Gawker Media is one of the most successful blogging outlets on the Internet. In February of this year, one year after the site’s infamous redesign, owner Nick Denton reported readership had increased by 10 million monthly visitors over the year before.

By late spring of 2012, Gawker had reached, on average, 19 million viewers every month, according to the Columbia Journalism Review, and it’s one of the top 10 blogs on the web, according to Technorati.

Provide a mix of original and trending content

Gawker posts about what’s hot on Tumblr, Reddit, various blogs, and in traditional media, such as the New York Times. But it has also shifted to posting more original news stories and scoops.

“Gawker blogs once consisted almost entirely of remixes of other organizations’ news — with an added dash of commentary or knee-jerk snark,” wrote Denton on the site’s LifeHacker blog in November 2010. “One law of media competition applies as strongly to web properties as it did to their predecessors: Scoops drive audience growth.”

Denton continued, “We learned our lesson: Aggressive news-mongering trumps satirical blogging.”

The Gawker founder admits that his site sometimes pursues “gutter journalism,” such as revealing pictures of a young Christine O’Donnell partying, but such posts drive up numbers.

Denton says his priority is real news: “We believe that the best Web content optimization strategy is something as old as journalism itself: the shocking truth and the authentic opinion.”

Branded blogs can follow these same guidelines. While keeping their finger on the latest trending stories, they should also seek out their own scoops. Gawker maintains a mix of both.

Promote user discussion via comment sections

Gawker’s comments section is a prominent part of their website. The comments that pass the standards test show up on the articles, and users can engage in active discussion, sometimes creating dozens of different threads.

The section, adopted in part by the New York Times, allows users to reply to one another, post favorite comments to Facebook and Twitter, and builds a trusting relationship with the best commenters, so they don’t have to be vetted before posting.

New York Magazine quoted Denton in 2007 saying, “Gawker comments, long an embarrassment, frankly, now represent one of the strongest aspects of the site. … They reintroduce an element of anarchy, which was in danger of otherwise being lost, as the site became more professional. I want secrets to be exposed, memos leaked, spy photos published, arguments to fly.”

Along with encouraging commenters to join in the discussion of a news item, Gawker’s emphasis on comments can help the site track the popularity of posts. By creating a hierarchy within the section, novice users will be inclined to work harder to get more recognition, while the experts with the highest ratings will feel empowered.

By emphasizing the importance of comments, branded blogs can embolden readers and keep them coming back.

Using performance-based payment for writers

Paying writers in part or fully based upon how many hits their articles receive is a controversial tactic used by Denton. However, this is commonplace among blogs. While Denton argues that Gawker writers are encouraged to write original content and “linkworthy” posts, Scott Karp of Publishing 2.0 says that there is a potential downside. 

Sure, he says, writers may strive for the most interesting posts and investigate scoops, but most will probably just link to whatever is most popular on Reddit, Pinterest, or Twitter to drive the numbers up. Karp argues this will lead writers to fixate on SEO, using certain keywords and tags in their posts to rank high on search engines.

Gawker stands out among its competitors in many ways: It gets “sensational” scoops that do well with its audience, it encourages commenters and discussion, and forces writers to take SEO and analytics into consideration.

Denton has provoked more than his fair share of backlash, but he’s created one of the most frequented sites on the Internet, one which offers telling lessons for any prospective web entrepreneur or brand blogger.

The New York Times, one of the world’s most prestigious and respected news sources, is also a leader in branded blogging.

The Times, which separates its blog section into over 60 separate blogs, should be looked to for inspiration by brand bloggers. The design of the blogs, as well as the way they engage readers and display visuals, are what captivate readers and keep traffic to the site flowing.

A recent redesign of one of the news organization’s blogs is a great case study for brand bloggers to pay attention to.

Giving Blogs their Own Look and Feel

In April, the Times rolled out the redesign of its Well blog, which focuses on health and fitness.

The new design made the site “look more like an independent website than another Times blog that might get linked from the nytimes.com front page now and then,” wrote Nieman Lab’s Justin Ellis.

The purpose of the redesign was to differentiate Well from the rest of the paper and reach out to a niche market. This strategy, which is also implemented by blogs like Gawker and the Huffington Post, has earned the paper money and readers.

“It’s likely Well is not the last section from NYTimes.com to be turned into its own mini empire,” says Ellis. “As the Times continues to work on its digital subscription framework, the incentives are stronger than ever to create dedicated audiences who want to keep coming back to a part of the site.”

