Paging all Creatures: Bleacher Stud Leroy Watson has revealed the secrets to his writing in his latest submission.

The five-time POTD winner shares with you the three e’s of Bleacher Report publication: engage, educate, and entertain.  He then fleshes out how to achieve each of these important goals.

For those of you searching for success on the Open Source Sports Network, this is truly a can’t-miss.  Many thanks to Leroy for revealing his secret sauce!

Hey guys,

As Bleacher Report looks to continue building its brand as the web’s premiere destination for high quality fan journalism, we are tightening up our standards for content syndication.

For our purposes, syndication means that a Bleacher Report writer’s article has an excellent chance of being linked to by CBS Sports and/or Google News.

Going forward, all Bleacher Report writers will be officially evaluated for “Syndicated Writer” status based upon the quality of their submissions. This evaluation will include, amongst other factors, an internal review by Bleacher Report’s editorial staff.

The review process will be ongoing—writers who are not initially selected will have their articles syndicated on a case-by-case basis, and be given an opportunity to attain full-time syndication status through continued work on honing their craft and ensuring that their content is consistently in line with the network’s editorial standards.

By the same token, being a syndicated writer is an honor that must be upheld at all times, and may be removed if at any point a writer publishes content that jeopardizes the B/R brand.

Those writers who are deemed qualified will now find a “Syndicated Writer” badge on their profile. Anyone who has not written an article in the past six months has not been reviewed for syndication approval—if you’d like to be reviewed, please log back in to B/R and write another article.

This new policy is being enacted to ensure that Bleacher Report’s partner sites receive only the best that the network has to offer. That said, rest assured that Bleacher Report’s doors are still as open as they ever were to aspiring journalists and die-hard fans, regardless of whether or not their writing is fit for syndication.

Thanks as always to everyone for your continued support. Keep rocking and rolling guys!

Hey everyone,

Humor articles are some of the finest pieces Bleacher Report has to offer.  Since Dave Metrick’s famous stadium re-naming satire from the site’s earliest days, readers have been able to reliably visit the humor section of the site for high quality, laugh-out-loud original concepts that will have any legitimate sports fan in stitches.

That said, we’ve started to have some major problems recently with articles that purport to be breaking news but are actually satire.  Or in some cases…purport to be satire but are in actuality mere unsubstantiated rumors.

This all came to a boiling point yesterday when this article, which claimed that a trade agreement between the Redskins and Broncos that would send Jay Cutler to Washington was near completion, was reported on by several media outlets and then addressed by Washington Redskins management.

The article was tagged on Bleacher Report with “Humor,” but for those who stumbled upon the piece via on outside source, it appeared to be the cold-hard truth.

We of course want nothing more than for Bleacher Report to attact mainstream media attention, but we strongly believe that this kind of attention is not in the best interest of our Community.  As the web’s first Open Source Sports Network it is crucial that we are seen as a legitimate editorial publication and not as a site which starts rumors via unconfirmed sources.

We are taking the following measures to remedy this problem going forward:

1) All articles that are tagged with “humor” will be more prominently labeled as such in news feeds. This is the most effective way to alert readers to the fact that a piece of content they have opened up does not contain actual news.

2) When a writer tags their article with “breaking news,” they may be asked to confirm their sources with our editorial staff. Authors that cannot provide legitimate sources will have their articles deleted. Please note that Bleacher Report will not publicly disclose your sources.

3) Any article tagged with “humor” that contains no satire whatsoever shall be deleted.  We simply don’t feel these pieces add anything to the Community given that they are both not funny and untrue.  It has never been a part of Bleacher Report’s mission to confuse sports readers.

4) We will create a “rumors” section where writers can speculate on upcoming events.  To clarify, rumor pieces that mask themselves as breaking news will still be deleted.

We are confident that these new policies will put our Community in a much better position to continuing establishing itself as one of the premiere sources for sports knowlegde and insight, while also allowing our many talented humor writers to continue working their magic.

If you have any questions about these new policies, please email me directly (zander at bleacherreport.com).  Thanks as always for understanding guys.

One of the most common questions I get from members of our Community is how to increase their exposure on the site.

