Tech Comm Student

Building your brand, whether that brand is yourself or your own company, can be very beneficial to increasing sales, landing jobs, or garnering interest from others.  Starting a blog is probably one of the easiest and cheapest ways to do just this.

A Blog Is Not A Diary

Sometimes when people think about an internet blog, they imagine a diary of an individual who only writes about their own life and is unable to relate back to their reader.  Ideally, a blog should be helpful and engaging to those who have an interest in your blog topic.  Think of something interesting to write about, and provide useful information!   If you would like to enter the technical communication field, publishing a blog can not only attract prospective employer’s attention and possibly supplement your income, but also act as a sample of your writing ability, additionally strengthening your perceived commitment to online publishing and your blogging topic.

Why A WordPress Blog?

1) Very easy to setup and maintain.
2) Hundreds of free themes (layouts) available on the web.
3) Ability to post your content without having to touch the code.
4) Plugins allow additional features such as user polls and statistics.
5) Fully customizable – No one even needs to know that you use it.

At this point in time, I believe WordPress to be the best free blogging tool on the internet (especially for beginners).  However, there are certainly a few rising competitors to keep an eye on: Joolma and Drupal.

How To Start A Blog With WordPress

1) Visit Wordpress.org.
2) Choose to either have your blog hosted by WordPress, or download the WordPress files to host on your own server.  Both methods are free, but if you choose to have WordPress host, your website url will end in “.wordpress.org.”  Some web hosts such as GoDaddy will automatically install your WordPress files for you through an option in your hosting account.
3) Search the internet for free WordPress Themes.
4) Extract your selected theme in you “themes” folder and select it from your WordPress “Appearance” menu.

I also recommend using the “All in One SEO Pack” and “Google XML Sitemaps” plugins.

Google Analytics is a competent, easy, and free website tracking tool used to find out key marketing data including:

1) How people reach your web pages
2) Where visitors click (links) once visiting one of your pages
3) How long visitors spend on each of your pages
4) The number of pages viewed per website visit
5) How many of your users have visited before (return visitors)
6) The browsers, operating systems, geographic locations, and monitor resolutions of your visitors

Analytics even allows you to set goals for your pages.  Perhaps you would like to earn a dollar value in advertising revenue by a certain date, or have X number of visitors access one of your pages.  Maybe you have a page path that you want visitors to follow, which is called a “funnel path.”  This is all very simple to set up with Analytics.

How To Setup Google Analytics

Visit http://www.google.com/analytics and sign up for a Google account.
Once you have signed in to Analytics, you will need to add the tracking code to your web pages.  It is my opinion that the best way to track pages is to create a separate file that is pulled into each one of your pages.  For example, on this site I placed the Analytics code in a file called analytics.php.  I then reference that file in my header.php, which is loaded on every page from the index.php file.  If you’re new to this, don’t worry; it is less complicated than it reads.

Click on the “Add Website Profile” as shown in the image below.

Next, enter your website information and click on the finish button.  Your Analytics code will be displayed along with the instruction to paste it in front of your </body> tag.   This is where the PHP comes in.

Using A PHP File For Analytics

Instead of having to place your tracking code onto every single one of your pages, we can make a simple reference to the page that holds this code.  This can be beneficial if we were to decide to change or delete our tracking code, since we would only need to edit our analytics.php file.  Here’s the code to place in front of your <body> tag:

<?php include(“analytics.php”);?>

With a few seconds of thought, I bet you can guess what this bit of PHP does.  Of course, it tells the page that it is located on to “include,” or “reference” analytics.php into the file.  Now open up a new notepad (or your text editor of choice) and paste your Analytics code, saving the new file as the previously mentioned analytics.php.

Convert Your HTML Files To PHP

Since we are now utilizing PHP in our pages, we will need to change our .html to .php files.  If you are convinced that you do not want to modify your pages due to breaking incoming links and potentially damaging your SEO efforts, learn how to bypass this problem.

Converting your HTML pages to PHP will also open up many additional opportunities to add interactivity to your site in the future.  If you are new to web development, my advice is to always create your pages with the PHP extension; there is little reason to want to limit yourself to a static website.

