December 5 Web Content Management conference

I'm leading off the conference with a three-hour seminar: Develop a solid content strategy -- and ensure your site delivers. Here's the description:

Until recently, content has been a hugely undervalued asset within organizations. What really makes or breaks a successful website? Quality content.

It's time organizations take their online strategies to a new level -- and formalize the processes for publishing and developing content. In this session, Hilary Marsh will show you how to develop a strategy that will formalize what you do and guarantee bottom-line results. You'll learn what makes an effective content strategy, including:

• Why content matters -- and the risks of not managing it
  
  
• How to conduct a content/site management assessment and establish a benchmark that will identify new opportunities and potential risks
  
  
• Tips and techniques for developing an effective plan for your site, including writing guidelines and governance
  
  
• How to determine if you need a content management system -- and the key steps to consider before you start your vendor selection process.
  
  
• Measurement tools and best practices you can put in place immediately to track your site's success

Marsh will give you the tools and resources required to take your site to the next level and not only measure, but justify, your site and your role more effectively than ever before.

Interested in attending? See if there's still space available.

August 23 Ragan teleseminar -- Writing for Search: How to improve your changes of being found online

Customers are out there, looking for you. They're ready to buy the products you offer, read your material, contact you or join your organization. But if your Web site does little more than describe who you are, consider those customers someone else's.

Indeed, Internet users rely on search engines to find what they're looking for—and if your site isn't easy to find, they're likely to go somewhere else. In this important teleseminar, you'll learn that search engine optimization goes well beyond developing keywords in your meta tags and link exchange programs.

Ranking well across the Web's search engines requires identifying what words people rely on to describe you and your products—and incorporating those terms into your site's content. Join nationally recognized speaker and consultant Hilary Marsh to learn how to do just that, and explore the following:

• The importance of meta tags, page descriptions and other keyword tagging required for search engine optimization
  
• How links play a role in your site's ranking across search engines
  
• Key tools and research techniques to identify your audience's language and search behaviors for your specific industry and brand
  
• Tips and tactics to organize and manage your site for search
  
• Best practices for writing for search

This is one event you can't afford to miss—assuming you're ready for the increase in targeted traffic you'll get after following these steps.

Learn more and register

June 28 - Ragan Teleseminar

Online Press Rooms: What works—and doesn't—for journalists

Reporters don't have the time or the patience to look through your entire Web site to find a press contact, press release or news statement. And they shouldn't have to. This teleseminar highlights what to do to ensure your online pressroom meets journalists' needs.

Gather around the speakerphone and walk away with tips you can use immediately to transform your pressroom.

You will discover:

• What information is critical to any pressroom
  
• The 10 things that irritate reporters online
  
• Usability—what it is, how to get it and how to measure it
  
• The best ways to get feedback from reporters
  
• What every online press kit should include

As an added bonus, you'll also learn how to organize reporter-friendly content for your entire Web site.

Learn more, and register

May 11 - SNAP Lunch & Learn Prorgram

Don't Cannibalize: Complement! Web Sites and Print Publications
May Lunch & Learn Program from SNAP (Society for Nonprofit Association Publications)

Learn more and register

May 7 - Chicago Women in Publishing annual conference

Medium Matters: Shaping Content for Print & Web

As part of this daylong conference, I will be talking about how to translate a message from print to Web, team roles and responsibilities, communication issues, and the basic workflow involved.
Learn more and register

May 17 - "Content Matters," a morning seminar about content management

My talk:

What content management is, and why it matters
Your CEO doesn't wake up in the middle of the night wondering about your organization's content and why it's not being managed more effectively….or does she?

Why does a site need content management? If your site will be more than an expensive brochure, if it will be an essential tool for your business, it needs content management.

The risks of not managing your content

• your Web investment will be wasted
• your site's content will become stale and outdated
• your customers will continue to be dissatisfied, potential customers lost and employees in the dark

Why “easy page updates” are not true content management.

How to sell content management: Your website needs to be your organization's always-accessible public face and presence. If your content isn't managed, it cannot be that.

Get more details, and register!

April 26 - Association Forum Speed Learning

How Your Website Can Help Your Organization Be More Successful

Every organization has a website, but all too often that site is just an online brochure. The Web is a channel for communication, transaction and interaction; focusing on those goals, and developing a plan for each of them, will transform your site into a tool that helps your organization succeed.

• You will learn to make your website more strategic
• Your website will become more compelling to visitors
• You will learn how to ensure that the information on your website is found by the right people

See complete details and register.

April 11 - CM Pros Spring 2005 Summit

I will be leading a roundtable discussion:

Content strategy: What about the content in content management?

All too often, content management systems (CMSs) are chosen by technical people without a true understanding of how content works -- or doesn't work -- within the organization. Web content is often neglected and understaffed, ignoring the potential of the Web to become a critical channel in the strategic communication mix. Unstructured content, reuse, taxonomy, information architecture, workflow -- there are many terms in use that are related to content but that might not be understood by writers, editors or business subject matter experts who could contribute to the organization's online efforts. During this discussion, we will come to a common understanding of the gaps between how communicators talk and work, and common content management models. With understanding, we will be able to collaboratively develop a greater sense of ownership of our organization's content and the ways it is managed online.

Complete details on the summit.

April 11 - Gilbane Conference on Content Management Technologies

CM-1. Planning for a Content Management System
A content management system is a critical investment, especially since businesses need to integrate content management with other core business applications. This session will help you get started by providing guidance on how to determine the scope & purpose of a CMS, what types of CMSs are available, the trade-offs between building and buying, which organizations should be involved in choosing and owning a CMS, and how you should develop a list of requirements, questions, and a list of potential vendors.

• Hilary Marsh, President, The Content Company
  Content Strategy - The Essential Precursor to CMS


• Seth Earley, President, Earley & Assoc.,
  Top Ten Tips for an Effective Content Strategy

See full program