SEO for Journalists

How to Connect Great Journalism with the Greatest Possible Audience

Brent D. PayneCharlie Meyerson

What is SEO?

What SEO is…

• SEO = Search Engine Optimization

• A division of online marketing with the purpose of building content that is more understandable and readable by search engines.

What SEO is NOT…

• Building pages ONLY for search engines

• Engagement of unethical practices to gain search engine favor.

• An exact science

Who is Brent D. Payne?

Brent D. Payne is NOT . . .

• not a journalist in any way, shape, or form

• not the best SEO for all fields of SEO

• not a poised, professional speaker

Brent D. Payne is . . .

• passionate about SEO and how it helps journalists

• significantly experienced in SEO

• dedicated to TEACHING people about SEO

SEO Jargon

Top 10 Vocabulary Terms That’ll Be Talked About Today

• Googlebot – The collective name for the thousands of servers crawling the web

• PageRank – The factors Google uses to determine where a particular page should be listed in the search results

• PageRank Number/PR# - The Google toolbar’s assigned number to a particular domain or page

• Spider/Robot – Same as Googlebot above but not Google specific (i.e. could be any search engine)

• White Hat/Black Hat – Whether you work with Google or against Google

• Anchor/Anchor Text – The blue underlined link

• ALT/Alt Text – The text you see when you scroll over an image

• The Algo/Algorithm – All the engineering and coding that is the core of a search engine’s code

• Microhoo – The theoretical search engine created by the merging of Microsoft and Yahoo!

• 301/301 redirect – The process of telling the search engines a page has moved

Why the Obsession with Google?

Google72%

Yahoo!15%

Microsoft8%

Ask3%

All Others2%

Why Should You Care About SEO?

Google 5,421,943,000

Yahoo! 1,448,140,000

MSN/Live! 841,457,000

AOL 357,025,000

Ask.com 169,116,000

All Others 386,024,000

Google

Yahoo!

MSN/Live!

AOL

Ask.com

All Others

• Google 5.4 Billion Searches per Month

• Yahoo! 1.4 Billion Searches per Month

• MSN/Live! 841 Million Searches per MonthSource: Nielsen Dec ‘08

Total Search Engine Traffic

Pwn’d! That’s 2,024 Google

searches per second!!

70% of Users Don’t Go Beyond the 1st

Page of Search Engines!

Well, looks like getting to that

first page is REALLY

important then.

Tribune SEO Statistics

• 2007 – 22% of Visits from SEO

• 2008 – 31% of Visits from SEO

• Doubled SEO Visits Y/Y ‘08 to ‘07

• 2009 YTD – 36% of Visits from SEOSource: Omniture

Tribune’s Search Engine Traffic

• HTML Changes

• CMS Enhancements & SEO Tools

• SEO Planning of Future Events

• Newsroom SEO Training Seminars

• 100% of Newspapers Already Trained (Basic SEO)

• Tribune Broadcast Sites 95% Trained

• SEO Task Force Development

What’s Driving the Growth

• Breaking News

• Topic Galleries

• Election/Inauguration

• Oscars

• Weather, Horoscopes, Trials

Key SEO Wins

2007 SEO

2008 SEO

2009 SEO

How Do Search Engines Work?

Links Popularity

Popularity Trust Importance

ImportanceSimilar

ContentRelevance

What We Know and Don’t Know

Page Rank

Popularity

Authority

Relevance

)()1( 1 k

j

Bj j

k

i xN

xi

The Psychology of Googlebot

•Googlebot doesn’t understand puns

•Googlebot doesn’t get jokes

•Googlebot is a robot not a buddy of yoursLiteral

•Googlebot only understands what you tell him

•Get Lucky!

•Laptop ‘case’ versus laptop ‘bag’

•‘CompactFlash’ vs ‘Compact Flash’

Context

•Googlebot can’t read iFramed content

•Googlebot can’t read images (needs ALT text)

•Googlebot can’t read javascript

•Googlebot barely understands flash files

Blind spots

01100111 01101111 01101111 01100111 01101100 01100101 01100010 01101111

01110100

Media Companies are Treated Differently by the Search Engines

We are different in a good way…

• Crawl rates are considerably more frequent

• Endless pipe of quality content

• Google likes us more (but still doesn’t need us)

• High authority

• Direct relationships with the search engines

We are different in a bad way…

• Expiring content

• Duplicate content

• Never ending changes to our content

• Horrid CMS/site structure

• Direct relationships with the search engines ;-)

SEO: Where Do I Start?

