cbslocal.com handbook 2.0static.cbslocal.com/station/national/temp/cbslocalhandbook02dot2… ·...

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CBSLOCAL.COM HANDBOOK V2.0.2 Last Updated: Oct. 14, 2010

Guiding principles of our CBS Local market sites include making great local content easy to find and easy to use. Our tools are building blocks toward social products, generating diverse revenue and scaling to meet our needs as we grow. To beat the competition, your CBS Local site and its content must win top visibility in natural, "organic" search results returned by Google, Yahoo or Bing. Remember that users spend 99% of their time on Web sites other than yours, and while scanning to find specific information, these users almost never look beyond the first page of search results. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is all about tactics to insure your site gets found by these users. As a CBS Local content manager, there are five SEO pieces you directly control: post titles; posts' Web address links as permalinks; format of the main body text; excerpt summaries; and post keyword tags. Before getting into specific production tips, you must know what your users are looking to find. Do not assume they think about your site like you do. As Google is the planet's current search engine leader, not surprisingly many online SEO tools also rely on Google. Use the following tools to spot actual trends:

• See "Top Searches" on your WordPress dashboard list for terms your existing users are using.

• Use the Google Keyword Tool to catch closely related topics and phrases users associate when searching. || https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

• Install the Google Toolbar on your web browser. It features tools to immediately show you the page rank of whatever site you are looking at as well as give you one-click answers to common SEO metrics. || http://www.google.com/toolbar

Make sure your posts also use every source and media you have available to build an engaging and comprehensive package presenting text, appropriate photo galleries, embedded audio, embedded video, involvement of commenting and external links directing users to sources and tools. Here are two examples to review as models:

Hayes Guilty Of Murder In Cheshire Home Invasion Trial http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2010/10/05/guilty-verdict-in-cheshire-home-invasion-trial/ Note how coverage from all available CBS Local sources in New York were woven together for formatted for online.

Lindsay Lohan Granted Bail Request http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2010/09/24/lohan-due-back-in-court-after-failed-drug-test/ Associated slideshows, two embedded audio reports and embedded video: Time was spent thinking through and then building the complete package.

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I. CREATING CBS LOCAL NEWS POSTS Most news updates from broadcast stations and digital editors will be entered into WordPress as Posts. Prepare your sound and swift news judgment to recognize and react to changing news events in you market. Keep your stories LOCAL. You are the website for a specific community meant to play to a local audience only. Unless a national story has distinct universal interest, it should not be posted on your site without a local angle to it. Ask yourself these questions about key points to news coverage:

• LOCAL: How are other sites outside your market covering this story? What is your local angle and impact?

• NEW: Is it really news? What facts, opportunities or threats have changed? • SPEED: Are you first to report before your competition? What details have other sources

already reported? • ACCURACY: Is the news correct and fair? (A subject may be biased, but your coverage

should be objective.) • IMPORTANCE: How important is this news to your local audience? How are they

affected? • CONTEXT: Are previous background facts and future consequences clear to those just

now hearing the story? • INTEREST: Is the news engaging and/or entertaining? Would you take time to share a

link to this news? • COMPLETE: What have your radio, television and digital teams each contributed to

this news package? • MULTIPLE MEDIA: How are the strengths of text, photo galleries, video, audio and

external links being used? • INTERACTIVE: What feedback have users shared in comments? • VIRAL: Where else online have you promoted awareness of this news package?

