Optimizing your content for search engines

Build online image

Write for the Web

Optimize for search engines

Publicize with social media

“What kind of rabbits live in New Zealand?”

Organic Search vs. Paid

ORGANIC

PAID

70% of visitors click on Organic listings, 30% to Paid.

SEO (search engine optimization)

Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to techniques you can use to improve the visibility of a Web site or a Web page in search engines

“Really, j-schools need to ditch AP style and start teaching their students SEO instead. More valuable to their careers.”

-Robert Niles, The Online Journalism Review

“SEO will help you gain new readers online. AP style will not. If you need new readers to make money, then SEO will help you more than AP style. That's it. It's just the reality of publishing online today. You can either adapt and accommodate it, or shake your fist at it and resist.”

-Robert Niles, The Online Journalism Review

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The meta tags are important because Google may use them as snippets for your pages. Google doesn’t take metatags as a variable for ranking, BUT it is important for conversions.In other words, what people read may entice them to click onto your site. Therefore, write compelling copy for your metatags.

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How search engines read Web pages• Page title

• Headline

• Description

• Story

• Related links

The first line of the search result comes from the <title> tag. You need to make sure your title tag has the keywords people use to find you or the content of your story.

White hat SEO: search engine optimization according to rules

Black hat SEO: cloaking, link farms

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Create easy to read descriptive URLs1. When you publish your web page be sure to have the keyword(s) in the

URL. 2. Keep the URL simple

www.upi.com/science-new/moon-landing

Not

www.upi.com/science?=839302ei=?sourceid=1lsls

You should not have more than three parameters in a URL, crawlers have a hard time reading these. Try to make your URL readable for humans as well as bots.

Create URL structures that make sense: Cars / Fords / Mustangs/ Convertibles

SEO best practices

• Write information-rich stories that people will want to read and link to

• Link to sites that are relevant to your article, Web site

Things important for search engines

• Google Pagerank (PR)• Links• Anchor text

Google Pagerank (PR): Google assigns weight/ranking to Web pages based on number, quality, authoritativevess

• 10• 9• 8• 7 • 6• 5• 4• 3• 2• 1• 0

Link to your story is like a vote of confidence

The more authoritative the Web sites that link to your Web site/page, the more important the search engines will think it is.

The most authoritative sites include .edu .gov .orgGoogle PageRank

LINKING!

=

Article without links = island

Links are like a vote for your site.

The more relevant, quality links you get the better your site will rank.

One valid link from CNN.com > 10,000 links from a PR1 news blog

500 links from automotive websites for a fashion site will not help your case.

How do you get links?

• Ask site owners of relevant sites to link to you. In exchange you could link back, but I don’t highly recommend reciprocation. It’s better to get one-way links.

• The best to reach site owners in my experience is not by email. Call. Usually a number is on their website, or you could get their details from DNS lookup.

• Contribute to forums and link back to your own site.• Write interesting articles that could go viral such as a top 10 list. When a

list becomes viral you’ll receive a lot of links from referring sites.• Buy links from reputable sites with high PageRank.

Anchor Text

Optimize your Anchor Text to improve:

- Branding

- Keyword Ranking

UPIU is a good journalism mentoring site.Click here to view a good journalism mentoring site.

Case Study

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Competitive AnalysisType in the keyword that you want to rank for. Analyze the #1,2,3 positions for the following:• Age of domain• Keyword in title• Number of times keyword used in the body• Number of back links• Quality of back links• PageRank• Keywords in alt tags

When you can determine these elements you need to compare point by point to your site. If you beat them in all these areas you wll likely take over their position.

What is your Web site about?

• Build keyword list– Google Keywords– Google Trends– Google Wonderwheel– ~keyword

Recommendations

1. Write great content. Good quality content always surfaces to the top.

2. Get links3. Organize your site, URL, title, keywords, alt

tags, etc.4. Study your competition – status quo5. Analyze your data using analytic tools

SEO your article

Put keywords in:• Headline

• Description

• Story– Keywords in your story– Bold text in your story

• Metatags

headline

description

story

Insert search engine-friendly keywords in:

REMEMBER

Google loves fresh, updated contentThe more you update the more frequently search

engines will crawl your site

Tools

• SEOMoz – seomoz.org • Bruce Clays http://www.bruceclay.com/seo/

tools.htm• Aaron Wall’s – SEO Book – www.seobook.com• Webconfs.com • Iwebtools.com