Weather What are people

searching for? How can I find

out?

Sports

Local News Movies

PoliticsFashion

Food

Horoscopes

Travel

<Relevance>

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Related Terms & Estimated Volume (Month Lag)

Provides long list of related terms (exports)

Shows approx. search volume

Shows advertiser competition for terms

Shows keywords by URL

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

https://adwords.google.com/select/home

Just Because YOU Search THAT Way . . .

http://www.google.com/trends

Compare multiple terms to determine which term receives the highest volume of search traffic.

Use the drop down menus to change the date range and regional data sets.

Export the data to a CSV (Opens in Excel, must be logged into Google Account).



Google Trends: What is it?



Get an Indication of Search Volume (Hourly)

Only chase after ‘Volcanic’ search terms, others don’t have the volume to justify the effort

Watch graph, catch terms while they’re still spiking

Note the related searches, use them in your body text



Why the Search Term is Suddenly Popular (Hourly)


Compare Differing Search Terms Volume (3 Day Lag)


Compare multiple terms to determine which term receives the highest volume of search traffic.

Use the drop down menus to change the date range and regional data sets.

Export the data to a CSV (Opens in Excel, must be logged into Google Account).


http://www.google.com/insights/search

Find Top Volume Search Terms by Category (3 Day Lag)

Discover the top volume search terms by category

Discover fastest rising search terms by category

http://www.google.com/insights/search/

Celebrity/Entertainment Keyword Research

•Updates multiple times per day

•Graph of trend history

Trends Data

•Celebrities

•Musicians

•Politicians

Categories

•News

• Images

•Videos

Related Articles

http://search.live.com/xrank

Hmm. Gates, got

xRankright at least.

http://search.live.com/xrank

The Most Important HTML Elements

• The most important HTML element

• Communicate loudly but don’t spam

• Must be unique!Title Tag

• Important mainly due to click through not SEO factors themselves

• Should be unique,Description

• Reiterate what the title tag states, one H1 per page

• Beat up your designers that use if tor ‘style’ instead of SEO emphasis

H1

• Loosely reiterate what your H1 tag states, insert noise

• 2x the number of H1 tags on the pageH2

• H3 for breadcrumbs, featured areas, etc.

• Bold tag, strong tag = same thing

• URL is important for relevance with inbound links

Bold, H3, Italics, URL, etc.

Write ‘Boring’ Headlines

• Include targeted keyphraseREQUIRED

• Exact match keyphrase

• Place keyphrase in front

• Differentiate from SEO title

• Be succinct

RECOMMENDED

• Use AP or other newswire headline

• Use hyper-local buzz phrases

• Be too witty at cost of search relevanceDO NOT…

Write ‘Somewhat Boring’ Subheads

• Include core targeted keyword

• Differentiate from headline and SEO titleREQUIRED

• Include all words from keyphrase

• Use plural or singular version of keywords

• Use different tense for some keywords

• Be more verbose to create ‘SEO noise’

RECOMMENDED

• Use of AP or other newswire headline

• Use of headlines from other Tribune pages

• Field usage for other purposesDO NOT…

If Your Slug Is Publicly Displayed . . .

• Use targeted keyphrase

• Separate words with hyphens

REQUIRED

• Avoid usage such as ‘story’, ‘sl’, ‘front’RECOMMENDED

• Abbreviate or omit vowels, etc.

DO NOT…

Keyword Usage: Examples

• Michelle Obama’s Dress: Who made Michelle Obama’s dress, plus photos -- Chicago TribuneSEO Title

• Michelle Obama's dress and other wardrobe choices have been a breath of fresh air in the fashion industry. Learn about her dress at the …

SEO Description

• Who made Michelle Obama’s dress?Headline

• Michelle Obama’s dresses attract attention on Inauguration Day [not actually used]Subheadline

• /chi-michelle-obama-dress-storyURL/Slug

Links for ‘Topic X’

Article 2

Article 3

Blog 1

Blog 2

Blog 3Section

A

Section B

Section C

Article 1

Linking Structure: Unorganized

None of this content is that

popular. I’m not going to rank it

well.

