Basic HTML for journalists VIDEO

Every journalist who has to put copy online should have some basic knowledge of HTML code - even if it's just knowing the correct tag for creating a hyperlink or bold text.

This video by jimmyrcom takes things a little further and not only looks at HTML but also CSS.

Even though most online journalists and editors won't need to know too much about this, as everything is done for them by their CMS (content management system), I think it's still useful to know some of the fundamentals of how a website is put together.

New PhotoActive site - personal plug!

Please excuse the plug - but as part of my expanding web management portfolio I’ve just re-launched the PhotoActive website for former Sunday Times photographer Philip Dunn.

We’ve completely changed the look of the website, www.photoactive.co.uk, and it now has a blog and forum integrated into it, as well as a far clearer navigational system.

We’ve set up various affiliate packages with companies such as Amazon and Waterstones – which are now bringing in a steady additional revenue.

Much to Philip Dunn’s delight we’ve also slashed the amount of spam he is getting, but still managed to simplify how potential customers contact him.

Of course, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and what matters to Philip is an increase in the number of visitors to www.photoactive.co.uk, leading to a greater number customers buying his photography DVDs and signing up for his photography courses and holidays.

Well, so far so good.

Careful search engine friendly tweaking of Philip’s online copy and a bit of ‘under the hood’ work has helped the site move up the Google rankings for all of the keywords and phrases we decided on.

And despite the fact the site has only been live in its present format for a few weeks, the forum even less, we’ve already more than quadrupled the average number of visitors and Philip says he’s seen a definite spike in sales. Not bad considering we’re in a recession.

Of course the whole site is still a work in progress and there's loads more ideas and improvements still to make - so if you've got any ideas then let me have them!

As many of you will be able to tell we used the magnificent Wordpress as the site’s content management system and I’ll go through some of the process about setting in it up, including the plugins we used and various modifications we made, in future posts.

If you’re interested in talking to me about any aspects of web management for your business then just drop me a line by contacting me through the blog or emailing cdunn09 AT googlemail DOT com

Adding Google Friend Connect to Blogger

After a few minutes playing around I've found out how to add Google Friend Connect to my blog on Google's Blogger site.

It was really simple after I found this video on http://googlingsocial.com explaining that you don't have to use the code that Google says to add to your site - as it's already on your Blogger site.




For my Blogger template I changed the width to 200 pixels and the height to 345 pixels - though I might alter this to make it a little shorter.

Google Friend Connect has been out for a while now and has been popping up on a number of blogs and websites.

Like many things I come across on the web, I know that it could be a really powerful tool for online journalism and for promoting businesses on the web , but only if I can figure out how to make the most of it.

Now it's on my blog I'm going to have a play with it and see how I can adapt it for our newspaper site.

Where have all the newspapers gone?

Walking into a major newsagent-type store in Chester I was amazed to find that the large newspaper stand had disappeared.

In Chester’s WHSmith there used to be a newspaper stand with all the major nationals and regionals, plus a host of specialist and foreign titles, slap-bang in the middle of the store as soon as you walked through the doors.

Now though, it’s been replaced with promotional stands for mobile phones.

You have to walk past these and the aisles of magazines before you get to the papers now.

I don’t know the reason for this change in shop layout, but the front of any store has got to be a very important location for drawing in shoppers and selling products.

Maybe moving a newspaper stand away from this prime location is a sign of the times – people are buying less newspapers.

Perhaps WHSmith's newspaper stand is not working as it once did, an easy money maker encouraging people into the store, so they’ve moved it further back.

And looking at the latest ABC figures, it makes you wonder if newspapers will one day be sold only in specialist shops, like vinyl, VHS videos and the soon to be obsolete-CD.

Articles on writing for the web - a journalist's guide

I was asked to put together a couple of articles on 'writing for the web' by Journalism.co.uk

The emphasis of these was not the very technical SEO (search engine optimisation) side of things, but on the practical skills and techniques the average reporter, or online editor, needs to make sure their stories are found by interested internet surfers- and then actually read.

By interested readers I mean people who are going to be genuinely interested the content of your online article. Not those who have been persuaded into coming to your website because you've managed to cram Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, Britney Spears, naked and sex all in the first paragraph.

Or 42DD breasts which seems to be how many people find my blog after an earlier article I wrote. They must be very disappointed.

Here are the articles which appeared on Journalism.co.uk

How to write for the web (part 1)

How to write for the web (part 2)

Evening Leader's UFO spotters' map

The Evening Leader's UFO spotters' map has hit the headlines.

Well, it's been mentioned in holdthefrontpage.co.uk and journalism.co.uk.

Basically, I used the site Dipity.com to create a timeline and map of all the recent UFO sightings our newspaper has received. Then I embedded the widget Dipity provides on a custom page on our site.

I been aware that other news sites have been using Dipity for a while, but to be honest I only went and had a look at myself the other day.

It seems to work really well for what I want it to and I expect it can do loads more once you start playing with it.

The mapping system works really well in this case for our UFO spotters, and I think the ability to plot stories on a timeline will be useful if we want to show how an ongoing story has developed.

CLICK HERE for the link to our Dipity UFO widget


Please feel free to follow Christian Dunn on Twitter, www.twitter.com/christiandunn

New Sky News website

It's been a while now since Sky relaunched their news site, but I have to admit I'm very unimpressed.

I know the new Sky News website is supposed to be full of new features, making it easier for viewers to comment on stories and such like.

But that doesn't take away from the fact it doesn't look very good.

In fact I kept refreshing my browser thinking there was a bug on their page it looked that bad.

What's with the massive font size? It looks really dated already.

I much preferred Sky News' old website. It was simple and always looked like there was loads of content on there.

Sorry Sky, I still think you're the best at breaking and developing news stories though!

Follow Christian Dunn on Twitter at www.twitter.com/christiandunn