As we have documented on several occasions the future of journalism and media is currently in transition and moving further away from traditional print and newspaper business models. We expect a big shift towards entrepreneurs who move to develop new ways of meeting consumer demand for information and engaging in public discourse. Consumers are also increasingly turning to the Internet for news and information (as opposed to newspapers) due to efficiency and accessibility – while advertisers are moving ads to online sites and scaling back on print ad buys. So, many are questioning how traditional journalism can survive and THRIVE in the future… and where it’s going to go?

The following three video’s published on the topic are a great starting point for developing your own conclusion, which will lead you to further investigations. We anticipate this to be a continuing discussion over the coming year as we ride this “paradigm” shift in current media business models.

If you are a publisher, we would dearly like to hear your thoughts on the future of journalism, in particular the future of digital publishing. Please comment and submit your thoughts below.

Has the Internet Killed Print Journalism?

Citizen Journalism vs Traditional Journalism

A fun video.. Certainly hits a few nails on the head!

The Evolution of News – Jeff Jarvis

As you might know WordPress is an open source blog publishing application powered by PHP and MySQL which can also be used as a content management system – and now becoming a very popular platform for developing almost any type of community or website that your heart desires.

It has many features including a plugin architecture and a templating system – used by over 2% of the top 10,000 most popular websites in the word. If you want something implemented to your site, there is a good chance you will find a WordPress plugin to suit your needs.

There are plugins for web advertising, flickr, twitter, e-commerce, newsletters, weather, RSS, SEO, Analytics and just about anything else you can think of. Many of these are developed as “widgets” that can easily be added to your site using the WordPress management system. And we can all grow tired of our website designs over time, but changing the design has always been such a hassle — until now. With WordPress themes you can instantly activate a new web design while still retaining all of the content within the site. There’s no hassle of copying and re-sending all of your content to a new web designer or developer, or wasting time migrating files.

Currently, WordPress is the most popular publishing software on the internet, and for good reason. Anyone (even a beginner) can begin using it to great effect. Within minutes you can create a beautiful looking blog or website and have ALL of your content indexed by the search engines, literally over night. If you can send an e-mail, use Microsoft Word or set up a Facebook account, then you can use WordPress. It’s website creation for non-techies.

These are all reasons why Smart Media Innovations Pty Ltd has been using WordPress as our main publishing platform for developing hundreds of sites over the years, and why we recommend it to our clients.

To help you get started with WordPress (and to ensure that your content is being indexed by the search engines) we have listed two top resources for installing wordpress and included our top 7 SEO plugins (plus a few others) to help you get off on the right foot. We also know it isn’t always easy sorting through the thousands of seo plugins available – so here are 7 good ones to get you going.

Step 1) Install WordPress

>> Click Here for Detailed Instructions

>> Click Here for Video Instructions

Step 2) Install our Top 7 SEO Plugins

1. >> Onlywire Multi Poster – FREE – syndicates your posts to Web 2.0 sites automatically
2. >> MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer – FREE – excellent pinging tool
3. >> Twitme – FREE – automatically posts to twitter for more backlinks
4. >> All in one SEO pack – FREE – optimizes your WordPress content for the Search Engines
5. >> Google XML Sitemaps Generator - FREE – this plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com to better index your blog or website.
6. >> SEO Tag Cloud Widget – FREE – Love ‘em or hate ‘em, a lot of people use tag clouds on their blogs, however since their inception they have been fairly unreadable by search engines, until now. With this plugin your tag cloud will be converted into an SEO-friendly HTML markup that can be indexed.
7. >> Dagon Design Sitemap Generator – FREE – this plugin creates a sitemap for your WordPress powered site. It’s important that the search engines can easily navigate your site.

In conclusion, WordPress empowers you to do just about anything that your imagination can conjure up – without costing you an arm and a leg. With developers constantly working on applications, plugins, and themes all around the world – you will never have a need to look at another publishing platform again.

Get started today!

Please comment: If you have anything to add, or know of any great SEO plugins for wordpress that we might have missed here, please comment below.

As always, for further information (or assistance) on any of the above, please feel free to contact us and we will be happy to assist you as best we can.

*UPDATED: Optional Plugins and Applications - to give you several ideas of the type of things you can do with WordPress!

These are ALL brilliant applications that can be easily implemented at the click of a button, and will certainly add to your bottom line. Well worth a look.

>> Market Me Tweet

Market Me Tweet is the only Twitter Application that allows you to Brand, Market, and Manage your twitter profiles and tweets, all in one! Click here to find out how we use it to drive a lot of traffic to your sites.