Story 1

Story 3

Story 2

Blog 1 Blog 2Blog 3

The competitor is really popular for

‘Topic X’. I’m going to rank the competitor

really well.

Competitor

. . . and why it’s bad for SEO.

Pre-determined landing page for ‘Topic X’

Story 1

Story 2

Story 3

Blog 1Blog 2

Blog 3

Section A

Section B

Section C

Now this is popular content. I’m going to

rank it well.

Linking Structure: Organized

CNN

FOX News

MSNBC

Reuters NY TimesNPR

Your site has some really popular and

relevant content. I’m going to rank it

better than CNN, MSNBC, etc.

Your site!

. . . And why it’s good for SEO.

Google News: It’s About the One-Box

• Appears on first page of Google Web for breaking news content

• Is piped into several other Google products

Google News One-Box

• Decent traffic (though not like Yahoo! Homepage)

• Increases crawl and indexing in alternative search engines

Google News Homepage

Google News: Inclusion Submission

• Google News is by submission only. Furthermore, the site must be approved by Google to be in Google News.

Google News Inclusion Submission Form

• http://www.google.com/support/news_pub/bin/request.py?contact_type=suggest_content

Submission Form URL

Google News is a Different Animal

•First impression is REALLY important. Slow to recrawl

•Prefers Fresh URLs (i.e. new URLs)

•MUST Have at Least a 3-digit Number in the URL (or sitemap)

URL Differences

•Greater Peaks & Valleys

•Easier to Win But Evaporates Quickly

•Google News ‘One-Box’ in Google Web is UnpredictableTraffic Trends

•More a Script Than a Spider

•Change to Site Requires Notification to Google News

•Google News Homepage = Uncertainties

Less Understood

•Much More Reliant on Sitemaps (Specifically News Sitemaps)

•No Separation of Googlebot from ‘Gnewsbot’

•Causes Control Issues for Webmaster

Robots Activity

Google Webmaster Tools

• Be granular in your site submissions to Google Webmaster Tools

• Download crawl errors at least weekly, look for patterns to fix

• Track changes to how many sites are linking to your top pages

• Compare top search query impressions to top search query clickthroughs

• Watch for generic terms in your keywords list, minimize unwanted

• Watch crawl errors, specifically News crawl errors

• Monitor crawl stats for both pages crawled and kilobytes downloaded

• Increase your crawl rate (if Google will let you)

• MAKE SURE YOUR SITEMAPS ARE ALL WORKING PROPERLY!

Top Nine Things to Pay Attention to in Webmaster Tools

Twitter Account Types: News Feed

• Use your most frequently updated quality content

• Do NOT ‘at reply’ users from this account

• Do NOT follow people back from this account; follow your own accounts

Create a News Feed from RSS

Twitter Account Types: Celebrities

• Make it a job requirement to have a Twitter profile

• Give them freedom to be human (i.e. complain about their commute)

• Get them to interact with their followers (follow them back, at reply, DM, etc.)

Force Celebrities to Create Accounts

Twitter Account Types: Employees

• Set some ground rules about proprietary information

• Underscore that company grievances should be addressed with Human Resources

• Provide information to employee about libel/slander and the consequences

• Allow them to promote the company and the competitor

• Allow them to be genuine and personable

• Give them freedom to be themselves in all aspects of their lives

• Understand and accept that mistakes and issues will occur

• Do NOT officially endorse them

Allow Employees to Tweet

Twitter Account Types: Brand Persona

• Create a character that your audience can connect with personally

• Spend time to create a decent avatar

• Mimic your brand perception or mimic the target audience demographic

• Create a detailed personality, writing style, interests, etc. for the persona

• Be sure to have the persona engage with the audience via ‘at replies’, ‘direct messages’, and even send event invites

• Keep who’s behind the ‘veil of Oz’ private, always

• Do NOT allow those behind the veil to inject personal opinions inconsistent with the brand persona

• Make it your brand’s social media face

Create a Brand Persona

Get Big Fast: Promote Your Profiles

• Use your readership of print media to promote your twitter profile

• Use your viewership of television to promote your twitter profile

• Promote your twitter profile to your listeners via radio

• Don’t forget the easiest of them all… your website visitors!

Make Your Audience Aware

Get Seen: Use Twitter Directories

• List yourself in the top Twitter directories

• WeFollow, Twellow, Muck Rack, etc.