A strong local focus doesn't mean you can't take a broader national story and make it local. Many celebrity gossip stories begin as local news in Los Angeles, while President Obama's ties to Illinois continue to give rise to story ideas in Chicago. During the 2010 story of trapped miners in Chile, Philadelphia posted complete coverage from the perspective of the local company that manufactured and staffed the drilling tools used in the miraculous rescue. Here is an example from the team at CBS New York.com: In September 2010, there was a story about a flight attendant in New Mexico stopping a woman who was abusing her baby on an airplane. It had no local ties to New York, but because it happened the week after a JetBlue flight attendant quit his job and hopped off the emergency slide at JFK Airport in NYC, editors were able to tie these two stories together. At the bottom of the national story, the team added "The incident comes a week after another flight attendant

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made national headlines after exiting a plane in grand fashion at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport." An example of a national story New York did not post was the Rod Blagojevich verdict. This issue had no impact on New Yorkers and there was no local angle they could make of it. Remember: You are CBSLocal.com, not CBSNational.com! GETTING STARTED Use Posts for news packages, including text, photo galleries, audio, video, external links and niche news updates such as Links and Numbers. Always begin by entering the Title first so WordPress generates a permalink web address. Drag-and-drop more useful form fields (Excerpt, Subtitle) to appear higher in the Post entry window. To edit a post that is already published, you can search for it through the WordPress tool by clicking on Posts and then typing a search term in the search box. You can also find it on the front end of the website and click on the "Edit" button in the WP toolbar that appears while you are logged in to WordPress. TITLES Bad headlines waste users' time and cost us traffic. Remember all the ways the title text is used in Wordpress:

• The obvious "<h1>" formatted headline topping the page's content. • The link shown on homepage lists that users scan to pick what's worth a click. • The webpage document's HTML title that gets indexed by search engines. • The title shared as link in content feeds from your site.

Be clear and meaningful, not cute or clever. Both search engines and users scanning headlines look for specific words to find best matches. Note that the text you use in Dynamic Leads (DLs) should be clear to users, but does not need to fit the same SEO standards as what's used to label individual posts.

Good: Detroit Tigers' Galarraga Robbed Of Pitching Perfect Game Poor: Ump Call Costs Pitcher Perfect Game Never: BAD CALL TAMES TIGERS

The first letter of every word is capped, except for companies or products that lead with a lowercase letter in their official proper name.

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Correct: eBay Rep Arrested In Theft Of iPods Incorrect: Ebay Rep Arrested in Theft of Ipods [Capitalization]

The headlines inside your articles should be as specific and as SEO (search engine optimization) friendly as possible, while not being extremely long. So consider your "who/what/where" keywords that users are likely to search for in Google and find a way to fit those in your headline. More creative, "cute" headlines are ONLY acceptable in Dynamic Leads (DLs) that do not index in SEO as headline Titles do.

Weak: Rangel May Agree To Plea Better: Charles Rangel May Take Plea In Ethics Probe [SEO friendly]

TIP: → Keep your headlines to two lines on homepage and news page. The bigger font inside the DL will push the long titles to more than three lines.

Better: One-Armed Man Guilty Of Murdering Surgeon's Wife Wrong: One-Armed Man Convicted In Brutal Slaying Of Chicago Surgeon's Wife

Better: 'Emily' Tops List Of Most Popular Baby Names Wrong: List Of Most Popular Baby Names Released; 'Emily' At Top [Too Long]

TIP: → Don't convict innocent people with a headline. People may be suspects, intruders, fugitives, or even confessed killers before a trial, but only a conviction in court legally makes a person into a criminal, con, convict, or a murderer. TIP: → Active voice is stronger than passive voice: (Subject)>(does something)>(object). Not every headline can be written this way, but the end result is usually better.

Active: Emergency Crews Find Missing Man In Lake Travis Passive: Missing Man Found In Lake Travis

Active: Car Crash Kills 3 Teens Passive: 3 Teens Killed By Car Crash

TIP: → Just because another site posted a headline doesn't mean that same headline fits CBS Local style. Because many parts of the CBS Local sites do not provide any context into a story beyond the words of the headline link, it is critical every headline be clearly stated.

Meaningful: Heatwave Signals Summer Is Here Meaningless: The Heat Is On

TIP: → Always use numbers in headline, even for less than 10. Staying in active verse will help avoid a numeral at the start of a headline ("Motorcycle Crash Kills 4" better than "4 Killed In Motorcycle Crash").