>> Ninja Affiliate

Ninja Affiliate is a unique WordPress plugin designed to effortlessly embed affiliate links into your WordPress blog and instantly double (or triple) your affiliate marketing commissions. A great way to instantly add an additional revenue stream to your blog or wordpress site.

>> Wishlist Member

Wishlist Member allows you to create a powerful and fully customizable membership platform on any WordPress powered website. Fast, simple and very effective! Perfect for anyone looking to include paid subscription, paid content models.

>> Job Press

JobPress is a WordPress theme that turns your website / blog into a fully functional Job Board. Its easy to use and install, plus you can monetize your job board effortlessly with just a few clicks.

>> Email Marketing – Aweber

Aweber is the Mercedes Benz of email marketing. Quickly create and run your email campaigns cheaply with this powerful, easy-to-use email marketing platform. We personally use Aweber and if you haven’t already done so, we HIGHLY recommend that you sign up and start building a mailing list today. It’s a must that you constantly follow up and communicate with your customers. Aweber helps you do this properly.

>> Squeeze Theme

Grow your email list and expand your profits with Squeeze Theme. Setting up effective squeeze pages has never been so easy and with jst a few clicks, you can completely change the look and feel of your site using Squeeze Theme! Combine this with Aweber and you will be quickly on your way to building an ever lasting asset that will pay you for years to come.

To succeed online you must focus on effective keyword research. By choosing the right keywords you can succeed at the SEO game. I have personally worked with hundreds of clients seeking number one rankings but who have given adequate focus on keyword research. This is incredibly important when your site is competing against well ranked sites that have been in the top ranking for some time.

The first step is finding a keyword that isn’t all that competitive. Once you do, the next step is to make sure that the keyword you have selected gets enough traffic. Don’t overlook this important aspect of keyword research. I worked with a company that was proud of their number one rankings. When I did some research to discover the type of traffic they could expect, I found less than one hundred searches each month on the keyword they selected. Even with top rankings, they would never see the traffic they expected.

Assuming that you have been able to find a keyword phrase that doesn’t have a great deal of competition and generates enough traffic, it’s time to look at your competition. You are competing against other web sites who currently rank in the top few positions for your chosen keyword. Research each of these top ranked sites to determine their Google page rank, age, and the number of sites linking to them. The more inbound links they have the more difficult they will be to outrank.

Once you’ve conducted your keyword research and decided which keyword phrase you are going to optimize for, it’s time to focus on optimizing your web pages. This can be done by focusing on on-page optimization techniques and off-page optimization techniques. Start with a well formatted web site that includes keyword phrases in meta tags, page titles, and so on. Then turn your attention to off page optimization which includes building links and getting your site listed in major directories and social media profiles. Add additional link building techniques like bookmarking to enhance the quality of your web pages and web sites.

Your plan should include daily, weekly and monthly tasks that can attract links from authority websites consistently over time. Your goal should not be to generate thousands of inbound links quickly because Google will penalize your website. Rather, focus on steady link building. If you want to enhance your organic search engine ranking, begin with keyword research. By selecting the right keywords, you’ll be able to optimize your website faster than your competitors. After choosing the right keywords, focus on integrating your chosen keywords into your web site. Then you’re ready for link building and other off page optimization tactics that significantly improve rankings.

Most people know that one of the keys to utilizing SEO and ranking your website in the search engines is the use of keywords. Still, there are many factors you must consider when using keywords if you want to see success. One of the elements that some people get focused is how many keywords they should target on one webpage.

One of the overlooked factors that people don’t give much attention to is how many keywords you should target on a single web page. The truth is that many people want to do too much when they work with SEO. It’s easy to get ahead of yourself and try to cram tons of keywords on one page, assuming that the more you use the better. However, that’s not really the way that it works.

There was a time over a decade or more ago when the use of keywords was first gaining importance where the more you used, the more you ranked for. At this time nobody really knew anything about SEO and how it really worked, and the search engines themselves were still developing their formulas for how to produce high quality rankings.

However, this kind of strategy is no longer effective, and most people try to go after too many keywords on a single page of their website. If you have a huge list of keywords, it’s not smart to try to rank for each of them on every page of your site. You’re only thinning out your association with each individual keyword and wasting your time and effort. Additionally, your content will up looking spammy to both visitors and search engines that see all of those keywords on one page.

However, in actuality the opposite is true. More is less when it comes to SEO and the number of keywords you are trying to target. By targeting too many on a single web page, you aren’t doing anything but thinning out your focus. You’ll also likely be including so many keywords that your content will come across as spam to both the search engines and your visitors.

Now that you know that less is more, what’s the answer for how many keywords should be on a single page for maximum SEO success? There is no guaranteed answer that is going to ensure you a perfect mix, however targeting 2 or 3 keywords on a single web page is usually the best idea. For pages with less content you’ll want to reduce that to 1-2 keywords, and for pages with a great deal of content you can target a few more.