Prominently Displaying Visuals

The redesign of the Well blog and other niche sites, such as the Times education blog SchoolBook, placed an emphasis on visuals over text. The old layout of Well, seen on Nieman Lab, incorporated a few paragraphs of text per article on the landing page. In the redesign, the Times made the size of its pictures bigger and includes merely a caption or a short paragraph describing the article.

Director of digital design for the Times Ian Adelman told Ellis that niche blogs provide the paper the opportunity to showcase multimedia. On the main page of the site or in other news sections, “there’s a little less room for things that are unique to that content environment to surface and breath in ways that make sense.”

Well, SchoolBook and other Times blogs tell a comprehensive story with photos, which is important to the sustainability of a brand. Pages with more photos than text have an average of 94 percent more views.

Awarding Active Commenters

At the end of 2011, the Times overhauled its comment system, prominently displaying them on the story page and gave privileges to trusted commenters. The site also allowed for reply threading and made it simpler to share comments on Facebook and Twitter.

Like the other top branded blogs, the Times tuned into an important fact: In the time of social media, readers and consumers turn to the web, where they have a chance of their voices being heard.

The fact that the comments system on the blog also encourages writers for the paper to chime in shows that the company cares about its customers opinions. According to {grow} blogger Srinivas Rao, showing readers that the company is listening will only result in more brand advocates.

The Times’ blogs are designed to fit the needs of readers online. They have the power to draw in new fans, and empower the ones they’ve got — a model that all brand bloggers should follow.

Yahoo is a master at its craft, as demonstrated by the extraordinarily large amount of traffic it generates daily. It knows its core demographic and posts content according to their interests.

In one given day, Yahoo has upwards of 20 million article views. In one month, 700 million people visit the site. Although the site has been bested by Google in terms of search, it keeps a strong presence on the web thanks to the engaging content on its homepage.

One link to an outside news source can lead to a jump in traffic or even break a site’s traffic record.

Targeting the Audience

The reason why Yahoo has the ability to drive so much traffic to other sites that it causes servers to crash is due in part to its content algorithm, CORE, which stands for Content Optimization and Relevance Engine.

“Editors write and gather the most important and engaging stories of the day, and CORE determines how stories should be ordered, dependent on each user,”according to Marketing Land. ”Similarly, CORE figures out which story categories (i.e. technology, health, finance, or entertainment) should be displayed prominently on the page to help deepen engagement for each viewer.“

Yahoo itself, as well as news sites and content creators, can test what hits with audiences. For example, CORE breaks up story views into categories — gender, age, and topic — so that people can find out, for example, which stories were viewed the most by men aged 18-24 interested in finance.

A Personalized Design

The Yahoo homepage, which was redesigned in 2009, lets users shape what information they’d like to see when they sign in. On the left side of the page, underneath a list of Yahoo’s sites, there is a section for Favorites, such as Gmail, Facebook, YouTube, and whatever else the user would like to add.

“We’re pulling together everything about the user they care about, be it on Yahoo or off, to create a personally relevant experience,” Tapan Bhat, Yahoo’s senior vice president, said in an interview with CNET. “In a world like this, Yahoo needs to make the user experience come first.”

The strategy seemed to have worked. Just a few months after the launch, Bhat reported that the amount of time spent on the homepage was up 20 percent, ”with page views increasing by 9 percent,” according to Adotas.com.

Along with those stats, advertisers saw a 10 percent rise in click-through rates, and Yahoo saw a 76 percent increase “in click-through rates on news and information targeted at each user in the ‘Today’ module.”

As for the personalization features themselves, 75 percent of Yahoo users claimed they “loved the apps area and 40 percent have loaded up six to 11 on their homepages.”

An Emphasis on Mobile

When the company redesigned its home page for desktop devices in 2009, it alsorevamped mobile. As a result, the homepage “is accessible by more than 1,900 different mobile devices,” says ReadWriteWeb’s Jolie O’Dell.

When the company introduced the new mobile site, it also incorporated captions on photos and allowed “users to scroll through more headlines without having to refresh content.”

Video clips loaded quickly, and the Favorites tab was fully integrated.

“The new Yahoo! mobile homepage is a well executed, updated version of the portal that ruled a much younger Internet,” O’Dell says. “It’s accessible, fast, full of interesting content and infinitely customizable.”

In a time when brands need to go mobile to keep up with users, Yahoo has more than pleased its fans.

