In case you hadn’t noticed, Apple introduced a new product yesterday, the iPad. All kidding aside, it’s a tablet computer that has an iPhone-esque user interface.

There are many people who can tell you a lot more about the device than I can so I’m not going to waste time on that. Instead, I’m more interested in the market movement it’ll create.

Apple already has a strong position in digital music sales and that market is expected to only grow in the next few years. The company also offers more than 100,000 apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch in its App Store.

E-books and e-publications are the next big thing. The iPad gives Apple a form factor through which to sell more electronic content and the availability of wi-fi and 3G connectivity testify to that. Moreover, the screen is not e-ink (which is a downer for e-books) but it does allow the iPad to be a suitable video carrier/streamer.

In sum, the iPad is not Apple’s “most advanced technology in a magical & revolutionary device at an unbelievable price”. It is, however, a clever play to carve out a larger share in the content distribution market.

iLeave the comments to you.

Earlier this year, I experimented with a series of articles for SEO (search engine optimization) purposes on certain keywords, including my own name. I have to say that this experiment was wildly successful with highlights being:

• Ranking higher than a feature with a similar title on the New York Times website
• Increasing traffic up to 30-fold with a 30 day run-up

The key part of this experiment was to create content that will receive a decent number of inbound links (other sites linking to my website/article) which leads to better search engine rankings.

I’ve buried the experiment now, but I’ll share some of my findings with you here.

Topic

My topic of choice was the 2009 NFL Draft which was held in April. I counted down to the draft by writing a preview for each team during the 32 days before the draft. This gave me a nice temporary setting to experiment with as well as a run-up towards the draft so that my search engine rankings and traffic would peak during the draft days.

As a tip, I would focus on a topic that (1) enjoys great popularity; (2) is obscure and has a defined niche that will look for certain keywords; or (3) is a topic of interest that still requires (much) explanation/clarification.

Audience

I focused on football fans but tried to make it as accessible as possible. I used full names of coaches and players, and even appended positions to their names, e.g. HC Bill Belichick and QB Tom Brady. This helps fans of other teams read the references easier but still isn’t considered as low-level reading for more savvy fans.

The language was simple in the sense that it used the same terminology that fans were used to from other websites and television. I wanted to avoid “coach speak” since that’s complicated and obscure to quite a lot of people.

Finally, the tone was neutral. My articles were positioned as objective previews where each team received an equal amount of attention.

As a takeaway, I would recommend looking at other websites of the topic you’d like to write about. Choose website that rank high in search engines, since you might be competing with them in the long run. Take a close look at how their choice of language reflects the target audience and its knowledge/skill level.

Format

As mentioned, my format was that I wrote about one team every day in the 32 days leading up to the draft. Using this format, I was able to target each team separately instead of providing long articles that weren’t always interesting to every fan. As a result, it also allowed me to analyze which articles for which teams were most popular.

This was the best format for me to use, but it’s worth considering other formats for your topics/articles. Popular formats include how-to guides, top X lists and collections/aggregations of existing content. With such formats, it’s also possible to create (reciprocal) inbound links by linking to other content.

Quality

I spent quite some time examining the needs of every team, some more than others because I don’t always watch every team in action. The thoroughness of my research did reflect in my articles and also resulted in positive comments from readers.

In terms of article length, I aimed for concise articles that didn’t exceed 600 words per article.

Make sure that—regardless of length—your articles reflect both the scope and the thoroughness that you intend to portray. Position yourself as the reader of the content to determine the value and direction of your content.

Timing

I posted one articles each day from Monday to Sunday and in the afternoon in the US. I counted down in reverse order of the NFL Draft, i.e. starting with the Pittsburgh Steelers and finishing with the Detroit Lions. In general, I noticed that articles scored best when posted on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Obviously, timing was not the only variable that contributed to readership. Team popularity also played a role and as a result, I will make some changes to next year’s series. Options are to either only post during the week or to reshuffle the order and post the articles on the most popular teams between Tuesday and Thursday.

Your mileage may vary of course, depending on your topic and audience. I would definitely recommend looking into posting during the weekend. There’s significantly less new content released during the weekend. This might help your content to stand out.

Media

I didn’t use any images, video, audio or other supporting media for my articles. In retrospect, this may have been a big missed opportunity and I’ll definitely look into it for next year’s series.

Think about how media can enhance your content. Sometimes, they can replace part of the content or they can clarify the content better than just text.

Next Steps

I will do another series for the 2010 NFL Draft and will use the experience I gained this year to improve my content and reach even better results.

I hope this post will be useful and will help you create more effective content. If you have additional tips, let us know in the comments!

Photo credit: Brandon Robbins

• Title: This is the text that you see in the top bar of your browser and represents the title of the particular webpage you’re visiting. I tend to cringe whenever I see “Untitled Document” or “New Page” as the title because this is a missed opportunity. The title is the #1 ranking factor for Google and should contain at least your company/website name and keywords related to the page.
• Headings: Your content should be clear and easy to read and using headings is an easy way to separate the content. But headings also contribute to SEO, especially the H1 heading. If that contains relevant keywords, it will help improve your search rankings.
• URL: The webpage’s address (URL) is also a critical factor for SEO. I often see pages that have the URL www.yourwebsite.com/page1.html and this is a missed opportunity as well. By including relevant keywords in your URL is another step you can take to optimize your website for search engines.
• Meta Tags: There are two types of meta tags, meta description and meta keywords. The former is more important than the latter because the description is what appears under the page title in search results. Therefore, it is more important to have relevant keywords in the meta description than it is to include these keywords in the meta keywords.
• Relevance: I used the word “relevant” in relation to keywords because the relation between the keywords and the actual content is also an important search ranking factor. Using the keywords “Britney Spears” while your website is about refrigerators will NOT help your search rankings!

Look at your website critically and see where you can apply these quick wins to boost your search rankings.

• Content: Rewrite the content to be more about them than about you. While messages should cover what you’re promoting, they should also emphasize the benefits to users. Scrutinize your content and check whether its relevance is high enough for your audience.
• Form: Experiment with different types of headlines to different audiences. The headline of a press release should catch the attention of a journalist, but at the same time, it might not be enticing enough for a consumer. Play with the layout and the use of images to make your message more attractive or reader-friendly. Make use of consumer (eye-tracking) studies to see what areas should be focused.

Don’t be afraid to throw spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks.

Traditional media, such as TV stations and print publishers, are seeing consumption decline as consumers choose consume their content from a more diverse set of channels. Traditional media agencies, such as advertising agencies and PR agencies, are scrambling to keep up and justify their value/existence/involvement. Sometimes, the old business models won’t work in this new day and age, sometimes the talent isn’t available to deal with new media forms or the current regime is reluctant to change or in denial about the consequences. None of these are good reasons to continue “business as usual”. The world is changing and it requires a new approach.

Start preparing yourself to cope with the evolution of content.