garner more clicks than links.

Fill in All the Blanks

Make sure to fill in all the form fields for any social media profile, or at least all the ones that apply. We grant that as a blog or online publication, you might not have hours of operation or an "industry", but that doesn't mean the email or the description should be left blank either. Filling in all the blanks does more than inform your readers, but it also makes your profile look cared for, as if you took the time to put together that presence and think about what you want to present, instead of something you slapped together because you were told that you needed a Facebook page or a Twitter feed.

Make Your Content Easy to Share

Every single article should have social media sharing! How do you expect people to read your content, and to widen your audience, if you don't make it easy for your current readers to share your articles with their network? Too many blogs and online publications for get this one. You don't have to include all the social networks (it's recommended that you don't either), so at the very least include Facebook, Twitter, and email. You might want Pinterest if you're a fashion or lifestyle blog, and perhaps LinkedIn if you are a business or industry online publication.

What else is required for an awesome social media presence? What do you do to maintain your social networks? Let us know in the comments!