Above all, Yahoo boasts a huge fan base because it caters to its audiences, whether they’re on mobile devices or browsing the site on their laptops. The CORE tool allows the company to see what content resonates, also helping editors and writers in return, figure out what they need to do to be featured on the site.

These are all lessons for brand bloggers and publishers can take from the Yahoo homepage.

Email marketing, daily deals, and now content strategy. Internet companies like Thrillist seem to be always adapting to trends.

Thrillist started as a daily deals site that focused on one target: young urban males. This focus carried through their brand voice, curated content, and the creation of Thrillist Media Group.

The media company combines the men’s lifestyle brand Thrillist, members-only shopping club JackThread, and local experiences platform Thrillist Rewards.

Thrillist found quick success since it’s start in 2004 by focusing on their editorial strategy. Any content marketer can learn a lesson or two from its content strategy, along with great suggestions of where to find a craft beer café.

Curate content for your audience

Thrillist has kept an attentive male audience by serving up content guys want (bar openings, parties, gadgets, and sports) for the city of their choice, says Thrillist CEO Ben Lerer.

“We reach our guys through expert editorial and keep them around through curated commerce,” Lerer said in an interview with Digiday. ”That wouldn’t be possible without really understanding what our consumers love, what they don’t love and how the services of Thrillist and JackThreads fits into the rest of their lives.”

Don’t trash email

Lerer told Digiday that email as the core of Thrillist’s distribution strategy. With Thrillist Media Group, advertisers have the option to offer branded content through “allied” emails.

These emails still speak to Thrillist’s guy audience while calling out they are sponsored.

“Email means personal — a one-to-one connection — that we spent a bunch of time fostering, and we have seen a lot of business from it,” says Lerer.

Provide value

Thrillist has provided its audience added value from the very beginning through deals and custom curated content.

By doing so, they have kept a loyal fanbase, which provides value for advertisers who want to reach Thrillist’s guy-centric audience, says Thrillist Media Group Vice President Shane Rahmani in an interview with Custom Content Council.

“As a leader at Thrillist I try to preach two things: (1) compelling editorial that engages our audience and fulfills our brand promise and (2) innovative advertising solutions that enable our partners to connect with our audience in an actionable and compelling way,” he said.

Content can only go so far

To generate revenue, a publisher has to think beyond ads, says Lerer.

“In today’s world, where everyone wants to be the biggest and the best and something last-able, you can’t scale content far enough,” he told Digiday. “For certain kinds of commerce, content is a natural place to be. Media companies have always thought about readers and tried to monetize them. Commerce companies think about buyers.”

Thrillist started as a content company and it’s still a media company at heart, Lerer said told Betabeat. “People are drawn to media companies and the excitement of content creation.”

Thrillist is a case study on how through content and curated commerce, a publisher can become a revenue generating business.

Thrillist is the male counterpart to DailyCandy, now in a partnership with NBC Universal. By focusing on a core audience, both companies have evolved from providing deals with fantastic editorial to media companies and lifestyle brands whose niche audiences have attracted numerous partnerships.

The success of these publishers not only shows how content marketing can lead to generating revenue for an individual business, but the creation of an entirely new business model.

Mummies, Nazis and Ancient Aliens. History has it all.

The enterprise, formerly known as The History Channel, has incorporated its massive catalog of historical content and popular reality shows into one heck of a brand, but its reach online through its website History.com and various social media outlets is particularly impressive.

Here’s a look at its marketing strategy:

Cross-branding

One can’t watch the network without being prompted to check out an array of other content vehicles, offering more free programing or other products that charge a premium.

Online, History.com is one-stop shop for all things History. Network producers direct viewers to the web every chance they get, often showing deleted scenes, exclusive interviews with their stars and interactive graphics. While navigating the site, the user is fed a steady barrage of even more content promotion back on the network.

The resulting self-sustaining History ecosystem generates a ton traffic and in return advertising dollars; however, there’s more monetizing where that came from. On all its channels, the company also heavily promotes its line of documentaries and video games on sale from the web site.

All social, all the time

The History brand is all over the usual social media players.

Facebook has a cool timeline which seems to be made for a brand such as theirs. However, it’s a little unsatisfying to see how limited it is compared to the real timelines it presents – going beyond the birth of Facebook to the birth of civilization.

With Twitter, it tweets regularly, updating its 240,000 followers on what shows are coming up, encouraging retweets and sending out fun facts like a “This Day in History” nugget.