When you are finished re-naming your files and uploading them to your server, you’ll notice that Analytics does not instantaneously display your website statistics.  So with a day’s time to kill, let’s add a filter to exclude our own IP address from affecting our stats.

How To Add An Analytics Filter

Under the actions column of your Analytics home page, click the edit link.  Scroll down to the filters section and click on the add filter link located at the top right corner of the section.

Add a new filter with a filter type that “excludes  - traffic from the IP addresses – that are equal to” and then your IP address.  If you are not sure what your IP address is, find your IP address.  Save your changes.

SEO: Your Visual Blueprint For Effective Internet Marketing

I recently ordered Kristopher Jones’s new book on how to optimize websites for search engine effectiveness. His introduction includes a brief history of SEO as well as an overview of general tips for success. Afterward, I was surprised to find that the next 284 pages basically consist of explaining how exactly to accomplish his given advice; You won’t find much theory here. Each topic is clearly labeled in the upper left corner, with an average topic length of about two pages.

Certainly this makes the book easy to pick up for quick referencing, but seems to lack the depth that I had expected from a book so thick. And while I understand this to be a newcomers guide to search engine optimization, some of Jones’s advice includes the idea of throwing money at a problem to have someone else do the job for you.

But what Jones does do well is introduce an absolute beginner to the most basic concepts of web design and SEO and then shares some more advanced techniques to those of us with a little more experience. His examples are very clear, and he provides in many cases, numerous ways of approaching an objective. Some of the topics he covers include: creating a meta robot tag, using text modifiers, optimizing your website for multiple browsers, designing a sitemap, re-writing URLs, and utilizing redirects. He also spends some time venturing into creating communities on the web and publishing successful blog posts, finding suitable linking partners, and submitting your articles to directories. While some of this information may seem overly redundant to an experienced web user, he presents useful advice even for the lesser novice among us.

I do recommend this book if you are just starting your web publication journey, or perhaps have a basic understanding of SEO, but feel that you lack the knowledge or skills to be effective. There is a lot of information out on the web regarding search engine optimization, but if you want to be sure you’re receiving advice from a trustworthy source, this book might be an important one to keep close by while you develop your online content.

There are many potential niches to enter into or to begin a career with for those acquiring a tech comm background.  Related most directly to the field of technical communication, I have listed just a few job titles with accompanying descriptions.  Hopefully this may serve to grant you a better perspective of some important, and well demanded areas.

Technical Writer

An experienced writer who may work in any one of the dozens of industries that employ these professional.  The largest number are concentrated in computers, software, science, and health care, as well as in electronics manufacturing.  Technical writers are the company communicators of complex information.  In many cases, they will interview the subject matter experts of a project, product, behavior, or service, and then translate technical information into language that is easily understandable to the end-users.  Frequent responsibilities include creating product manuals, help guides, brochures, and press releases.  Most tech writers also possess skills in multimedia creation, increasingly taking on the role of the graphics and web designer.

Technical Illustrator

Similar to a graphics designer, these technical communicators focus their attention on providing a clear understanding of technical information through the use of visuals.  Designing pamphlets, brochures, flow charts, and product illustrations, technical illustrators often have an educational background emphasizing art rather than English.

Information Architect

The primary role of the information architect is to ask questions relevant to the company, its customers, and its employees.  While a technical writer will translate written language, and the illustrator will design visuals, the architect will examine how these processes interact and support the company agenda.  Is there a better way to do something?  What effect will this action have on our users?  Does this decision help the customer, or reduce the quality of their experience?  These questions may be applied to a wide range of technical activities, including web, database and software design, content management systems, and the functioning of entire departments.  The activities of the IA can be described as similar to that of a business analyst.

Usability Expert

These analytical employees primarily examine the effectiveness of a company’s virtual user interfaces.  They use their creativity to imagine an improved system, a system which motivates customers towards positive action, and is easily understood.  Like the information architect, the usability expert will ask a good number of questions.  Should this help button be placed up here, or down there?  Will the user be able to find the most important information without becoming frustrated?  What about web page load times?  How long must the user wait, and is this acceptable?  How might someone from a different culture interpret this?

