President’s Message

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I’ve been a writer for years and years; everything from newspaper articles to full-length books. (Do a search for my name sometime in Amazon.) One thing that I’ve learned in all that time is that writing for the Internet is different than any other type of writing you can do.

Don’t get me wrong–writers always need to be concerned about such fundamentals as audience, tone, level, and person. They also need to be concerned about organization and approach to the subject at hand. But the thing that makes successful Internet writing different is that writers need to be mostly concerned with focus. Each article written for the Internet needs to have a tighter focus than anything written for the off-line world.

How is that focus implemented? Through the identification of a keyword or phrase that represents the target of your writing. Once you know that, you need to make sure that your writing keeps circling around that keyword or phrase, using it in natural ways that are recognized by both the reader and search engines.

Because of this need for tight focus, not all writers are successful in plying their craft on the Internet. (Where success is measured by the ability of search engines to recognize the focus of a piece of writing and the resultant ability of searchers to find that writing.) Writers need to give conscious thought to what focus they will be using, and let it affect every other aspect of their writing.

If you are concerned about how successful your writing is for the Internet, the More Good Foundation can help. We can examine your articles and give you feedback on how well you are doing at meeting the requirements of “tight focus.” If you’d like some assistance, let me know; drop me a line at awyatt@moregoodfoundation.org.

In that same regard, I’m quite excited about our upcoming Webmaster’s Roundtable, which will be held on Thursday, February 16. This meeting will feature the comments of Tom Dalton, Director of Consulting Services at 10X Marketing (recently acquired by Innuity). Tom will be leading a hands-on discussion of a how to optimize Web pages and sites. I’ve had a preview of what Tom will be discussing, and trust me–you won’t want to miss it! Tom has proven, concrete ways to make sure your pages are noticed by the search engines for the best ranking possible. Come with your questions; Tom will have answers borne from years of getting the best results for his clients.

As mentioned, the Webmaster’s Roundtable be on February 16, starting promptly at 4:00 pm. The meeting will be on the BYU campus; we are still trying to nail down the exact location. We’ll send a special notice to you when we have that detail secured. I hope to see you there!