I tend to direct people to an extensive blog post I’ve written on the subject, as well as our series of Writer’s Tips.  Yesterday however, some of us in the office had a sudden realization of a proven method of increasing readership that we’d never before identified…but has been right under our noses for quite some time.

It came about as I was writing a post on the exceptional Lisa Horne’s bulletin board, and I reflected once again upon just how many comments her articles generate.  “It’s simply unbelievable—she averages like 80 comments per article, and regularly breaks 200″ I said to Ryan Alberti, who works next to me in our office.

“Yeah she’s amazing.  Though half of those comments are probably hers…”

Light bulb.

Dave Finocchio overheard our conversation and came running in from the other room.  “Hey guys…there’s clearly a correlation between those who dominant the top writers list and the frequency with which they respond to the comments in their articles!”

It didn’t take me long to realize just how true this statement was.  I ran down a mental checklist of the Creatures who have mastered the art of replying to every comment they recieve: Salaar Shamsi…Alan Bass…Baby Tate…Andy McNair…

It then struck me that I’ve never communicated the effectiveness of this strategy to the user base as a whole—so I’m doing it now.

The best way to build up a reputation on Bleacher Report is to establish a name for yourself in a particular Community.  When you take the time to not only write a provocative article—but then to follow up and thank people for their compliments, engage them in compelling discussion, and further prove that your knowledge of the sport you love makes you an expert in the truest sense—you’re going to get hordes of fans.

You heard it here first, aspiring Creature: engaging directly with those who have taken the time to read your article and comment on it will help you get you the recognition you so desire.

So after publishing your article, make sure to get busy in the threads.

College Football Die Hard Gray Ghost recently published an article which offers advice for garnering recognition within Bleacher Report’s College Football Community.

Upon reading the piece, it’s clear these tips apply to the Bleacher Report Community as a whole, not just College Football.  To all of you aspiring Bleacher Creatures who want to know how to earn their stripes, trust me when I say that this is a must read.

Hey guys,

Those of you eager to have media files accompany your sports analysis need to read Bleacher Creature Saraswathi Sirginia’s tutorial on inserting images, audio files, and videos into Bleacher Report articles ASAP.

Sara did extensive research on the subject and was nice enough to compile everything she learned for the benefit of her fellow B/R addicts.  To say that we appreciate her efforts in putting this together is an understatement…

To say thanks to Sara, or to ask questions, leave a note on her B/R Bulletin Board.

It’s one thing to produce superlative sports analysis. It’s quite another to ensure that that analysis attracts the readers it deserves.

In the online publishing world, every writer has to be a salesman. The Internet’s a crowded place, and only by properly packaging and promoting your work can you expect to make yourself heard. That packaging and promotion, in turn, has to start with a quality headline.

The best headlines serve two distinct masters: automated search engines on the one hand and real-life readers on the other. First you have to construct your headline in such a way as to game the algorithms used by Google and other search sites. Then you have to make that headline palatable to the actual people who do the searching—because if they don’t click on it, all your effort goes for naught.

The good news is that the task doesn’t have to be a daunting one. In fact, great headlines aren’t all that hard to write, provided you adhere to Bleacher Report’s stylistic standards and pay close attention to the most fundamental selling points…

Impressing the Search Engines

Search engine optimization begins and ends with keywords. Articles with vague or esoteric headlines don’t draw many readers for the simple reason that they don’t appear on many popular search listings. If you want people to read your work, you have to put it where they’re going to find it—which means being mindful both of which keywords you choose and how your order them in the headline.

a. Choosing Keywords

In choosing keywords to include in your headline, it’s important to balance specificity and mass appeal. If your aim is too narrow, you’ll get buried in your own niche. If your aim is too broad, you’ll get lost in the World Wide Shuffle.

Personal names (both first AND last) are generally the most effective traffic-generating keywords. Events and team names (both city/school and mascot) are next on the list, followed by divisions, conferences, and leagues.

Your primary goal should always be to include first and last personal names in your headline. If that strategy isn’t a fit with your article, you should next target events and team names. If that still doesn’t yield a match, you should turn to divisions, conferences, and leagues as a last resort.