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Correct: Man Killed, 2 Others Injured In Suburban Shooting Wrong: One Killed, Two Injured In Suburban Shooting

Correct: Phoenix Measles Cases Up To 15 Wrong: Fifteenth Measles Case Reported In Phoenix

PERMALINKS The keywords used in the web address linking to your content also play a role in better SEO. By default, this link to individual posts uses the Title field. You should click the "Edit" button to manually override this default to include the most searched keywords related to the post.

Good: http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2010/6/2/galarraga-pitch-perfect-game/ Poor (too long): http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2010/6/2/ detroit-tigers-armando-galarraga-pitching-perfect-game-cleveland-indians-baseball/ Useless (no SEO): http://detroit.cbslocal.com/2010/6/2/bad-call-tames-tigers/

TIP: → Keep your web addresses as short as practical. Ideally your URL ends with three to five keywords. TIP: → Avoid spam words. See the list at http://codex.wordpress.org/Spam_Words for words to avoid if possible. To check your specific document's spam rating, use span detection tool found at http://www.seomoz.org/user_files/spam-detection/ for spot checks. EXCERPTS The Excerpt field appears as a short summary on your site and within each webpage's "description" metadata, a block of text search engines use to indexing content. Do not use the "More" feature to truncate text – instead enter text in the "Excerpt" field to use as summary text. This should be no more than one or two lines at the very most – one ideally since they will appear on the pages where their categories are selected. Some basic points about creating a good SEO-friendly Excerpt:

• Include appropriate, frequently searched keywords in the excerpt. • Answer the traditional "five-W" questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why?

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• Get to the point immediately; do not tease users to "click to learn the answer" to a question.

• Provide enough information to stand alone if that's all the user or search engine sees. • Do not put datelines in excerpts – only add datelines to first paragraph of articles.

TIP: → Excerpts look best when they line up with the featured image. The longer the excerpt, the more white space beneath the thumbnail. Make sure to check the section front after you publish your story to see how the excerpt lines up with the photo. If it's too long, shorten it! FEATURED POSTS If you want a post to appear in one of the two spots under the dynamic lead on the home page, or one of the four spots on a section front, you need to check off "Featured Post" inside the article template. This step will move this post to one of the two spots on the homepage, and one of four prominent positions at the top of the news category front page. IMPORTANT: If you are going to feature a post, make sure it is NOT in the Dynamic Lead. You don't want the same post to appear right below the DL. There is an exception to this rule, however this should be left to the discretion of the lead producer/charge editor. For breaking news or major news stories, the story may be featured in the DL and as a featured post, but ONLY if the images and headlines are different to avoid the appearance of redundancy on the home page. POST TAGS All posts must have tags! Besides publishing categories, keywords and phrases can be used to organize content around how users search. These tags will appear live on the site in the post. Make sure they are correctly spelled and are appropriately categorized. While "we cannot over-tag" is a good rule of thumb, capping at 10 tags per post is probably a good upper limit. The hardest part to manual tagging is consistency, addressed below. Some basic points about creating a good SEO-friendly Tags:

• Tag specific neighborhood communities. The list shown on your News >> Neighborhoods category front should be granular and comprehensive enough to serve as a common reference list. Note that your market name ("New York") itself probably isn't helpful, as everything on your site should qualify for that keyword already included in other tagging.

• Tag business and brand names. Company names will be useful in coming directory enhancements. Include the whole name in normal mixed case. Try to avoid abbreviations.

• Tag names of people. Especially worth highlighting are public officials and athletes who get referenced in recurring coverage. For ease of consistency, separate elected titles from

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names. Using an example from New York, producers should use "Mayor," "Michael Bloomberg" not "Mayor Michael Bloomberg."

• Tag events using full titles. Aim to be complete and consistent: "Kennett Square Mushroom Festival" not just "Mushroom Festival."

• Tag topics. Coordinate with your market captain to establish a consistent taxonomy everyone follows: "crime," "weather," "fire" and so forth.

