News

Using OpenCalais to offer 'More Like This' blocks

Posted Thu, 01/14/2010 - 11:43am by Ben

One of the ways that search engines determines the relevance of a piece of content to a particular topic is where it links to and which pages link to it. For example, real estate and mortgages are related in Google because a lot of realtors link to mortgage companies and vice versa.

A More Like This block shows your visitors more content that is similar to what is being displayed on the page. This is not only good to increase the amount of time visitors spend on your site, but it's also a great way to tell Google what content is related.

Using OpenCalais' bulk processing to tag existing content

Posted Wed, 01/13/2010 - 3:14pm by Ben

Chances are, you have read a piece of content on a web site and seen a section that suggests other pages with similar content. OpenCalais can even create this organization retroactively. Maybe you've got a site with a lot of content already. You can use OpenCalais' Bulk Processing to go through your site and create tags for each piece of content. This is a very quick way to organize your content, you just need to carry out the following steps:

Installing OpenCalais To Organize Your Site

Posted Tue, 01/12/2010 - 11:23am by Ben

It takes two different modules and an extra download to get OpenCalais working. It’s not difficult, though. Just carry out the following steps:

1. Firstly, install the modules by carrying out the following steps:

Download the Resource Description Framework (RDF) module from http://www.drupal.org/project/rdf and install it just like a normal Drupal module. However, do not enable it until you’ve finished Step 2 and have installed ARC 2 RDF classes for PHP.

Use OpenCalais to organize content

Posted Mon, 01/11/2010 - 3:53pm by Ben

As you and other people begin to create content for your site, things might begin to get organizationally challenged. Maybe you have lots of different pages of content, but no categories to organize them. It would take days to go back and tag everything that has been created. Fortunately, for Drupalers around the globe, there is a automated solution called OpenCalais (AKA Calais) that will do the heavy lifting for you.

• OpenCalais reads the content of your nodes, as you create them, or in bulk.

• OpenCalais uses some amazing analysis to create tags for your content

A Guide To Safely Removing Content

Posted Fri, 12/18/2009 - 9:46am by Ben

Not all content is good content. There will come a time when you want to take something off of your site. If you want to be friendly with the search engines, don't just unpublish the node. Search engines are crawling through your site on a regular basis and assigning value to each page. If you delete a page, you're just throwing that value away which is a loss for your site.

Take the time to do it right and you can redirect all of the search engine goodness that your page carries to another page on your site, or even to another web site entirely.

How To Knock Out a Week’s Worth of Blog Posts in One Day

Posted Wed, 12/16/2009 - 11:14am by Ben

If you are like most people and have more than enough to do during the week, the prospects of blogging every day can be, well unrealistic. However, there are ways that you can pack a week’s worth of blog posts into one day. First, block out a time one day a week to knock them out. Compile ideas through the week and come into that day ready to rock. Next, set up the Scheduler module and forget about it. Here’s how:

1. Download the Scheduler module from http://drupal.org/project/scheduler and install it just like any other module.

What’s My Inspiration

Posted Fri, 12/11/2009 - 9:58am by Ben

Stuck in a rut? Have a blog post you just can’t pound out? When I get stuck, I work down this list until I find something I want to write about.

•Google News
•Google Alerts
•The Daily Beast
•Print magazines
•TV
•Radio
•Other blogs
•http://www.Drupal.org
•Drupal Planet
•Emails I have received.
•Questions a customer asked me.
•Write an update of an old post. Recycle baby!
•Read through the comments of my previous posts.
•Examine the pros and cons of an issue, topic, update, upgrade, and so on.

How To Win Friends and Influence People (With Your Content)

Posted Wed, 12/09/2009 - 10:51am by Ben

Personality

Be yourself. After all, you are unique, just like everyone else, so it should come as no surprise that there are other people who will relate to you. When you infuse your writing with your personality, you would be surprised at how you resonate with other people.

Write like you talk

Finding Your Muse: Inspiration For Writing

Posted Mon, 12/07/2009 - 10:59am by Ben

As a writer, rule of thumb number one is do not plagiarize. It is elementary. Yet, there isn’t a writer alive who hasn’t read the good material that other people have written and used the interesting tidbits from another writer to launch into a great idea of their own. Of course, if you use a significant part of someone’s ideas, you better credit them. This inspiration from other writers is an integral part of the creative process.

Stay Current With Google News Alerts

Posted Fri, 12/04/2009 - 1:37pm by Ben

Keeping your web site fresh with interesting content can be a challenge. After all, once you have added most of your general content to the site, what else do you write about? One of the best ways to add new content to your web site is by staying abreast on timely news related to your industry. Either by linking to, responding to, or reporting upon news is a great way for your site to remain fresh and relevant. The best way to stay up to date with the news and get a steady stream of ideas to write about is by setting up a Google News Alert.

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