Poor choice of keywords: “Irish Eyes Are Weeping”

Better choice of keywords: “Notre Dame Football Drops the Ball”

Best choice of keywords: “Charlie Weis, Notre Dame Football Drop the Ball”

b. Ordering Keywords

Keywords at the beginning of a headline are weighted more heavily by search algorithms than those at the end. With that in mind, it’s important to lead with your “best” keywords—i.e. those which are most likely to attract readers who are going to want to read your article.

As a general rule, you should aim to order your keywords according to their effectiveness in generating traffic:

1. Personal Names

2. Events and Teams

3. Divisions, Conferences, and Leagues

If you work within that framework, you’ll give your article the best chance of earning a strong search ranking—and you’ll give potential readers the best opportunity to sample what you’re trying to sell.

Poor use of keywords: “NBA: Boston Celtics Ride Kevin Garnett to Finals Win”

Better use of keywords: “Boston Celtics Ride Kevin Garnett to NBA Finals Win”

Best use of keywords: “Kevin Garnett Leads Boston Celtics to NBA Finals Win”

Attracting the Searchers

Given the emphasis on search engine optimization in the online publishing world, it’s easy to forget that search engines are themselves merely conduits to real-live human beings. Sure, it’s important to appeal to the Google computers with your headline. But it’s even more important to appeal to the searchers who’ll actually be reading your work.

To that end, you should always be mindful of three distinct criteria in writing your headlines: specificity, readability, and “clickability.” Doing so will endear you to the living, breathing people on the other side of cyberspace—which if nothing else is a whole lot more satisfying than making friends with a search algorithm.

a. Specificity

Remember, potential readers can only judge your article by the headline that gets listed with syndicated search results. With that in mind, it’s important that the title communicate exactly what the piece is about—in order to help searchers find exactly what they’re looking for.

As noted above, vague or esoteric headlines fail to generate traffic because they fail to advertise the product to search-engine users. As is true of any transaction, buyers (or in this case, readers) won’t commit if they don’t know what they’re getting into. Specific headlines convey precise and relevant information to searchers, and thus encourage those searchers to take the plunge with your work.

Vague headline: “MLB Prospects: You Will Know Their Names Soon”

Specific headline: “Jay Bruce, Evan Longoria Top List of MLB Prospects”

b. Readability

The importance of readability in headline text speaks to the fact that there’s an actual person on the other side of the search process. You’re not writing for an algorithm, after all; you’re writing for a human being, and to that end you should be sure that your headline reads naturally rather than mechanically.

The most natural headlines—the most “human” headlines—are those which present themselves as readable, keyword-rich units rather than mere amalgamations of keywords. Before publishing, you should always ask yourself whether your headline would make sense if you said it out loud. If it does, you’re in business. If not, it may be time for a rethink.

Awkward Headline: “NBA Draft, No. 2 Pick: Miami Heat Sitting Pretty”

Readable Headline: “Miami Heat Sitting Pretty in NBA Draft with No. 2 Pick

c. “Clickability”

“Clickability” is the most abstract of the criteria outlined here, but in many ways it’s also the most obvious.

Again, Internet readers have plenty of options when they search for sports-related content. If you want people to choose you, you have to actively compete for eyeballs—which means using your headline to differentiate yourself from all those other hack writers out there.

A clickable headline is any which makes searchers want to read YOUR article instead of the next one. Although it’s hard to pin down exactly what’s clickable and what isn’t, there are four fundamental techniques that will help you put your best foot forward:

1. Take a Stand

Most Bleacher Report submissions are written with an editorial bent, and thus are naturally distinct from the bulk of generic, fact-based content on the Internet. The best Bleacher Report headline, in turn, is that which conveys the nature of an article’s editorial position.

As a general rule, Internet readers are drawn to articles that make arguments instead of merely regurgitating information. The more forceful a stand you take in your headline, the more likely you are to attract people to your work.

Bland headline: “NBA: Nets Acquire Yi Jianlin From Bucks”

Clickable headline: “With Yi Jianlin, Nets Primed for Great Leap Forward”

2. Ask a Question, or Hint at an Answer

Mystery is always more compelling than certainty. In writing headlines, your best bet is to hint at the substance of your article without giving away the whole story.