User Interface Designer

A UID is a developer of a menu-like system that allows users to interact with the company.  Almost all larger companies today have both internal user interfaces for employees, in addition to external interfaces that are presented to everyone else, including clients and business partners.  The interface designer needs to think carefully about how to grant its users the best experience available while still allowing all of the desired functions of the interface.  For example, if Amazon.com were to remove their shopping cart link from the storefront and place it buried deep within a series of pages, how many sales do you think they would lose out of customer frustration?  Often acting as a usability expert, the designer must possess strong critical thinking skills.

Web Designer

Combing the analytical skills of the user interface designer with some of the artistic skills possessed by a graphics designer, the web designer is in interesting blend of general technical communication skills.  Add to this the responsibilities of updating the website with press releases, editorials, or tutorials, and we now accept a role encompassing at least three primary areas within technical communication.  Like with the API writer, programming and web scripting skills are often important to a successful web designer.

Technical Trainer

Besides holding the advanced writing skills typifying a technical communicator, they frequently also have the ability to verbally explain themselves in ways beneficial to instructing others.  Working beside other human resources employees, the technical trainer often might specialize in the training of scientists, engineers, and computer professionals.

Technical Translator

Ordinarily well experienced with the information they work with, translators take a piece of profession-specific material and lower its complexity, reducing or eliminating unnecessary terminology that would be foreign to the reader.  Since accuracy in translation is so important, technical translators will frequently supplement their knowledge with additional research as they work on their project.

API Writer

With a programming background and an ability to understand new concepts quickly, an API (application programming interface) writer will develop the references that other technical people rely on to complete their job.  Therefore, the API writer needs to be certain that they understand how a particular application or programming language/environment functions.  As new and improved software is regularly turning out to developers, technical API writers continue to serve an important role.

Project Manager

Understanding effective communication and having the ability to carefully think about the effects a decision could bring, many experienced technical communicators should be able to naturally step into a project management role within departments dealing heavily with technical information.

Sources:
http://www.bls.gov
http://www.uxbooth.com
http://www.usabilityfirst.com
http://www.wikipedia.org
http://www.jobprofiles.org

As technical communications people, we are often responsible for creating and maintaining company websites.   Most of the time we will be working with already well established sites on the web.  But what if your company wishes to create a new site to attract a different type of customer?  How will you be sure that the pages you create will be easily found on search engine results, and thereby greatly increase web page traffic?  The answer is search engine optimization.

Increasing Page Rank On Day One

Research has shown through multiple studies that very few people will spend their time cycling deeper through search engine results to access a web page.  A very strong majority of people looking for information will click on the links that show up on the first through third pages.  This leaves us with hundreds of thousands of web pages that are almost never visited through a search engine.

When a search engine robot crawls across the web evaluating pages and their relevancy toward a certain subject, each page is ranked in order of this perceived relevancy.  The greater the rank, the more likely users will be to find your page higher up towards page one in search engine results.  Below is a list of 7 basic, but necessary ways to increase your ranking on the day your website is published.

Name Your Web Page

Have you ever come across a book without a title?  Of course not!  How would anyone reference it?  Likewise, it only makes sense to also name each of your web pages in a way that describes what visitors will find within the content.  Open your XHTML file and place the following between your <head> and </head> tags:

<title>This Is My Descriptive Page Title</title>

Remember that this is the title that users will see in the search engine results page.

Choose Targeting Keywords

It is important to recognize that a Google search for “pet stores” will turn up significantly more results than a search for “pet stores in Minnesota.”  Knowing this, the chance that our new website will be able to initially compete with the greater competition for the “pet stores” keyword is very  low.  Instead, opt to target your visitors with more specific words or phrases.  Depending on how competitive your website topic is, you may wish to assign your keyword phrases as long as three or even four words long!

Telling search engines which words you wish to describe each of your web pages with is quite simple.  Once again, place the following between your <head> and </head> tags:

<meta name=”keywords” content=”keyword1, keyword2, keyword keyword3″ />

An excellent free service you may wish to use is Google’s Keyword Tool, allowing you to search out the competition for phrases related to your website in addition to the search volume for that phrase.  Remember that keyword phrases are separated by a comma, and that each of your pages need their own set of keywords to accurately describe its content!