TIP: → Proper nouns need to be uppercase. MAIN TEXT FIELDS FOR NEWS POSTS The main input text of your post is not read start-to-finish by either users or search engines; usually only the first 600-pixel "screenful" of content gets seen. You have 1.7 seconds for this top space to convince users your webpage satisfies their search needs. Watch the tabs on the right to know which editing mode you are using. New posts default into the last mode used. "Visual" mode editing tends to keep most rich-text formatting (bold, italics, Web links) when cut-and-pasted from a Web browser or Microsoft Office. "HTML" mode allows manual entry of some "raw" markup code. → WARNING: Using Visual mode to re-edit Posts which have had custom tags previously entered in HTML mode may corrupt the formatting of the whole post. Some basic points about creating a good SEO-friendly news Main Text Fields:

• Use the traditional "inverted pyramid" style of news writing, starting with the conclusion first.

• Answers the traditional "five-W" questions -- Who? What? When? Where? Why? -- in the first

• Stick to one idea per paragraph, and get to the point with the first few words. • Shorter is better; cut you usual word count in half compared to conventional writing. • Add links between pages of your site as much as possible, including links to popular

tags. • Include bulleted lists of key facts to make scanning a page easier for users.

If working from a broadcast script, write a new opening paragraph that answers these questions for the reader.

Better: Former Yankees and Mets All-Star Darryl Strawberry launches his new baseball-themed restaurant venture, Strawberry's Sports Grill, in Douglaston, Queens, this Thursday. Weak: Darryl Strawberry is hoping to hit a home run with a new venture: a New York City restaurant with baseball-themed fare like Grand Slam appetizers.

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TIP: → When you're cutting and pasting copy into a WordPress post, don't paste directly from Microsoft Word as it will mess up the fonts. Instead, "Paste As Plain Text" by clicking on the icon in WordPress in the text field toolbar's second row that looks like a clipboard with the letter "T" in front of it.

DATELINES Add datelines to the start of the first paragraph of news stories. Do not put datelines in excerpts. Use the format of CITY in all caps, followed by the news (SOURCE) in parenthesis, and ending with a dash.

• NEW YORK (CBS 2) – • NEWARK, N.J. (WCBS 880) – • NORWALK, Conn. (1010 WINS) –

If you use AP copy, rewrite at least the first paragraph or add quotes from station reports so that we can enhance the copy with original content. If you do this then your dateline style will be the following:

• NEW YORK (CBS2/AP) – • NEWARK, N.J. (WCBS 880/AP) – • NORWALK, Conn. (1010 WINS/AP) –

For a cheat sheet of more information about formatting correct dateline styles, see:

http://static.cbslocal.com/station/national/docs/cbsdmg/style_update_051706.pdf ADDING HYPERLINKS Use links to off-site sources and additional information. External links help improve SEO indexing and build credibility to users. Link to your site's business directory listing as much as possible from each list, using "Details, Reviews & Directions" as the link text. To link a story to another website, highlight the text you want to make hot, then click on the icon in the text toolbar that looks like a chain link. This will open up a query for you to write in the URL for the website and whether or not you want a new window to open or not.

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Always make sure your URL has an http:// attached to it or the browser will take the user to an error page within your site. Choose "Open in New Window" if the link points to a page NOT on your CBSLocal.com site. The markup code added to this link will show in HTML as target=_blank. Choose "Open in Same Window" if the link points to a page on your site. Within the CBS family, the following sites provide specialty coverage and popular features:

• Crimesider Blog http://www.cbsnews.com/8300-504083_162-504083.html

• CBS Political Hotsheet http://www.cbsnews.com/8300-503544_162-503544.html

• CBS MoneyWatch http://moneywatch.bnet.com/

• Live On Letterman http://www.cbs.com/late_night/liveonletterman/

• Last.fm Artist Radio http://www.last.fm/music/The+Rolling+Stones (example)

• CBS Sports http://www.cbssports.com/

• CNET Technology http://www.cnet.com/

• GameSpot videogames http://www.gamespot.com/

• Metacritic entertainment http://www.metacritic.com/

• CHOW cooking tips http://www.chow.com/

• @katiecouric http://www.cbsnews.com/sections/katiecouric/

ADDING VIDEO

Paste the following text at the bottom of your story body and replace the video ID with the clip ID number from WorldNow.

