Every blog post should be tagged with at least one category. This allows readers to find news of specific subjects or regions and allows us to feed information to other parts of the website, including the Neighborhood pages and the home page. You can add categories on the fly when big news breaks. Just message yylanow with the new category so others on the desk will know to use it.

Here are our main categories:

Crime & Courts (crime)    
Government (local and state government and political news)
Bottleneck (traffic and transportation issues)
Homicide Report (all homicides in L.A. County)
Education (schools, colleges and universities)

Regional

Westside
Northeast
Central
South L.A.
Eastside
Harbor
San Fernando Valley
Santa Clarita Valley
San Gabriel Valley
Pomona Valley
Southeast
Orange County
Inland Empire
San Diego County
Ventura County
Mountain communities
High Desert

Copy and pasting text from email and Internet pages, can introduce funky fonts into blog posts.

Good fix: By using Notepad as a pit stop for text, you can strip formatting and provide clean text to paste into TypePad.

Better fix: Publish directly to the blog using MS Word 2007 or Windows Live Writer. Make sure to use "paste special (unformatted text)" when you paste into either program. Live Writer is a free download but you need administrator access to your computer to install it, so you might have to call the Tribune help desk (x77999).

Advanced fix: In a pinch, you can click on the HTML tab in Typepad and delete the offending code. Hint: each paragraph should begin with <p> and end with </p>.

Dan Gaines recently led a discussion with some of our editors on SEO (search engine optimization) and headline writing. Here are some highlights:

1.       Trust your news-person instincts when writing headlines

2.       Remember that your main audience for headlines is people not search engines

3.       Use specific nouns if they apply (ie “Santa Ana” rather than “local”,  “lion trainer” rather than “man”)

4.       If a story lends itself to it, try to guess how someone might search for such a story and include key words from that possible search (ie Lindsay Lohan and/or Megan Fox in our celebrity crime spree story).

5.       For headline display purposes on google (and our own site) shorter is better. Google results display approximately 8 to 10 words. 6-8 words is a good target, but if you need more to explain the story then do it.

6.       Create a keyword rich web address for posts (either by typing the keywords into the TypePad headline field and saving in draft before writing the real headline or clicking on the edit button below the headline field and typing the keywords there). You can't change the web address after a post is published.

In the interest of easing the pain of blog publishing and production, I’m going to send out semi-regular updates to our blogging team. One better practice right off the bat: there’s no need to store these emails for future reference. They will be archived at this link. 

Let me know if there are issues you’d like me to address.

Thanks,

Martin

Headlines and search engine optimization

Dan Gaines recently led a discussion with some of our editors on SEO (search engine optimization) and headline writing. Here are some highlights:

1.       Trust your news-person instincts when writing headlines

2.       Remember that your main audience for headlines is people not search engines

3.       Use specific nouns if they apply (ie “Santa Ana” rather than “local”,  “lion trainer” rather than “man”)

4.       If a story lends itself to it, try to guess how someone might search for such a story and include key words from that possible search (ie Lindsay Lohan and/or Megan Fox in our celebrity crime spree story).

5.       For headline display purposes on google (and our own site) shorter is better. Google results display approximately 8 to 10 words. 6-8 words is a good target, but if you need more to explain the story then do it.

6.       Create a keyword rich web address for posts (either by typing the keywords into the TypePad headline field and saving in draft before writing the real headline or clicking on the edit button below the headline field and typing the keywords there). You can't change the web address after a post is published.

 HTML Cleanup

Copy and pasting text from email and Internet pages, can introduce funky fonts into blog posts.

Good fix: By using Notepad as a pit stop for text, you can strip formatting and provide clean text to paste into TypePad.

Better fix: Publish directly to the blog using MS Word 2007 or Windows Live Writer. Make sure to use "paste special (unformatted text)" when you paste into either program. Live Writer is a free download but you need administrator access to your computer to install it, so you might have to call the Tribune help desk (x77999).

Advanced fix: In a pinch, you can click on the HTML tab in Typepad and delete the offending code. Hint: each paragraph should begin with <p> and end with </p>.

Updating posts

When you need to update a post to add new information, keep it short. If the new information will change the story dramatically, it's better to create a new post (that links to and from the original post). Here's the basic drill for updating (click here for more detailed instructions):
 
1. Update the post where it makes logical sense and indicate with brackets where the update begins and ends.

2. Append “Updated” in brackets at end of headline: Man bites chihuahua [Updated]

3. Keep updates short (anything longer than 30 words or so warrants a new post).

4. Save post in TypePad, then message yymetroweb to notify the copy desk and ask for the post to be back read. (note: never turn a published post to draft)

Categorizing posts
 
Every post should be tagged with at least one category. This allows readers to find news of specific subjects or regions and allows us to feed information to other parts of the website, including the Neighborhood pages and the home page. You can add categories on the fly when big news breaks. Just message yylanow with the new category so others on the desk will know to use it.

