The document provides guidance on content strategy for online journalism. It discusses focusing content on audience interests through search engine optimization and curation. Key tips include using keywords in headlines and images, linking to other sources, and regularly creating high-quality, relevant content. Students are tasked with developing a content strategy that incorporates both traditional and new media styles and formats to engage and serve their audience. Planning content well in advance is emphasized as important for online journalism.

1. Content strategy - week 3
Magazine Journalism MA
City University, 25 October 2011

2. Think about what your audience likes
● People navigate the web through searching and
recommendation.
● That means you have to think about
○ a) How to appear in search engine results and
○ b) How to create stuff that people might recommend
○ c) How to write a content plan that consistently gives
your audience what it wants

3. Note on SEO (search engine optimisation)
● There are no tricks. There is no secret.
● There is no quick route to traffic.
● There are things that can help you, but
● The only thing that definitely works:
"Creating good quality, relevant stuff on
a regular basis and marketing it
properly"

4. But there are SEO tips:
● HEADLINES: Make sure the key word or phrase you are
writing about is in the headline
● INTRO: Put the thing you are writing about high up in the
story.
● PICTURES: Images really help SEO - make sure they are
tagged and captioned properly. This is just good practice
anyway.
● LINKS: Link to lots of different things, often. Encourage
others to link to you.

5. Task 1
Decide on at least 10 phrases or keywords
that relevant to your audience.
Quickly brainstorm the key phrases that sum up the sort
of content your network is likely to be searching for.
Don’t just go for obvious phrases.
Tip: use Google Insights for search to see related search terms

6. CONTENT CURATION
What is curation?
"Content Curation basically means that – out of all the content you find on the social
web – you pass on the most valuable stuff to your network."
It's passing on important, interesting links and stories to
your audience. Linking in stories, on twitter, on facebook... etc
BUT WHY???!!?!?!!
Increased relevance, increased audience, a bigger brand,
trust and the chance to build relationships with people

7. Task 2 - find links, share them
Think of what links from those sources may be
useful to your network, and...
● Share two now across a range of platforms.
Which ones suit Twitter? Facebook? A blog?
Tumblr? Why?
● How useful are those links? Do they help
establish your position as a source of useful
news and information? Or do you need to
work harder to find relevant information, and
be the first to share it?

8. What's the point of all this?
To do journalism, online.
The laws, standards and motivations are
exactly the same as any other medium

9. Task 3 - find a story, write it
● Find a question someone in your network has asked - which has
journalistic value.
● Try to answer it on an appropriate platform
● Edit it for the web - make sure there are links, and it’s SEO’d. Think about
the following:
○ Are you using subheadings to break it up? Are they helpful?
○ Can you edit the URL so that it contains key words that the article is
about?
○ What links can you add?
○ What about an image? Make sure it has a caption, title and
alternative description
○ Can you leave it open so people are more likely to comment?
● Don’t worry if you don’t get through all the above - but use your
independent study time to follow up on the ones you haven’t.

10. Content strategy - what to write
Traditional New media
News Data journalism
Analysis Inforgraphics
Interviews Video / Audio
Opinion Aggregation - rounding
things up in links
PLEASE NOTE: NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE

11. A NOTE ON PLANNING
PLANNING IS VERY IMPORTANT
● Have your next 3/4 articles planned
● Always be reading, making notes and tracking ideas
● Who are you going to interview next? When are they
available?
● Work with your colleagues - share ideas via email and
Google Docs

12. Task 4 - build a content strategy
Expand your draft strategy to outline how you might create a mix of
content for your users. Think about:
● What content saves or makes them time or money? (e.g.
tutorials, tips, briefings, etc.)
● What content might be socially valuable to them? (e.g. new and
newsworthy, unusual, funny, explainers, something they might
share)
● What content might be emotionally stimulating? (e.g.
entertaining, moving, scary, etc.)
This is the same process as any editorial meeting when you are bouncing story ideas back
and forth. Remember that these ideas should have journalistic value. However, they do
not need to use the traditional story format: they might involve live streaming, mapping,
liveblogging, or other formats.

13. Is there an editor in the house?
Appoint an editor for your project. They will be
needed to make a final decision on what content to
pursue, and to raise a voice when the site is
steering off course. It might be a permanent
position, or you may decide to rotate it.

14. WANT SOME MORE?
For stuff to do in your own time, how to set up analytics, how to
get into automated publishing and more...
Please see Paul's notes on this session (I do a slightly shorter
version in the slides, but with all the key bits left in)

15. bit.ly/psmithtwitterguide
(p.s. Bit.ly is a good way to shorten URLS)