For its many niche products, such as Pawn Stars, fans of the television program are fully engaged, tweeting along with the show in their own quests for abandoned treasure.

Google+ is more reactive with content like “If you missed last night’s Axe Men, watch it here.” It’s more targeted for casual fans with interesting news alerts called “History in the Headlines” sprinkled in. One recent alert was an article about how early Mayan calendars debunked the Mayan prophecy that the world will end in 2012.

Foursquare is probably History’s most innovative service from a user-engagement standpoint. The Foursquare site gives history buffs a chance to “unlock the history badge” as users check in to different historical sites. From there, History will send them fresh content based on that particular location.

Relevance

As the brand blends historical facts, news and entertainment, all the content needs to be judged with a skeptical eye. History is a for-profit entity owned through a joint venture between media conglomerates Hearst, Disney and Comcast.

They don’t just teach history, they also make it. The company has a team of archivists, historians and lawyers who seek, acquire and present historical documents.

This is extreme history and for many it’s extremely compelling — and sometimes controversial — kind of a Discovery Channel meets the Smithsonian Institute.

If a brand blogger ever dreamed about the sweet life, it would be the story of DailyCandy, which recently landed a content partnership with NBC Universal.

DailyCandy, a daily deals site that started in 2000, now partners with one of the biggest networks because founder Dany Levy never lost sight of their objective: to create loyalists by creating informative and fun content.

In their media kit they call themselves a “multiplatform lifestyle brand. ” How did they do this?

They know their target

DailyCandy appeals to influential and affluent women who want to be informed about what is trendy. While DailyCandy connects to the influential, trendy consumer, DailyCandy Kids reaches the moms seeking  information about raising children, but who still enjoy reading about fashion. By focusing on moms to expand their business, DailyCandy has kept a consistent audience: female, affluent, and information seeking. This also keeps the tone consistent.

They think like a print magazine

DailyCandy is an editorial franchise with regular features, such as the DailyCandy daily email, which has become a modern version of the print magazines women used to flock to.

Videos, shared on a weekly basis, look into a specific topic that constitutes the sweet life. Monthly features include Pretty Smart, full of beauty finds; a monthly round-up of must-see movies called Screen Play; and Party Time, offering recipes “for the entertainer.” DailyCandy is also localized, publishing local content for major cities.

They know how to distribute

Led by the editorial director Ashley Parrish, DailyCandy repackages their content for multiple target audiences. Content posted on each separate social platform fits the way readers use it.

DailyCandy Twitter has gained 770,667 followers by constantly sharing content with every tweet, either links to an article on DailyCandy or to another blog that falls under travel, culture, food, or fashion.

On Pinterest, it repins content from DailyCandy and other blogs for their 12,911 Followers. Tumblr is a collection of photos and images. The Daily Candy Facebook page has almost 300,0000 likes and posts scenes from around the office, focuses on engagement and leverages their Timeline to share their company history.

Their tone is relevant

When comparing DailyCandy with the daily deals giant Groupon, Karen Greenwood Henke of Nimble Press says the big difference is that “the writing [for Daily Candy] is actually clever, not just about being clever. The deals and the companies it highlights are intriguing and unique.”

Groupon’s claim to fame was its clever quips within each deal description. However, irrelevance have made the punchlines sometime leave a sour taste. Henke points to these descriptions from both sites to illustrate this:

DailyCandy: Forget wine; beer is taking over as the hot drink pairing in starred restaurants and at kitchen tables alike. Beer Connoisseur Deal

GroupOn: Cutting wheat or dairy products out of your life is difficult, especially since most sofas are made of 50% whole wheat and most shampoos are just gooey milk. Violets Cakes Groupon

DailyCandy’s description is incluisve, but for GroupOn, one has to be in on the joke.

How it pays off

StyleCandy is the culmination of a multiplatform content partnership between NBC Universal’s Style Media and Daily Candy.

“StyleCandy creates a seamless experience across TV and digital,” said Nick Lehman, president of digital for NBCUniversal’s Entertainment and Digital Networks and Integrated Media.

It will include short-form videos about lifestyle, entertaining and styling that will appear on cable’s Style Network and on the web starting this fall. DailyCandy Deals will be offered to Style Network viewers.

It took twelve years, but by sticking to their core objectives in their content strategy, DailyCandy is indeed living the sweet life.