Here are our main categories:

Crime & Courts (crime)    
Government (local and state government and political news)
Bottleneck (traffic and transportation issues)
Homicide Report (all homicides in L.A. County)
Education (schools, colleges and universities)

Regional

Coming soon: a tool to help place Southland communities in their categories. In the meantime, here are the preferred regional categories. If you have a question about regional designations in the city of Los Angeles, you can refer to our Neighborhood pages.

      Westside
      Northeast
      Central
      South L.A.
      Eastside
      Harbor
      San Fernando Valley

      Santa Clarita Valley
      San Gabriel Valley
      Pomona Valley

      Southeast
      Orange County
      Inland Empire
      San Diego County
      Ventura County

      Mountain communities
      High Desert

The goal is to make it as clear as possible to the reader what has been changed from an earlier version of the post while maintaining readability.

Our intent is to allow enough flexibility so that, at the blogger’s discretion, the most important news can be updated at the top and not necessarily at the end.

Corrections should employ the updating format. They always appear at the end of the post, above the blogger’s signer, and follow the guidelines issued separately in our 2008 newsroom corrections policy. The short version: We are allowed to correct errors in posts, as long as we clearly indicate what was changed by using the format below.

Formats

[Updated at 8:28 a.m.: L.A. city planning officials have clarified that the review period will continue indefinitely.]

[For an update the same day as the original post.]

[Updated at 5:25 p.m. June 4: L.A. city planning officials have set a deadline for comment, saying the review period will end June 15.]

[For an update after the original day of posting, use the calendar date, not a day of the week, to ensure clarity.]

[Corrected at 8:50 a.m. June 5: An earlier version of this post included AmericaBlog.com in a reference to the right-wing blogosphere. It is a liberal outlet, and we have removed the reference.]

Placement

Here are the general guidelines on placement, based on the most recent format used by L.A. Now:

1.      Update the post where it makes logical sense and indicate with brackets where the update begins and ends.

2.      Append “Updated” in brackets at end of headline (see below and note that using sentence case is a change from previous practice).

3.      Keep updates short (anything longer than 30 words or so warrants a new post).

4.      Remember, on major stories, that the second and subsequent updates should be made in CCI (place a link to the website version of the story -- i.e., “Click here for complete coverage of I-10 freeway crash”).

5.      See examples of the three basic updating scenarios below:  

a.      Update above original post:

b.      Update within post:

c.       Update below original post:

Here’s a way to make blog posting easier …. believe it or not, it involves Microsoft Word.

A little-known feature of Word 2007 is the ability to compose and publish blog posts. It’s easy to set up and really quite slick, allowing you to copy and paste from other sources without cleaning it up in Notepad. You can also save draft posts offline to avoid losing work to TypePad glitches, write headlines, insert hyperlinks and apply categories. In other words, you can do almost everything you can do in TypePad but better.

How to set it up the first time:

1.       From a blank MS Word 07 file, click the “Office Button” (the colorful, golden icon in the upper left corner)

2.       Click the “New” icon and then select “New Blog Post”

3.       The first time you do this, dialogue boxes will appear and walk you through the steps to connect to the blog.

a.       Choose your blog provider: TypePad

b.      Enter Typepad user name (your email address) and password.

c.       Click the box to save password

d.      Click though other dialogue boxes and you are all set.

Some tips for composing and posting:

Get started: Open Word, click on the “Office Button,” select “New” and double-click on the “New Blog Post” button. Your Word file will look like this:

[Enter Post Title Here]

This is where the copy goes. This is where the copy goes. It goes on and on and on here. This is more type that takes up space and so on and on.

Headline: type headline in the “Enter Post Title Here” field (see above)

Body: Type (or paste) text into the blank area below the “Enter Post Title Here” heading (see above)

Copy/Pasting: Make sure to paste using the “Paste Special” action (click on the down arrow beneath the Paste icon, chose Paste Special and select “Unformatted Text.”)

Categories:  Click the Insert Category icon and pick one. If you want to add another category, hit the button a second time. And so on.  

Hyperlinks:  Click on the “Insert” tab to expose the Hyperlink icon. Then hyperlink as usual.