[worldnow id=12345678 width=385 height=255 type=video]

CREDITING REPORTERS AND TALENT CALL-OUTS Follow the format of (station) (title if appropriate) (name) when identifying anchors, reporters and other editorial staff. Do not put a reporter's name, such as "Marcia Kramer Reporting" at the top of a post. Incorporate the reporter's name into the body of the article.

• A building collapsed in the Bronx leaving 10 people trapped, 1010 WINS' Juliet Papa has learned.

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• A crash on the Long Island Expressway forced lane closures and traffic delays for miles, CBS 2's Lou Young reports. Sources tell WCBS880 that the crash was caused by an alleged drunk driver.

• ...at city hall, reports CBS 2 political reporter Marcia Kramer. • ...in Broolyn, reports 1010 WINS anchor Brian Carey. • ...the Yankees, reports WFAN's Boomer Esiason.

STATION IDENTIFICATION Only choose a station identification on the right rail of your story template for stories exclusive to that station. All other stories are not to be given station identification. Avoid having too many stories from the same source appearing on a section front. COPYRIGHT The rule is simple: if the story is OUR copy, there is no need to insert a copyright. → If it is AP copy ONLY, insert this at the bottom of your post : (© Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

→ If CBS Local editors have added news facts or quotes to AP copy, use this: (TM and © Copyright 2010 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2010 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.) TIME STAMPS It's vital that when you update a story, you click on the Timestamp in the upper right box, select "Edit," and change the date and time of your story to the corresponding time of the new post. Timestamps need to be updated on EVERYTHING. Posts, Dynamic Leads, Guides, Links, etc. TIP → When you update a story from a different day, do NOT change the timestamp or you will also change the permalink. Instead, make a note at the top of the body of the story (before the timestamp) in italics of when the story was updated. For example: Updated: 8/12/10 7:53 a.m.

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STORY IMAGES The default size for an featured image is 420 x 316. IMAGE TITLES All photos and graphics need to have a title when entered into the Media Library! These titles will appear when people hover their cursor over the image. It is vital you make sure they are written properly.

• Incorrect: staten island bias attack • Correct: Staten Island residents rally against bias attacks

• Incorrect: deadbabylonwoman.jpg • Correct: Photograph of Jane Doe, Babylon woman found murdered on 07/11/10

• Incorrect: rangel • Correct: Congressman Charles Rangel (File Photo)

• Incorrect: rapistsketch • Correct: Police sketch of Harlem rape suspect.

Note: If you post content in Alt Text field below title, it will not override title, though it will make your image/story more SEO friendly. PHOTO CAPTIONS You must provide a caption for every image you place in a story! Omitting this information will cause the dateline or first word from the story to be pushed up into the upper right-hand corner next to the image, even if that image is properly cut to 420 by 316 specifications.

• Incorrect: New York City skyline • Correct: New York City skyline (File Photo)

• Incorrect: bloomberg • Correct: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (File Photo)

PHOTO CREDITS Non-CBS photographs MUST be credited to their source. This needs to be included in the caption of all non-CBS photos. The correct style for photo sourcing includes parenthesis, the word "credit" and a semicolon.

