being aware of seo in journalism

SEO & JournalismPresented by

Arnie Kuenn (@ArnieK)

&

Michael Schwartz (@ValleyoftheSuns )

Optimizing for Search is Critical

When someone types a keyword into the search box, there are only two possible outcomes: They will find you. They will find your competitor.

Twitter: @ArnieK @ValleyoftheSuns

Search Marketing Reality

Organic search traffic can be so valuable, it can sustain an entire business.

Organic search rankings are something you can work to influence, but ultimately you do not control them. The search engine algorithms make that call.


Why Be Concerned About Search?

- The #1 position will get clicked 43% of the time!

Source: Did-it, Enquiro, and Eyetools.


How Does Search Work?

Bot or Spider


Title tag

ContentH1 tag

Bold

What Do the Search Engines Look For?

Meta DescriptionAward winning SEO Link Building Services. Vertical Measures is a reputable, USA Internet marketing company helping businesses get more website traffic thru higher search engine rankings, link building, social media, local search, and search engine optimization.


Search Engine Results

Indented Listing

Local Listing


Create Good Content

Build articles around your keywords Add real value to the reader

Unique Informative Entertaining

Who do you link to? Good neighbors It’s your reputation Get links back!


Proper On-Page Optimization(in order of importance for 2010)

1. Links - internal & external

2. Freshness of content & keyword usage

3. Title tag (viewed in results)

4. Image Alt text

5. H1 tag

6. Description meta tag (viewed in results)

7. URL structure

8. Page load times (Google Caffeine)


Biggest Factor is Still Inbound Links

The best links: Are from trusted sites Have proper anchor text Have varied anchor text Are from many different domains (new 2010) Determined editorially


How Does Social Influence Rankings?

Real-time links (Twitter & Facebook) Social news links (Digg, Reddit, Delicious) Can influence the actual rankings for your

articles Provide Backlinks (but short term value) Mentions & Signals


How to Appear in Google News

Need to submit your URL to Google first Article URLs must be:

Unique Permanent Display a three-digit number

To see if a site is already included in Google News, type [ site:url.com ], into the search box and click "Search News."

http://www.google.com/support/news_pub/


Recommended Plug-Ins

All-In-One SEO Pack Feedburner Feedsmith (RSS feed) Google XML Sitemaps Social Bookmarking Reloaded (or similar) Wordpress Mobile (or similar) Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (adv.) podPress (podcasting)


An Example of a Linkworthy Article Links are the currency of SEO. Interview the people who would create the buzz/get

you links and tweets. For me that included Peter Robert Casey, a top-10

NBA tweeter, and Suns VP of digital operations, Jeramie McPeek.

Results 40 backlinks (ESPN.com, DallasBasketball.com,

AlexisGentry.net, PeterRobertCasey.com) 43 tweets (including one from the @NBA account) PR4 page


Headlines for SEO Consider using different headlines for print and

online (LA Times). Sprinkle keywords into your headlines, especially

at the beginning of them. Google Adwords Keyword Tool – shows what

people are searching. BUT use your knowledge of the news cycle to

understand when a keyword/topic is hot, it might get a much larger amount of searches.

Think ahead of what people will be searching.


Different Ways to get on Page 1

For some keywords, it could be impossible to rank on Page 1 for an article.

For example, I can get an article to rank on Page 1 for "Amare Stoudemire trade rumors," but not "Amare Stoudemire."

The former search is valuable NOW (timely), but not usually.

News Results at top, Social Circle Results at bottom (HUGE for traffic).


An Average Month, Nothing Targeted

Dec. 27-Jan. 26 28,167 unique visits (900/day) 16.7 percent from search (about 4400, or 140/day)

Got one day of nice traffic from "Tracy McGrady," for a trade story involving him.


A Focus on Amare-Related Keywords Jan. 27-Feb. 9

28,290 unique visits in 13 days (2150/day) 25 percent from search (about 6776, or 500 a day)

Top 3 and 7 of the top 10 relate to Amare. When people are searching a hot topic, make sure they find you and

not your competitor.


Free SEO Resources

SEO Educational Videos: http://www.verticalmeasures.com/resources/seo-t

utorial-videos/

Online Marketing & Related Webinars: http://www.verticalmeasures.com/webinars/

Expert Interview Series: http://www.verticalmeasures.com/expert-interview

s/2010-predictions-from-10-internet-experts/


Q & A

Contact: Michael [email protected]

602-314-3471 (direct)www.VerticalMeasures.com

being aware of seo in journalism

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