Perez Hilton is the King of Gossip and an extraordinary brand blogger. He built his profitable blog on celebrity gossip, snarky commentary, and notorious Microsoft Paint scribbles over celebrity photos.

Hilton receives 260 million page views a month, according to a 2010 estimate. He has over 4.6 million followers on Twitter and 229,000 likes on Facebook. He has made a career out of blogging, celebrity gossip, and developing his brand.

Showing True Personality

Hilton stands out because he has a recognizable personality. He gained popularity as a snarky and vicious blogger. And he’s not afraid to draw over celebrities’ faces using MS Paint to get a point across.

“Perez often makes harsh and derogatory comments about celebrities,” says Blogger Marko Saric. “This results in a ton of publicity as celebrities respond back, media reports it and readers share it with their friends.”

Censorship and courtesy are not Hilton’s style: Controversy is. If you don’t want to be harsh, but still want to reap the benefits, show your true colors on your blog. People value real personalities and not robots when it comes to blogs.

Hilton questions the actions of celebrities, makes jokes about them, and pokes fun at them. He’s not afraid to challenge the status quo of gossip blogging: He fully embraces the pettiness of it and gives his readers the juicy news and commentary they crave.

Expand the Brand

Since the original website was created, Hilton has expanded his blogging empire to CocoPerez, a fashion site; TeddyHilton, a site for dog owners; Perezitos, a parenting and celebrity children site; and FitPerez, which focuses on fitness. He runs a TV production company, has written books, put out a clothing line, and established two radio shows and a music management business.

Although Hilton’s other sites are not as well known, he’s set himself up to appeal to a bigger audience. People interested in gossip are likely to follow fashion, but parents, dog owners, and fitness gurus are not. By writing about more than gossip, he’s attracting a wider audience to his brand in general by having his name on all the sites.

Constantly Create Content

If the news is there, blog about it. Fortunately for Hilton, something is always going on in Hollywood. He spends up to 18 hours a day updating the site, posting about 40 times per day.

Not only is he the King of Gossip; he’s also the King of Content. All the posts are linked to his Facebook and Twitter, where he posts questions such as, “Why did Bobby Brown get arrested?,” adding a link to a recent entry on the site.

Fans are enticed with the teases and Hilton gets rewarded in increased traffic. Blogs lose followers if they aren’t updated enough. For Hilton, it seems that’ll never be an issue.

Making it Pay

Before Hilton could charge $54,000 for an advertisement on the site, he experimented with “ads, text ads, wallpaper ads behind the blog posts, [and] sponsored posts,” according to Saric. In order for blogs to make money, ads must be sold.

However, making users angry or upset with intrusive ads will backfire. A blogger with ad offers should try out different methods and see what works with readers and companies.

Hilton is a branding and blogging guru. He is memorable because of his personality and has sustained his brand by expanding to other audiences. By putting content first and sticking to what the fans like, he has created a multi-million dollar blog that has kept him relevant and in the public eye.

Image courtesy of  moodsofnorway/flickr

There’s no shortage of business content on the Internet. Anyone with a computer and an E-Trade account can present themselves as the next Jim Cramer. In economic terms: there’s more supply than demand.

To stand out among this crowded field, brands have to be bold, be direct and – in the case of BusinessInsider.com – be useful. Every day, this site finds the space where CNBC and the Wall Street Journal meet and makes it their own.

The strategy is simple: Be the business insider so the reader doesn’t have to be. Delivering it is complex, but here are five key principles to Business Insider’s success that brand bloggers can learn from:

News to Use

Every trading day starts with the “Top 10 Things You Need to Know Before the Opening Bell.” 
This is the core of the content strategy. It gives the readers exactly what they want: a daily blueprint on how to get rich.

These lists cover everything from the newest employment data and earnings reports to who Ben Bernanke is having lunch with and how the foreign markets performed while you were sleeping.

Edgy Mix

Always coming back to business, BI’s content flows effortlessly into politics and pop – Europe is in crisis; the stock market is 50% overvalued; and a hooker was charged with seducing an Obama cabinet official … with pictures!

This isn’t the content one would expect to get from Bloomberg. It’s much more diverse, while still geared toward the same audience – that market junkie who want the tools to day trade and gossipy talking points to with them.

Compelling Headlines

The links on BI don’t just say what’s going on in the business world, they also say why it’s awesome.