• (credit: AP)

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• (credit: John Smith/Getty Images) • (credit: John Smith/AFP/Getty Images) • (credit: CompanySite.com) • (credit: CBS)

Example: Mayor Michael Bloomberg delivers his annual State Of The City address on January 31, 2010. (credit: Mary Jones/Getty Images) FEATURED IMAGES Every post needs a featured image – even a generic. TIP: → Do not insert the same photo into a post as the featured image. Just select featured image or it will appear inside the article twice. NEWS CATEGORIES Every story needs a PARENT and CHILD category. Parent categories include: BEST OF; NEWS; SPORTS; WATCH & LISTEN A child category for a parent category would be any of the subcategories that the story qualifies for. A story about a recall would be listed as News>>Consumer. A story about a Paul McCartney concert being held at CitiField could be News>>Local and News>>Entertainment. In Best Of, a guide should be slotted under the subcategory that it fits best under. A guide about Best Margaritas would be slotted under Best Of>>Nightlife, and, if applicable, Best Of>>Restaurants. A guide about Weekend Getaways On Long Island could be Best Of>>Travel and Best Of>>Leisure, and, if applicable, Best Of>>Kids. TIP → In a Dynamic Lead, the child category should always be utilized first, however, the parent category can be selected if a two stories in the DL fall under the same child category.

TIP → When creating a News post, under "Station" leave it as "None" so it will appear under featured news and in news stack with no station name. This avoids too much representation of one of the newsrooms.

DYNAMIC LEADS A "Dynamic Lead" refers to the stories rotating in the flipper on the homepage. They should be kept to one line, and should draw in the reader through clever ambiguity or simple statement of fact.

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For example, a story on NYC named #1 city with bedbugs in the country could use the DL headline: "New York Is #1!" (Clever ambiguity) Or a story about Mayor Bloomberg supporting another skyscraper that the Empire State Building doesn't support could use the DL headline: "Bloomberg Vs. The ESB" (Simple statement of fact) → Only Charge Editors may slot Dynamic Leads. The exception to this is on the weekend. Weekend producers may slot weekend items. When listing your dynamic lead, only choose subcategories, unless you have multiple stories from the same subcategory. For example, a story about A-Rod in the Dynamic Lead would ONLY be categorized as Yankees, not Sports or Local or News, just Yankees. However, if the Yankees recap from last night is in the DL, you could then slot the A-Rod story as a Sports story in the DL. The same applies for all articles being featured in the dynamic lead since the "parent category" i.e. News, Sports, etc. will always appear as the default category in the DL – hence causing the multiple "news, news, local, local" issue. If you have a story in the DL, for example, one about Rangel, this needs to be categorized as Politics. All stories in the dynamic lead should have different categories: News, Local, Sports, Best Of, Shopping, Health, etc. To reiterate: You can select parent categories (news) and subcategories in all of your posts just not in the Dynamic Lead. NEW! → If you make a post the lead (in dynamic lead), make sure it is not a featured post. We never want to have Rangel as one of the leads with an image of Rangel/identical story directly below the lead. The only exception to this is during breaking news – the DL and the featured story MUST have different featured images and headlines. The exception may ONLY be set into place by a charge editor! When removing a story from the dynamic lead, go into the leads section, edit the post you want to remove, in the edit section uncheck "homepage." This will remove the article from one of the top five spots in the lead section. Refresh/change top news posts like you would now: News is news so keep it fresh. Same with other featured stories in the dynamic lead. → Unless there is a compelling news item or obviously breaking news, make the lead story a Best Of or guide – there is nothing wrong with leading the site with a feature. Our focus has changed: We need to change our "all news all the time" thinking!

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NEW! → DLs don't have to be stories or guides. You can also feature offers and other links from the site in your Dynamic Lead, as long as it has a corresponding category. This is a great tool to take advantage of if you want to feature a certain aspect of the site.

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II. CREATING CBS LOCAL BEST OF LISTS & GUIDES Most "Best Of" pieces written by CBS Local staff, bloggers and freelancers will be entered into WordPress as either Top Lists or Guides. There are subtle differences in the layout styles of the two templates, but the following production tips apply to both formats. Keep your guides LOCAL. You are the website for a specific community meant to play to a local audience. A nationwide topic is meaningless to review it is not anchored to a location local people can get in a car and drive to in a short trip. Help users make faster decisions, save money and find the most fun. Ask yourself these questions about key points to "best of" lists and guides:

• LOCAL: Are the recommended picks unique to your market? How are they better than national chains?

• BEST OF THE BEST: Is it clear why each recommended place is better than the usual mundane options?