Write a Web Page Description

The page description is what will show up when a user comes across your link in the search engine results.  We have 160 characters to try to convince people to visit our site, so let’s make it good!  Your description should utilize some of your keywords while being simultaneously concise.  If you were to view this site’s homepage description, it read:

<meta name=”description” content=”Tech comm blog exploring the technical communication field, including web design, technical writing, and information about a technical communication degree.” />

Each of your pages should have its own description, describing the content on the page.  Place your description between your <head> and </head> tags.

Name Your Page Files Appropriately

Search engines are always trying to find relevancy when viewing your pages.  If you name your files in a way that reinforces your keywords, your pages are more likely to be associated with your targeted subject.  An example for a technical writing webpage would be to change “reallycoolpage.html” to a more descriptive “technicalwriting.html.”  This method also applies to any images or links you may have on your pages.

Validate Your Web Pages

A correctly scripted web page is definitely easier for search engine robots to traverse, often resulting in the potential for a better page rank.  Check out these excellent, free HTML/ XHTML and CSS validators!  You can read more about the importance of validation here.

XHTML Validation , CSS Validation

Use Header Tags

The use of the header tag (such as <h1>My Heading</h1>) tells search engines that the words inside the tag should be weighed with more importance when determining how a page should rank.  With the inclusion of CSS, we can create header tags that fit the theme of our website.

Design A Sitemap

A sitemap is similar to a table of contents in that they both direct a visitor to their preferred location.  A sitemap on the web is a single web page that categorically links to all of your other pages on the domain.  Search engines reward websites with a sitemap by more easily finding all of your new content and indexing them for people to find through search queries.  You can find a free XML sitemap generator here.

Use No-Follow Links

Creating links to other pages that may not be closely related to your site’s content should, for the sake of your page rank, contain the HMTL no-follow attribute.  Again, robots are always trying to piece together the relevancy puzzle, and if they notice that a website about writing is linked to a website about animals, an inconsistency is noted and your page rank could be lowered.  View the following example showing how to use no-follow:

<a href=”http://www.example.com” rel=”nofollow”>Example Page</a>.

Everything is about to begin once again, and I am certainly very much looking forward to it.  I’ll be moving back to the Mankato area for school in under two weeks and entering my first semester in the Technical Communication graduate program at Minnesota State University, Mankato.    Having spent my previous semester studying within the Information Technology master’s program at MNSU, and with an undergraduate degree in Management, you could probably guess that I have had difficulty finding my niche.

However, I feel that I have finally nailed down the best program to take advantage of my talents most effectively.  I love the internet and all of its capabilities.  I like to be creative and invent solutions to problems.  But I also have the annoying tendency to want to jump into as many new projects as possible, spreading my time across several interests, acquiring a good amount of knowledge in much, but mastering little.  The obvious disadvantage is that I sometimes struggle at “being the best” at any one sole procedure.  The advantage shows up when I am presented with a problem and am able to draw from my larger experiences from many fields.  For example, if I were asked to create a solid content management system with Ruby on Rails, I would definitely need more time to acquire the knowledge to do so.  But if I were able to utilize any web language (or languages), I might consider using PHP and/or JavaScript and XHTML/CSS to solve the problem.  This isn’t a perfect example, but hopefully is understandable enough.

At this point, imagining myself spending all of my working hours programming a single software application, using a single programming language, and being responsible for only a small piece of a greater project, sounds like I would be missing out on a good portion of the fun!  I am an idea person, an entrepreneur; let me dabble in many areas and provide insights as they come.  But trust me, I am definitely striving to focus down on one process at a time; I’m just not naturally good at it.  Oh yeah, and I also enjoy writing. :)

So what is this site all about, you ask?  This is a record keeper, a journal, a personal diary of my progression through a Technical Communication graduate program.  I will likely write about the technical communication field, technical writing, the work environment for technical communicators, professional/business communications, visual communications, web programming and scripting, my thoughts on the different assigned books I read throughout the program, and eventually, maybe even provide some reasonable advice.

While I cannot promise to always be interesting, I have made it easy enough for you to find what you’d like.  Check out the right-hand sidebar to select your current topic of choice.