A photo gallery of the tech CEOs’ biggest yachts, would be labeled “You Have Got To See These Big Ass Boats.” Such colloquial dialogue is effective because BI’s readers aren’t insiders themselves – they’re the other 99% who wants a glimpse inside the life.

The darker headlines are written in a similar type of everyday language: “Why Living in the American Empire Isn’t All That It’s Cracked Up to Be” and “I Was Punched in the Face for My iPhone – and It Happens All the Time”
 both appeared on the homepage recently.

Tables and Charts

When BI can’t tell the story in plain language they get right to it by breaking out graphics which are just as easy to understand. After all, nothing’s more direct than a straight line. These are often used on the more complex, data-driven stories and they have the added effect of making everything seem more official-sounding.

A recent graphic was bluntly called: “Here’s What Will Happen to the World’s Top 10 Currencies if the Euro Falls.” No one really knows what would happen in that scenario, but they already have the charts so it has to be credible, right?

Simply Irresistible

Perhaps the best take-away for brand bloggers is BI’s knack for knowing its audience and how it communicates in a way that’s just for them. They know the audience can’t get enough of JP Morgan’s dashing CEO Jamie Dimon, so they cover him like other blogs cover Lady Gaga.

That’s not to say that BI pulls its punches when it comes to corporate content, as was evident in the recent article, “Top 10 Tech CEOs Who Have to be Fired.”
 But when it comes to giving readers what they want, extra props have to be given to a recent feature called “Here’s the Easiest Way to Cheat on Your Taxes.”

In 2011, the concept of “evergreen” content took hold of the blogosphere, thanks largely to the rollout of Google’s freshness meter. Ironically, many of the posts on the matter have no date to reference, so it is hard to tell when it really began. 

At the heart of the matter was a new search engine optimization method, which suggests omitting post dates in URLs to get around Google’s attempt to demote old content. Some bloggers evolved this tactic by removing dates completely, and since then the real benefits are up for debate.

The point of Google’s freshness algorithm is to make sure searchers are finding the most relevant information on a topic, and not the stuff that’s days, weeks or years old. As Google explains, “…The most recent information can be from the last week, day or even minute, and depending on the search terms, the algorithm needs to be able to figure out if a result from a week ago about a TV show is recent, or if a result from a week ago about breaking news is too old.” 

The way SEO suggests content producers solve the problem of getting demoted in search if deemed “unfresh,” is to remove the date from the post URL. Using WordPress as an example, this is as simple as changing your permalink structure to “Post Name,” which has become the new WordPress standard. The idea is that content lacking dates is more likely to be accepted by readers and shared. In some cases, this has proven to be true.

Author Jim Connolly, of Internet Marketing Jam, decided to remove all dates from his blog for 30 days, inspired by Copyblogger having taken the plunge not long before. He notice a consistent drop in bounce rate, averaging 74% to 59% over the four weeks. Various bloggers commenting on the topic across the web have reported similar benefits in less statistical terms, but how removing dates will affect your blog is relevant to the kind of content you curate.

Psychological Issues at Play

There are two facets of the issue, in truth. One is based entirely on human psychology and the other on search engines. Both aim for the same result, more readers spending more time with your content, yet come from very different motivations. 

When looking for news or trending topics, for example, it is important for the most relevant, and yet most recent content to be delivered via a Google search. If I click through to an article dated in 2009, I may not even bother to read it. However, if it has no visible date at all, I might trust it more, or I may actually treat it the same as old content because nothing is there to validate it as new.

A blog focused on timeless content — such as recipes, relationship advice, business tips or opinions — could benefit from a date-free blog design. The removal of dates and other unnecessary meta-data allows the blog to look more like a resource and less like a journal or commentary on fleeting issues.

But date removal is not wise for all formats. Consider a blog covering web design techniques or technology trends. While these types of posts are often found without a date, some readers may find it irresponsible not to provide some indication of how old the technique is. Readers new to the techniques benefit more from using current information that is relevant to today’s standards.

Where the Real Benefit Lies

There is no denying the importance of dates in journal or news-based content, or blogs focused on trends and statistics. However, to maintain your page ranking and ensure your best content continues to inform and delight readers, graduating older posts to a dateless format can make a noticeable difference. Simply using a dateless URL format may provide the most benefit, saving you the trouble of removing all dates.

When used in combination with timeless topics, removing visible dates can improve the frequency of shares and the overall time your visitors spend with your content. 

