Sue Keogh to Present at WordCamp London

WordCamp London will be featuring a variety of WordPress experts to give advice and information into how best to maximise your online presence. One featured speaker is Sue Keogh, Director of Sookio – a website strategy and social media firm based in the city of Ely, just north of Cambridge, UK. The company was founded by Sue in 2008, after extensive online experience as a Project Manager at ITV.com – she also worked with the homepage teams at Yahoo! and AOL, and became editor on the Magic FM website. Ms. Keogh is also a Fellow of the RSA and regularly shares her web and social media expertise as a conference speaker. Sue and her team are highly sought after for their editorial and strategy expertise as well as their social media savvy.

Sue will be speaking at WordCamp London 2015 (sneak peak below) on the subject of creating compelling titles for web content and the effect that can have readers finding your best content easily. Our 34SP.com WordPress hosting experts caught up with Sue Keogh to learn more about Sookio and her involvement with WordPress (34SP.com is a major sponsor of WordCamp London 2015).

 

How did you first get involved in the WordPress community?

When I first became a web editor the sites I was working on were for huge companies like the BBC, ITV.com, Yahoo! and AOL, who all had their own bespoke systems. When I left to go freelance and then set up my company I began working with smaller businesses, alongside designers and developers. I quickly discovered this wonderful thing called WordPress, that it seemed everyone was using. Although I was proficient in html and things like DreamWeaver, it felt like a big leap forward. People could be in more control of their content, rather than sticking with a particular layout just because some bloke in the office who left three years ago had designed it that way.

 

At Sookio you offer: ”website copywriting, website strategy and content, and social media management and training”. Who is your perfect customer and how does WordPress play a role in what you deliver?

We’re lucky enough to be able to work in a wide range of sectors, in particular science and tech businesses in the Cambridge tech cluster, arts and publishing, health care, and education. As I always promise to new members of the team, every day is different! We love all our clients, but ideally we find people we can work with long term – this could mean developing their web and social media strategy, writing the content for their site and then managing their social media channels and keeping their site updated with lively, engaging, SEO-focused content like blogs and features. A trusted content management system like WordPress fits the bill perfectly.

 

Tell us a bit about what you plan to say during your presentation at WordCamp London 2015. Who would benefit the most from hearing your presentation?

I’m going to be talking about one of my favourite topics – the art of crafting a good title for your blog or other web content. It should be useful for anyone who blogs or who creates content for the web and wants people to actually read it! I find that many people focus on creating the blog post itself and the title is an afterthought. But what they’re forgetting is that this is not how people find their content; they see a title that catches their eye and only then do they go on to read the post. So the more time and effort you put into creating the title, the more chance there is that people will actually read your wonderful work. So avoid being abstract, writing titles that only make sense when you see them in context. This won’t work when you share the post on Twitter, it won’t mean anything. Try working backwards, writing the post first with just a rough title, and then at the end pull out the juiciest point and base the title around it. I have lots of other tips but if I give them all away here no one will come!

For a monthly blast of tips and tricks, and news of Sookio events (like the Sookio Masterclasses, sellout events in Cambridge on straight-talking social media), sign up to the Sookio mailing list here: http://sookio.com/mailing-list.