Jeremy
February 2nd, 2006, 05:29 PM
Learn how to maximize your readership in ONE easy step!
How often do you stumble upon a news aggregation web site? Chances are, it's often. Many news web sites, portals, blogs, and the like don't actually have original content. They are simply aggregators of other people's content, usually based upon a theme. A good example of a news aggregation site would be Google news. Google doesn't actually write news articles, rather they pull from other news sites like MSNBC, CNN, FoxNews, etc. Usually a news article on Google news or a smiliar site is a brief summary of the original article (the first few lines of the article) with a link to the full article.
So, what does this mean to someone like you or me when writing web pages for the web and hoping to get as large of a readership as possible? It means a lot actually.
Most aggregators are robots independent of human editorship. While not all robots are the same, they do have one thing in common that we can exploit. That is, I've yet to meet a robot that pulls from the bottom of the deck. Nearly all human independent robots pull the first paragraph or so of the document. Surprisingly, even when a human is posting links to articles, they often follow the same trend. That first paragraph of your article is gold.
When writing for the web, you should try to make the first paragraph of your article as interesting as possible. You should also try to add something that will spark their interest enough to actually click the link. Another well documented trend in web reading is that most people scan an article before they commit to reading. If your first paragraph is a good summary of the rest of the article, and contains something to catch the reader's interest, chances are higher that they will stick around to read the rest.
So you're not a news reporter. You're just creating a personal site. No matter, you can benefit from this exploit as well. When your site is picked up by search engines, what does the search engine show? You guessed it, the first few lines. Say some real reporter, or even a blogger, happens upon your site and likes your ideas. What do they copy and paste? Usually the first few lines. Also, you'd be surprised at how many niche aggregators there are. Say your site doesn't deal with national news, but rather reviews of your favorite wines. Some crazy niche search engine like Wineoogle (not real to my knowledge) may just be interested in you.
Don't take my word for it though, follow up and check for yourself. Nearly every major news site has their articles beginning with a paragraph, usually in bold, that provides a summary of the article and something designed to catch your interest.
Write on!
How often do you stumble upon a news aggregation web site? Chances are, it's often. Many news web sites, portals, blogs, and the like don't actually have original content. They are simply aggregators of other people's content, usually based upon a theme. A good example of a news aggregation site would be Google news. Google doesn't actually write news articles, rather they pull from other news sites like MSNBC, CNN, FoxNews, etc. Usually a news article on Google news or a smiliar site is a brief summary of the original article (the first few lines of the article) with a link to the full article.
So, what does this mean to someone like you or me when writing web pages for the web and hoping to get as large of a readership as possible? It means a lot actually.
Most aggregators are robots independent of human editorship. While not all robots are the same, they do have one thing in common that we can exploit. That is, I've yet to meet a robot that pulls from the bottom of the deck. Nearly all human independent robots pull the first paragraph or so of the document. Surprisingly, even when a human is posting links to articles, they often follow the same trend. That first paragraph of your article is gold.
When writing for the web, you should try to make the first paragraph of your article as interesting as possible. You should also try to add something that will spark their interest enough to actually click the link. Another well documented trend in web reading is that most people scan an article before they commit to reading. If your first paragraph is a good summary of the rest of the article, and contains something to catch the reader's interest, chances are higher that they will stick around to read the rest.
So you're not a news reporter. You're just creating a personal site. No matter, you can benefit from this exploit as well. When your site is picked up by search engines, what does the search engine show? You guessed it, the first few lines. Say some real reporter, or even a blogger, happens upon your site and likes your ideas. What do they copy and paste? Usually the first few lines. Also, you'd be surprised at how many niche aggregators there are. Say your site doesn't deal with national news, but rather reviews of your favorite wines. Some crazy niche search engine like Wineoogle (not real to my knowledge) may just be interested in you.
Don't take my word for it though, follow up and check for yourself. Nearly every major news site has their articles beginning with a paragraph, usually in bold, that provides a summary of the article and something designed to catch your interest.
Write on!