Alternative ways of dating content may be used in situations where it is best, such as referencing a date in the body of the article (“…as of April 2012…”) or using a WordPress plugin to show or hide it at will.

Whatever choice you make for yourself or your clients should be based on the goals for the blog and how much benefit you believe a date affords its readers.

Recommended Reading

Here are some great commentaries from around the web that content strategists interested in post chronology should check out:

• AlistApart: Future-Ready Content
• Yoast: Archive SEO By Topic, Not By Date

Recommended Resources

Here are some WordPress plugins that help solve the dating issue. Check them out and let us know about your favorite plugins for chronology issues in the comments:

• WordPress: Date Exclusion SEO
• WordPress: WP Date Remover
• WordPress: Dynamic Dates
• WordPress: Time Machine

Image courtesy of Flickr, Bob West

If you’re a blogger — especially one who’s working within the confines of a tight budget, and still has to turn around great content quickly — you know that finding the perfect images for a post can be a challenge.

When you’re in that position, you just don’t have the budget or lead time to hire a professional photographer, so you turn to stock photos. While that might not be the ideal solution, you can make it work by following a few basic guidelines.

Here are our best practices for rocking beautiful stock photos on your blog.

Give Credit Where Credit Is Due

If you’re blogging, you should already know that you can’t just pull a Google image and plop it into your post.

Before you use an image, make sure you understand the licensing agreement and attribute accordingly.

Here at The Content Strategist, we’re fans of Creative Commons licenses, a set of easy-to-understand licenses that come in six forms.

Creative Commons licenses easily detail if any limitations — some are for editorial use only, or cannot be manipulated, for example. You can search Creative Commons images across a variety of sites by using Creative Commons Search.

If you’re using other sites to find stock photos, photos are generally royalty-free, and each will specify how you’re allowed to use them, so read the fine print. And always give credit where it’s due.

Don’t Use Cliché Photos

How many times have you seen the handshake, the shot featuring a bunch of young executives in suits in a huddle, a closeup of hands holding a globe, the perfectly multicultural business meeting?

If you can help it, refrain from subjecting your readers to these stock photo cliches on your blog. “The fact that it is stock photography, it can often come across as contrived or staged,” says Jessica Carlson, social media manager at Phoenix-based ad agency Off Madison Ave. “And not to mention the fact that a variety of companies and users (and maybe even your competitors) could be utilizing the exact same photo elsewhere.”

In other words, think about how images can set your blog apart, instead of making it look like everyone else’s.

Scroll through Search Results

Often a stock image website will show you the most popular images first, says Raj Ramdya, director of software solution provider ROI Software Solutions.

So, don’t stop on the first page of search results when looking for a stock photo. Do a little digging. “Ideally, you’ll want to find an image that isn’t used by a lot of people,” Ramdya says.

Change It Up

“In general when using stock photography, you should try to use it in a way that helps to make it your own,” suggests Stephanie Stafford, creative director of Off Madison Ave. “Cropping it, making it black and white, a filter — anything of that sort will at least help, so that it isn’t the same one that everyone else is using.”

If you plan to alter an image, though, make sure the owner allows alterations through his or her license.

Watch Out for Photos That Disconnect From the Content

Is your photo helping you tell your story? If it doesn’t seem like it belongs or adds value in some way, it’s probably not the best choice.

You want your readers to stay engaged. Causing them to scratch their heads and wonder what your image has to do with your topic may lose them.

Think Beyond the Headshot

Stock photo sites are notorious for turning up pages and pages of the same model in slightly different poses. Portraits and staged scenarios, however, ooze with cheesiness.

As an alternative, your post may be better served by incorporating a chart, graph, or illustration. Think about scouring for images from sources beyond stock sites when possible.

If you’re interviewing an expert, for example, you could ask him or her to share a photo, for instance. But try to discourage cheesy headshot photos — ask for photos of your interviewee in natural settings, such as at his or her desk.

Consider Your Brand’s Image

Think about the buzzwords that surround your brand. Is it hip and modern, professional and academic? Once you consider the overall corporate culture, you should include photos that will resonate accordingly.

“For example, if your brand wants to be positioned as irreverent, using stock imagery with avant-garde subjects, unique angles or vintage filters could help you convey that,” says Carlson.

Stock photos can be a time saver and enhance your work, or they could detract from the message you want to get across. In other words, a picture is worth 1,000 words, so watch what you’re saying when you use stock photos for your blog.

Images courtesy of Flickr, aftab, gozalewis, aturkus