The strategy here often entails asking a question, or adding “Why” or “How” to your title. The bottom line is that you want to be suggestive in order to be provocative. Anything you can do to stimulate the curiosity of potential readers will help to drive search traffic to your work.

Bland headline: “Nick Saban Dismisses Jimmy Johns from Alabama Football Team”

Clickable headline: “Why Nick Saban Dismissed Jimmy Johns from the Alabama Football Team”

3. Make a List

For reasons known only to David Letterman and VH1, people love lists. That’s especially true of Internet readers, who will flock to headlines which promise “The Top Five” or “The Ten Best” of just about anything.

All list articles should be advertised as such in their headlines. You’d also do well to repackage non-list articles with list-like headlines.

Bland Headline: “Fantasy Baseball Pickups: Week Five”

Clickable Headline: “The Top Seven Fantasy Baseball Picks Up for Week Five”

4. Overstate Your Case…Or Understate It

The final key to headline clickability lies in your choice of qualifying adjectives. To attract potential readers, you should always aim to either overstate or understate your position.

Hyperbolic headlines make articles more salient for search-engine users. The more dramatically you package your article, the more likely you are to drive traffic to it.

Bland Headline: “NBA Draft: Second Round Picks Who Became Stars”

Clickable Headline: “The Best Second Round Picks in NBA Draft History”

Understated headlines, on the other hand, play upon the general appeal of mystery and uncertainty. Understated qualifiers include words like “might,” “could,” and “should,” and can lend an air of intrigue to an otherwise plain title.

Bland headline: “Why the Chicago Cubs Will Win the World Series”

Clickable Headline: “Why the Chicago Cubs Could (or Should or Might) Win the World Series”

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If there’s one lesson to learn about headlines, it’s that the title often makes or breaks the story. Given the search-centric nature of Internet traffic, you can’t expect to attract readers to your work if you don’t package it well. Whenever you publish, always be mindful of the extent to which searchers will judge your articles by their headlines—and always promote your submissions with as much effort as you put into writing them.

For further reading, check out Copyblogger’s “How to Write Magnetic Headlines” series.

A few people have been asking lately about how photos work on B/R, especially since we’ve added the option to upload your own photos to your articles.

Right now B/R licenses images from Icon Sports Media. Premium, professional quality photographs add a lot to a story, and we think it’s important for our writers to have access to a great library of images, without having to worry about copyright issues. While the B/R photo library is by no means exhaustive, we try our best to continually update it with great, relevant shots. If there is a photo we don’t have that you want to use, you can email photo guru Mike Eagan at photos@bleacherreport.com with your request and he’ll do his best to add it to the library.

Realizing that the photo library may not have exactly what you’re looking for, we also recently added the ability to upload your own photos to your articles, a feature that was in high demand from some of our best writers. This has led to a greater diversity of images on the site, and a more freedom for the writer when choosing how their work will be presented. However, there are a few things to consider before hitting the “Upload Photo” button.

The first consideration is copyright concerns. When uploading your own photos, you should either own the image or have permission from the copyright holder. If there is an image you’re dying to use that is copyrighted, you can usually find the contact info for the photographer or publication it was originally printed in and send a request for usage.

Or you can take your chances and post the photo if you feel that the image falls under the doctrine of “Fair use”. Fair use is an ambiguous concept, but generally if you’re writing about a subject and the photo you want to use adds to and/or is necessary for the commentary, then fair use generally applies.

The second aspect to consider when uploading your own photos is image quality. Bleacher Report writers take pride in the clean appearance of the network, and you should do your part to upload only photos that add, and don’t detract, from that quality. Uploaded photos must be at least 300px tall by 400px wide at 72dpi, and should not be blurry, low quality, or hard to identify.

Thirdly, photos should always be relevant to the article and tagged appropriately. Relevant photos add to the article text and, in some cases, amplify or augment the point you’re making in your article. Appropriate tags make the photos easily indexable in the library, and thus easier for other writers to find and use them when writing about similar subjects.

Finally, and this goes without saying, all uploaded photos should be appropriate for all audiences. Obscene or pornographic photos will be promptly removed and the members who upload them will have their accounts suspended.

