If you want your video to rank well, you must give the search engines something to index and rank. Surround videos with relevant on-page HTML that is easily indexed by the search engines. Optimise for key phrases that reflect the content and the terms users search on. You could even tag each scene.

The video title also has to be something people would want to click on. Don’t forget to add “video” to the tag listing.

Howdy all! As you can see, I finally moved my old blog to its namesake, Electric Fishwrap.

I made the move for a few reasons:

1. I thought katemartinonline.com could be hard to remember. Some people have tried just katemartin.com, which is definitely not my blog. Also, the online part of the url seems redundant.
2. ElectricFishwrap.com is easier to remember because most people I have told about my site at least laughed when they heard the name.
3. I wanted to start with a clean slate and a fresh design. The old blog was located at www.katemartinonline.com/blog. The original site (without the blog part) was designed with Dreamweaver and in my opinion looked really amateur. I wanted to avoid that with this current version.

I’ll be changing a few things around, possibly adding a few more items to the clips section this week during my week’s vacation. In the meantime if you want to contact me or provide feedback to the new site, visit my twitter page @katemartin13 or send me an e-mail: katie.martin.13{at}gmail.com.

The staff of The Cedar Rapids Gazette, for example, has been overwhelmed with the generous and unsolicited help and offers to help from newspaper colleagues as they continue to publish and broadcast on all platforms through the flooding disaster in Cedar Rapids and Iowa City. They were especially overwhelmed by the truckload of bottled water, cots, fruit and other donations from the Dubuque Telegraph Herald.

The Iowa Newspaper Foundation wants to help you help these people in need. Newspaper employees in Cedar Rapids, Waterloo, Vinton, Iowa City and other towns in the flood zone face personal losses. Some employees have had their homes and personal belongings destroyed or severely damaged.

We all joke about how little money we make, so it’s clear these people really do need help. Check out the donation page on the Iowa Newspaper Foundation. I’m sure even $5 would help.

The only downside to this big change is there is now competition for the newsroom’s only laptop. I love using the laptop. I can type much faster than I can write. I can look up archived stories for background information and to ask better questions. Most importantly, it has an air card so I can file right from my meeting and then go home and bring it back to the newsroom in the morning.

When we were a p.m. paper most reporters wrote their stories between 7 a.m. and 8:30 a.m. the next morning. But now that we’ve all got a deadline of 9:30 p.m. everyone wants to use it.

Fortunately most of my meetings end before 9 p.m., so if I hurry back I can push the envelope of my deadline.

I loved my car. Don’t let anyone say otherwise. My blue Taurus had character, maybe made more so by the bumper stickers on the back:

Reunite Gondwanaland

The lottery: A tax on people who are bad at math

Those two politically neutral bumperstickers have been great conversation starters with soccer moms after a school board meeting, and with political candidates (I particularly remember explaining where, or rather, when, Gondwanaland was and a rudimentary discussion on plate tectonics with Pete Coors, who ran for senate in 2004).

So I’ve replaced my Taurus with another car. A 2004 Toyota Prius.

I’ve always thought that Prius owners are snooty, smug, pretentious hippies who  have more money than sense. So it was really difficult for me to accept that a Prius was the right car for me.

Before car shopping, I made an Excel spreadsheet detailing the cost of the car, the cost of gas (on a sliding scale) the cost of yearly repairs including oil changes, the amount of miles I would drive, the MPG the car got according to Consumer Reports and the years I would own the car. The EPA’s fuel economy Web site was my home for several days.

The spreadsheet didn’t lie. Considering my 80-mile daily commute, a used Prius was by far the best deal for me over a five-year period (or longer). Now that I’ve driven it for a couple of days (and received a ding on my windshield from a rock on the highway, grr) I can see why Prius owners are so darn smug. The gas consumption gauge is addicting. I’m getting 45.1 MPG if it’s accurate.

The only thing missing is the bumper stickers.

*Lowers pen and notebook and bows her head*

But what about the bad side of journalism? Well… most people tend to sweep it under the rug. Now, thankfully there is a web site to vent our anger: AngryJournalist.com. You get to hear complaining from every angle: editors about reporters, reporters about editors, crappy pay, hours and benefits.

It’s all there in black and white. Even if you don’t post there, it’s good therapy to just read and know that other people have bad experiences too.

Tons of trades have had websites where they can vent their bad experiences, like tipthepizzaguy.com, bitterwaittress.com and any number of other groups if you just add “sucks” to the end of a search string.