Saturday, April 28, 2007

Grabbing Attention Online

Business Week has an article about newspapers buying ads and otherwise working ways to get more online attention for their coverage of the Virginia Tech murders.
Here's a small note for copy editors:

Experts also employ such techniques as teaching editors how to present stories in a way that works online, with simple headlines, says Marshall Simmonds, CEO of Define. Simmonds recalls one artful turn of phrase when he first arrived. "The headline said: 'Pilgrims converge upon the Vatican, the passing of a papacy,' " says Simmonds. "It should have read 'Pope John Paul II dies' " for online purposes. Traffic from search engines now accounts for 22% of Times traffic, vs. 14% two years ago.

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