Janet Johnson | The Art of Marketing

In a great new rebrand of his blog, my friend Lee Aase in MN has created Social Media University, Global, SMUG.  He writes and speaks a lot about blogging and PR, as do I.  I highly recommend those interested in learning from a master practitioner about subjects near and dear to my heart: subscribe via RSS to Lee’s blog.

Yes, he talks about RSS for PR pros, too! He’s even covered Attensa in a Social Media 102 course recently.

What I like about Lee’s style is that he explains information in a nice, factual, easy going way.  (Sometimes I feel like a big whiner when blathering on, so you’ll get a nice, enjoyable, level-headed perspective from Lee.)  Enjoy the lessons.

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It seems I’m on a bit of a tear about CMS this morning - content management systems. I feel as if I have a right to preach from the soapbox I’m stand on, having led marketing efforts for two software companies with CMS products - one that blazed trails in the Web 2.0 space before we knew what that meant…

Anyway, over on Information Week’s Content Management blog, George Dearing has an interesting post describing how Web 2.0 technologies like blogs, RSS and Social Networks are impacting CMS systems. Some excerpts to ponder:

Blogs: “If you’re a CMS vendor and you don’t have a blogging strategy, I’d suggest you find a new product manager or head of strategic alliances…. blogs have spoiled us in a good way. Users now demand complete control and administrative flexibility over the content they use throughout their business.“

(JJ: my blog is my web site - and many businesses are beginning to use blogging software to drive their web sites with great success!)

RSS: “ Another one of the underpinnings of Web 2.0, RSS, also is having significant impact on content management. For some, just grappling with the fact that users now have the ability to essentially opt-in or out of their Web site content is downright scary.”

(JJ: As I’ve noted before, and commented on his post: with RSS, words need to represent your brand more tightly and with more impact than ever before. When uncoupled from intensive graphics (in some RSS readers like Google’s) the words themselves must be compelling enough to want to read more. With managed RSS systems like Attensa’s, you can get YouTube videos, full HTML graphics and other rich content delivered within your feeds, if you want them. But as marketers, just assume your words still must compel action, and you’ll have a leg up on your competition.)

Social Networking Software: “More and more, our personal information stored in our Web community is being mashed up with our corporate data;, giving our colleagues a sense of our true identity. Again, if you’re in the content management space and aren’t acutely aware of the SoNet effect, you’ve been warned.”

(JJ: What I’d like to see is a super CMS system that could help me manage all of my SoNet content, all from one dashboard, all at once…)

George’s bottom line summed it up perfectly for me:

“Maybe what’s most notable is how Web 2.0 has raised the bar for a few of the things we should all demand more often — ease of use and flexibility.”

<full disclosure: Attensa is a client of mine, and I’m quite proud of their products.>

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I met with a friend yesterday to talk about simple ways to optimize a web site for search engines. He’s using a homegrown CMS (define) tool to manage content, and the guys who developed it did a great job on the interface, but left out a very important tool to improve search visibility for spiders and the people who search online - the ability to manage Title Tags.

In an excellent, descriptive Why use title tags? post over on Search Engine Watch, Carrie Hill uses pictures to illustrate the importance of them:

In this illustration:

1. Shows an unoptimized title - and Carrie says:
   “I can’t tell you how many Web sites I visit with the page name or title as “home” or “prices.” What a horrible missed opportunity to use some great keyword phrases to rank your page for something that will actually sell your product.I don’t think someone searching for “home” will want to buy pizza. So why optimize your page for the term “home?”
2. Shows a word list - “Spamalicious,” she notes:
   “Great — a bunch of lower case words about pizza. This doesn’t do anything but tell the search engines you’re trying really hard to rank for a variety of terms related to pizza.The first keyword is “pizza” — there are 134 million people competing for that term in Google. How many of those are your target audience? I’d guess about half of one percent.Put a location qualifier next to your keyword phrase if you rely on a local market…. many small business Web site owners miss the fact that not only is your page title a great way to tell the search engines what your page is about — it’s ad copy.”
3. Shows an optimized title tag:
   “This style is my personal favorite and very similar to how I write title tags for my clients and my own Web sites.”

Marketers can do some very simple things to boost the effectiveness of their web sites. Creating optimized title tags is one very effective way to make your site more relevant to spiders and the people you’re spending so much money trying to attract.

In this case, we need to enlighten ourselves so we can enlighten the folks who write the tools we use to manage our sites.

Your next question to your CMS provider should be:

“Can we punch a hole in this thing so I can add my own title tags? Get it on your list, please…”

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The guys over at SEMpdx know how to engage and reward the speakers for their upcoming SEM conference - by giving them “airtime” on their blog. My interview was posted over there this morning, thanks to Todd Mintz. I was a bit rushed, however, I didn’t put a link to my own blog in the whole thing.

So much for do as I say, not as I do… Sheesh.

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I just started off my last two posts with “in a hilarious post…”

Lame.  Shame. Blech.

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