SEO Writing: Tips to Boost Your Story’s Reach
If you’ve ever written for the online environment, chances are you have been asked these questions: How many clicks did your article get? How did your piece rank in searches?
Many of us writers and content developers were taught to focus on the message and build on that core concept, hoping the beauty or usefulness of the idea will carry it through to the intended audience regardless of the clutter along the way. While that strategy surely has its share of success, in the online universe focusing on the message alone has ceased to be enough.
For your article to reach a larger audience and have a stronger impact, it has to rank high for a keyword or phrase search input. Studies have shown most Internet users do not browse past the first page of search results, so not showing up on the top of the list lowers your chances of getting new customers on-board or promoting your new products a bit more strongly.
This is where SEO comes in. SEO means search engine optimization, an approach to writing or developing content to improve a website’s rating on an Internet search and its page rank compared to related websites. Writing with SEO in mind, therefore, boosts a website’s visibility on major search engines such as Google and helps broaden your content’s reach.
But how exactly is this done?
Continue reading “SEO Writing: Tips to Boost Your Story’s Reach”One Year in Quarantine: Musings and Learnings
Sitting at my workstation waiting for the coffee to finish brewing while starting my laptop for work, I think about how much life has changed though it seemed the same. We’d go about our day as before — meet deadlines at work, look after our family, walk or run or do a few minutes of yoga or Zumba some days of the week, catch up with friends and other loved ones — and yet, all these we do now on a different plane.
Continue reading “One Year in Quarantine: Musings and Learnings”When the World Paused
Taking a time out is not something new to many of us. It’s certainly not something new to me. I’ve made it a practice to pause once in a while. You know, step out of the little bubble we’ve created and take stock of what we do or not do, where we fail or need to do better, what else needs to be done, how all these relate to the bigger picture. As we’ve been told several times when we were younger, one needs to be silent from time to time to be able to listen to the other things not spoken or not said too loudly. Pretty much like walking slowly sometimes to be able to smell the flowers.
The pause of these past months is a totally different story, however. Not only was it a pause imposed on us at a time we didn’t expect but it was also something we had no control over. We had no idea how long it would take and until now, we don’t know how long we will have to stay indoors and limit our exposure outside. As much as some of us may thrive in the short pauses life allows now and then, this pause caused by the pandemic is far from being reinvigorating.
Continue reading “When the World Paused”Shifting to the New Normal: Changing Perspectives and Behaviors
What have we been doing these past two and a half months in restricted living? How is quarantine life changing us? How ready are we to go out there again?
Having more free time than usual is certainly getting us doing more thinking and asking, yes, than usual. When done with WFH duties, in between Skype, Viber or Zoom meetings, after exercising, meditating, reading, gardening, writing, binge watching and all the other new hobbies we’ve developed, we find our thoughts moving to all sorts of directions and raising questions, mainly about what life would be after quarantine. These random thoughts attack with more intensity on weekends and all chores are done and we just sit in front of the TV or computer counting the hours away.
Riding the roller coaster of thoughts and emotions while stuck at home, we’ve certainly realized the advantages and disadvantages of this temporary quarantine life. Even as we get bored or feel anxious about our health and finances, we have more time for ourselves and with family. We are able to catch up on things and activities we have put on the backburner for so long. We can think more about our plans for the future: Students can think about what they really want to do. Young professionals can reflect on where they want to take their career and how. Businesses and organizations can assess their strengths and weaknesses and start working on whatever necessary changes they need to secure long-term viability.
But then our thoughts turn again to when returning to normal would be, if at all. When all this is over, how different would post-lockdown life be?
Continue reading “Shifting to the New Normal: Changing Perspectives and Behaviors”The PRemise: How Do We Communicate Through a Crisis?
In today’s plugged-in world, communication during a crisis has taken on a different degree of urgency, meaning and function, and so providing a peek into an organization’s strength or weakness. With the internet and social media fast-tracking the transfer and sharing of news and providing a platform by which people can articulate their opinion on most things, organizations big and small are finding it imperative to be able to respond quickly and appropriately lest they risk compromising their reputation and business.
A crisis can take many forms. It can be a result of natural causes such as those caused by an earthquake or similar other natural disasters. A crisis may also be financial in scope or technological, with the latter involving cybersecurity threats, loss of database information and related matters. It can be an unprecedented health or medical scare.
No matter the cause or scope, a well-thought out communication and management plan will see an organization or business through a crisis. Responses may differ depending on the circumstances, but let’s look at some general guidelines on what to do to pull through.
Continue reading “The PRemise: How Do We Communicate Through a Crisis?”