When you break up your site and individual pages like this you will be able to target a complete list of keywords effectively. Each page will have a few keywords that they can rank for and you’ll avoid using anything excessively. It’s the best way to use keywords across your entire site and it will produce great results for you in the search engines.

Of course, use your good judgment when you determine how many keywords you want to target on each individual web page. Think about factors such as what the page deals with and how much content it has. But remember, when in doubt a smart guideline is not to target more than 2 or 3 different keywords per each page of your site.

If you’re the owner of a small business or you have launched a new website, achieving better Google rankings through SEO has to be at the forefront of your mind. Many people however don’t actually know how to actually go about this, and what kinds of SEO tactics will produce real, tangible results. The truth is that there are actually several different kinds of SEO work that you’ll have to become familiar with.

The first is what most people already know, and that’s on-page SEO tactics. These include things like keyword inclusion and internal linking. The other half of SEO however may actually be even more important for your Google rankings. This is off-page SEO, and it incorporates all of the work that you do to help improve your search engine standings on other websites and through other sources and mediums throughout the web.

Below are 10 of the most important factors when it comes to off-page SEO and your Google rankings. By following this advice and incorporating these strategies into your SEO game plan you will be able to soar up the rankings.

1. Quantity of Incoming Links: One of the first off-page SEO factors for Google rankings is the quantity of incoming links that you have leading to your website. The quick story is that the more links you have leading to your website the better.

2. Quality of Incoming Links: However another important rule is that the quality of your incoming links is also important. That’s because every incoming link is like a vote towards your credibility. Therefore when that vote comes from a highly credible source, you get more credit. The best links are natural, one-way links from related sites that are themselves already highly credible.

3. Diversity of Incoming Links: Having incoming links from a variety of different sources will also help your SEO and Google rankings. For example if all of your links are from blog comments you may set off alarms, or fail to see true benefits from those links. But if you have links from forums, blogs, directories, related websites, articles, videos and more you are establishing a far reaching and legitimate presence.

4. Anchor Text of Incoming Links: The anchor text use in your incoming links is also extremely important. That’s because the anchor text is what actually tells the Google rankings what your page is about. Therefore the right anchor text can help you directly target certain topics or key phrases, enabling you to immediately boost your SEO.

5. Domain Name Age: Some people may consider this on-page SEO, but since it is largely out of your control and you can’t change anything on your page to affect this, it should be considered off-page SEO. The older your domain is, the more credible your website is viewed and the more potential you have for high Google rankings.

6. Community Building: Community building entails a presence on social networks, blogs and forums. These are important SEO tactics for Google rankings because they help to expand your overall reach and scope. You will add more incoming links to your site, build more direct traffic and grow more support. You’ll also get noticed by more blogs and other sites, which will add even more links and traffic to your growing numbers.

7. Visitor Trends: The way that visitors behave with your site is also extremely important for your Google rankings. For example if you apply some solid SEO tactics and gain more traffic, but all of your visits result in bounces, then clearly people aren’t finding what they are looking for from your website and you can end up being penalized. You are looking to achieve as low a bounce rate as possible, showing that you are a valued and related website.

8. Traffic Sources: The sources of your traffic can also end up affecting your Google rankings. There are “good” and “bad” sources of traffic on the Internet, and if you participate in linking schemes or traffic buying you can actually end up being penalized to some degrees. You want your traffic to come from credible referral sites that are related to your own website, natural searching and any legitimate PPC campaigns you may be running.

9. Previous History: The previous history of your website and the trends of popularity will factor into your long term Google rankings. What this means is that if your site suddenly spikes in traffic for some reason, or suddenly quadruples its content or shows up with 2,000 more incoming links, it will be looked at as suspicious at first. More successful is the gradual increase of content, and incoming links.

10. Directory Inclusion: One of the most important SEO tactics for your off-page SEO success is getting included in some of the major directories. Directories have been devalued by and large in the Google rankings, but some still carry a great deal of weight. For example, getting listed in Dmoz can provide a huge boost to your rankings that lasts for a very long time.

These are just a summation of some of the important off-page SEO tactics that you can use to help improve your Google rankings. These days you need far more than just optimized content in order to gain a foothold in the search engines. Many people view off-page SEO as the equal to on-page SEO, and many other people view link building and other off-page SEO tactics as even more important.

Therefore take the time it takes to familiarize yourself with the best practices of these SEO tactics. Build up a diverse collection of high quality links, provide content that people find relevant, gradually build your website and do everything you can off of your website to help increase your Google rankings.