Another request we get from time to time is for in-game photos, which we agree would be pretty freaking cool if added to the already powerful arsenal of the Bleacher Report writer. Rest assured, we’re currently working on a solution that will broadly expand our image library and include in-game photos in the offerings. Stay tuned for more news on that in the next couple months.

Any more questions on photos? Ask in the comments below.

In a perfect world, publishing on Bleacher Report would be as simple as typing your article and clicking “Submit.”

In this one, things don’t always always go quite so smoothly.

The B/R Submission Module is generally pretty serviceable, and we’re always working to make it better—but snafus are bound to happen. When they do, three general tricks may just save you from throwing your laptop out the window in frustration…

1. Switch to Firefox

The B/R interface works best with Mozilla’s Firefox browser. If you’re running into functionality problems—e.g. you can’t add a picture or change tags—a browser switch might be the answer. Firefox is a free app and can be downloaded on the Mozilla website. (Open-sourcers of the world, unite!)

2. Do your formatting in the Submission Module, not your word processor.

Special formatting features—including ordered lists, block quotes, and tables—often translate improperly from word processor documents to the Submission Module. If you want to add bells and whistles, your best bet is to do so in the Submission Module itself, either manually or by using the buttons in the Editing Toolbar.

You may also find that line and paragraph breaks get mistranslated from the Submission Module to the live Article Page. In such cases, you can usually solve the problem by removing and then reinserting the line breaks in the Submission Module—i.e. delete the blank space until the first sentence of one paragraph is on the same line as the last sentence of the preceding paragraph, then press RETURN twice to reestablish the break.

3. Learn to love HTML code.

The vast majority of B/R formatting problems originate in an article’s HTML code, which can be accessed by clicking on the “HTML” button on the right side of the Editing Toolbar. If you have the time and inclination to teach yourself the basics, you’ll be able to hack your way through most issues—especially those related to line and paragraph breaks (and the corresponding <br /> and <p> HTML tags).

Anyone seeking to nurture his inner nerd would do well to start with this online tutorial…and to remember that pocket protectors are no more or less cool than the individuals who wear them.

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Of course, these are only general suggestions, and may or may not be applicable to your particular headache. If you have specific questions, please note them in the Comments section below. I won’t always be able to help, but at least you’ll know that someone else shares your technically challenged and hopelessly impotent cyber-angst.

And hey—that’s what the Internet’s all about, isn’t it?

On the Internet, form IS content. HOW you write changes the very substance of WHAT you write, because it changes the way readers process and understand your work.

If you want to make a splash, you have to deliver your message in the right kind of style.

And if you want to do that, you have to play by the rules.

Think about the way you read Web content compared to the way you read a novel, or even a magazine article. If you’re like most people, your eyes move much more quickly in an online setting. Internet readers are looking for information they can digest in a short amount of time and with a minimal amount of effort—and it’s your job as a writer to give them what they want.

The bottom line: Keep it simple, even if it means sacrificing a little rhetorical flair.

Concision and clarity are paramount. Long blocks of text and convoluted grammatical forms turn readers off. Short sentences and short paragraphs keep them engaged. To borrow a passage from the Bleacher Report Editor’s Tips…

If a sentence makes a particularly important point within the article (or can be modified to do so), set it off as its own paragraph. This strategy makes a piece more readable by making its argument easier to follow.

Remember, most Internet readers read very quickly. To catch and hold their attention, it’s important to create visual and rhetorical breaks (e.g. paragraph breaks and single-sentence anchor paragraphs) within the course of the text.

Like this.

You don’t have to like the fact that the Internet has killed the long paragraph and the complex sentence—but denying the truth won’t make it go away. Prose style matters because you’re writing for an audience, not for yourself. Keeping that audience happy is the best way to get your point across.

And that, of course, is the only goal worth having.

For a clinic in proper sentence and paragraph length, see “Dear Alex Rodriguez…Don’t Blame Derek Jeter,” by Dave Metrick.

For a detailed analysis of Bleacher Report’s stylistic philosophy, refer to the Methodology section of the Editor’s Tips.

For a sense of how to turn principle into practice, take a tour through the Editing Case Study.

For further reading, check out “The 10 Commandments of Internet Writing” from WebProNews.com.