Use Twitter Directories

Engage the Locals: Have a Tweetup

POUH YOUR

COMPETITOR

• Invite top referrers or bloggers specifically

• Pick a decent venue that can handle 2x expected turn out

• Utilize event sites like EventBrite or Meetup.com

• Have one or two celebrities attend to create a draw

• Clarify dress code, theme, location, food or no food, etc.

• Promote the Tweetup from all profiles

• Have large nametags available and plenty of pens

• Take lots of pictures and post them publicly

• Remember to MINGLE!

• Do NOT buy the alcohol!

Tweetup = Local Engagement

Take Off The Gloves: Poach

POACH YOUR

COMPETITOR

• Follow those that follow your competitor…and engage with them

Poach Your Competitor’s Followers!

Get A Little Dirty: Cheat

POUH YOUR

COMPETITOR

•Auto-follow all followers of a particular user

•Auto-follow all those that a particular user follows

•Auto-follow those that follow you

•Auto-follow those that tweet a particular keyword

•Auto-follow by geography

•Auto-unfollow anyone that isn’t following you

•Only follow those that have x number of followers but under y number

•Only follow those that have tweeted at least x number of times

•Only follow those that have a non-default profile image

•Setup a tweet for a later date and time

•MUCH, MUCH, MORE!!

•NOTE: I do NOT condone cheating!

Twitter Automation

Google Blog Search

• Use RSS Auto-Discovery

• Submit your blog URL to Google

• Compare your blog vs. your non-blog content Google rankings/traffic

Google Blog Search Quick Tips

• http://blogsearch.google.com/ping?hl=en

Submission Form URL

SEO for WordPress Blogs

• How a Webpage Ranks Well in Search Engines

• Search Engine Market Share

• User Search BehaviorSEO Overview

• Google Trends/Hot Trends/Insights for Search

• Google Keyword Research Tool

• MS/Bing xRank

Keyword Research

• Linking Structure

• Duplicate Content Mitigation

• HTML Elements for SEO EmphasisSite Structure

• Sitemaps & Google Webmaster Tools

• Google News Site Submission/Nuances

• Google Blog Search Site SubmissionSite Visibility

• all-in-one-seo-pack, get-recent-comments, google-news-sitemap-generator, google-sitemap-generator, page-links-to, redirection, seo-automatic-links, etc.

Essential Plugins to Do It!

Plugins!

SEO Plugins: All in One SEO Pack

• Allows for significant flexibility on the most important SEO aspects such as: title tag editing, flexibility to enter additional metas, duplicate content mitigation, canonical URLs, etc.

All in One SEO Pack

• http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/

Download this Plugin

SEO Plugins: Get Recent Comments

• Best for smaller blogs because the links to the posts with the most recent comments get linked to from the homepage. Increasing freshness in the Google index.

Get Recent Comments

• http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/get-recent-comments/


SEO Plugins: Google News Sitemap Generator

• Generates a sitemap in the proprietary Google News Sitemap format.

Google News Sitemap Generator

• http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-news-sitemap-generator/


SEO Plugins: Google Web Sitemap Generator

• Generates an XML Sitemap that is compatible with Google and most other major search engines. Increases ease of crawlability for the search engines and also improves frequency of crawl.

Google Web Sitemap Generator

• http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/


SEO Plugins: Page Links to

• Allows you to redirect any page/URL to any other page/URL of your choice. You can even choose a 301 redirect or 302 redirect option. Note: Always use 301 redirect though.

Page Links to

• http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/page-links-to/


SEO Plugins: Redirection

• Unlike ‘Page Links to’, this plugin allows you to find 404 pages and redirect them to other locations.

Redirection

• http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/redirection/


SEO Plugins: SEO Smart Links

• Allows for consistent inline links in posts, comments, etc. to specified destination URLs. Helps to drive consistent anchor text to landing pages of your choice.

SEO Smart Links

• http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/seo-automatic-links/


Contact Info

• Director, Search Engine Optimization• Tribune Company, 435 N. Michigan, Chicago, IL 60611

• Phone: 312.324.3344

• Email: [email protected]

• Instant Messenger/Personal Email: [email protected]

• Twitter: @BrentDPayne (follow w/ caution)

• Driver’s License Number: BDP24456U8

• Passport Number: 46645347666

Brent D. Payne

Documents

SEO for Journalists