CPU No.9: Jakob's "law," keywords in URLs, and other website navigation myths
SEO mythbusting, refining an approach to organizational style guides, and benchmarking website engagement metrics
Content Pros Update is a free, monthly recap newsletter of all goings-on from The Content Technologist. It is distributed on Substack, Medium, LinkedIn Newsletters, and to monthly subscribers of The Content Technologist on roughly the third Tuesday of every month.
Virtual event next week
Tackling the knowledge graph: Structuring content for AI
On Wednesday, June 26 (U.S.) and Thursday, June 27 (Australia), I'll be speaking with We Are Content Strategy in Melbourne, Australia. Register below, and catch me at the following local times:
9:00AM Melbourne time on June 27
6:00PM North American Central time on June 26
4:00PM North American Pacific time on June 26
Course preview: SEO myths (and why building for how audiences first matters)
Our new course to help you conquer the algorithms, Your Content Is Your Marketing, will be released at the end of the month.
In lieu of a short, social media-ready commercial spot, here is the third lesson, published in full, with professional opinions loud and clear. If more of this is your thing, preorder the full course. Prices go up when it's released on June 30.
Additional housekeeping
The Content Technologist homepage and navigational pages have been refreshed. Check 'em out.
What's Good?: A forever portal to submit your favorite links.
If newsletters are the new blogs, Meco is the new catchall reader app.
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From the weekly newsletter
What's a good website engagement benchmark? How to add sophistication to your content measurement approach
"Content measurement, when executed with a dose of sophistication, provides the quantifiable insights needed to prove exactly how quality digital content is making a business impact."
Read the full piece on content measurement
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Two tools—one automated, one human—to guide content style across any organization
"Being somewhat stylish, overachieving, cynical, and pretentious, I wished I could edit the books for actual style, interrogate the prose, manipulate the syntax, massage the chapters, and collaborate with the author.
"Instead, I holed up in an attic office hastily remedying the errors of an author who managed to spell the word the word "tomato" about eight different ways in a single 30,000-word manuscript, and not once correctly. We only had about three days for each book-length copy edit; there was no way I was asking this author anything except whether she wanted to preserve her vernacular while remaining consistent throughout with the alternate spelling 'tomater.'
When I see how computers, calculators made of 0s and 1s, interpret style in writing, their results look a lot like the edits I made in that first copy editing job: enforcing a set of rules for consistency but not necessarily readability or nuanced style."
Read the full piece: Two tools—one automated, one human—to guide content style across any organization
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The Content Technologist is a newsletter and consultancy based in Minneapolis, working with clients and collaborators around the world. The entire newsletter is written and edited by Deborah Carver, independent content strategy consultant, speaker, and educator.
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Cultural recommendations / personal social: Spotify | Instagram | Letterboxd | PI.FYI