In this unit we will discuss how to craft and write compelling content.. the kind of content that can "go viral".
 

• words
• spelling and word structure
• fonts used
• colours used in writing text
• images / graphics
• image editing
• social-cultural influences
• audio
• clarity
• subtitles
• languages used
• video
• software requirements (ie. versions of Flash)
• file sizes
• how much can be easily downloaded on mobiles devices
• story telling
• how to effectively describe things
• "this pencil is blue".

• the amount of words on a page and their arrangement and relevance to the title can improve your ranking
• If your title was "History of bridges and rivers in Ontario" then your ranking would improve if you indeed had on that particular page a list of all the rivers in Ontario that had bridges
• Repeating the same word more than 3 times is a spamming technique known as Keyword Stuffing - do not repeat words unless they are in a grammatically correct sentences - Search Engine algorithms use techniques to block sites that use stuffing

• frequency of particular words on the page indicates the likelihood that the search engine software will pick up on your key words and indicate to a search result that you have the content people are looking for - the more words in a topic area (compared to another page) the higher you'll rank
• sometimes webmasters try to "trick" Search Engines by filling white space at the bottom of the page with dozens of words hoping that this will trigger particular Search Engines to rank the page. Search Engine companies know this trick and try to avoid this by discounting words unless they are linked in sentences that have grammar structure that makes sense.

latent 

  o having many images on a page does not improve your ranking unless the name of the image file is relevant to the title of the page, eg. on a page titled "Brides of Ontario", it would help to name your images trentbridge1.jpg, napaneeriver2.jpg, etc.

  o some image formats do not translate into searchable units, for example, it may be kewl to put Flash on your page, but nothing in Flash can be picked up by the Search Engine algorithm so that content will not be indexed

  o keep in mind that newer versions of Search Engines, like Google in 2003, have indexing capabilities by the name of an image so if you name your images appropriately, they can possibly be found in a Google search by images, as well as by text

  o "Flash content is graphic and not read by search engines. Imagine you make a TV ad that has no sounds, just pictures. Now broadcast that on radio. The pictures aren't seen, no sound is heard, so there's just nothing. Search engines don't see pictures. The "sound" they do get is text. No text, then nothing." interview with Danny Sullivan by Meryl K. Evans

  o "If the Flash content is just interactive, games, marketing fluff or branding, it doesn't really matter. If Flash contains a lot of text content, though, you need to find a way to make it visible to search engine indexers. Exporting from Flash means that you get the links and text in comment tags--if you remove the comments and surround them with <noscript> tags, the search indexer can read them." - Danny Sullivan

"Regarding Image Content – Inclusion of <ALT = > tags is given heavy weight by SE’s. Additionally, SE’s (Google essentially) is now capable of figuring out what an image is about based on the text surrounding the image. With regard to Flash content, there is a technology called SIFR that allows use of text visible to crawlers that shows up as Flash rendering to the human eye."

Having many audio files linked to a page does not improve your ranking unless the name of the audio file is relevant to the title of the page, eg. on a page titled "History of Fort Henry", it would help to name your files march1.midi, trumpetcall2.wav,  etc