• ACCURACY: Is each place still open for business? Have locations or vital details changed?

• IMPORTANCE: What are the topic's major deciding factors, both among the broad public and narrow niche fans?

• CONTEXT: Would someone "not into this topic" consider trying it after reading this list?

• INTEREST: Is the list engaging and/or entertaining? Would you take time to share a link to this list?

• MULTIPLE MEDIA: Does the photo associated with each option illustrate its greatest appeal?

• INTERACTIVE: What feedback have users shared in comments? • VIRAL: Where else online have you promoted awareness of this "best of" list?

GETTING STARTED Use Top Lists for a series of different places being recommended under a common topics, such as restaurants or retail stores. Use Guides for posts which are detailing specific features of a single location or event, such as an amusement park or festival. Always begin by entering the Title first so WordPress generates a permalink web address. Drag-and-drop more useful form fields (Excerpt, Subtitle) to appear higher in the entry window. To edit a list or guide that is already published, you can search for it through the WordPress tool by clicking on Top Lists or Guides and then typing a search term in the search box. You can also find it on the front end of the website and click on the "Edit" button in the WP toolbar that appears while you are logged in to WordPress.

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TITLES Specific and direct titles help our evergreen content perform consistently well in SEO results. Remember all the ways the title text is used in Wordpress:

• The obvious "<h1>" formatted headline topping the page's content. • The link shown on homepage lists that users scan to pick what's worth a click. • The webpage document's HTML title that gets indexed by search engines. • The title shared as link in content feeds from your site.

Be clear and meaningful, not cute or clever. Stick to the format of "Best X In Market/Region." Do not abbreviate your market in titles ("NYC," "LA") and do not use local nicknames ("Big Apple," "Windy City").

• Good: Best Beer Bars In New York • Bad: Big Apple's 5 Best Brews

• Good: Best Beaches In Los Angeles • Bad: Seaside Sun Spots in L.A.

• Good: A Guide To Navy Pier In Chicago • Bad: A Windy City Shopper's Guide

The first letter of every word is capped, except for companies or products that lead with a lowercase letter in their official proper name. PERMALINKS The keywords used in the web address linking to your content also play a role in better SEO. By default, this link to individual posts uses the Title field. You should click the "Edit" button to manually override this default to include the most searched keywords related to the post.

Good: http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/top-lists/los-angeles-animal-groomers-pet-shops/ Useless (no SEO): http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/top-lists/making-kitty-pretty-and-hot-dog-houses/

TIP: → Keep your web addresses as short as practical. Ideally your URL ends with three to five keywords. TIP: → Avoid spam words. See the list at http://codex.wordpress.org/Spam_Words for words to avoid if possible. To check your specific document's spam rating, use span detection tool found at http://www.seomoz.org/user_files/spam-detection/ for spot checks.

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EXCERPTS The Excerpt field appears as a short summary on your site and within each webpage's "description" metadata, a block of text search engines use to indexing content. Do not use the "More" feature to truncate text – instead enter text in the "Excerpt" field to use as teaser text. This should be no more than one or two lines at the very most – one ideally since they will appear on the pages where their categories are selected. Some basic points about creating a good SEO-friendly Excerpt:

• Include appropriate, frequently searched keywords in the excerpt. • Provide enough information to stand alone if that's all the user or search engine sees.

POST TAGS All posts must have tags! Besides publishing categories, keywords and phrases can be used to organize content around how users search. These tags will appear live on the site in the post. Make sure they are spelled correctly and are categorized appropriately. While "we cannot over-tag" is a good rule of thumb, capping at 10 tags per post is probably a good upper limit. The hardest part to manual tagging is consistency, addressed below. Some basic points about creating a good SEO-friendly Tags:

• Tag specific neighborhood communities. The list shown on your News >> Neighborhoods category front should be granular and comprehensive enough to serve as a common reference list. Note that your market name ("New York") itself probably isn't helpful, as everything on your site should qualify for that keyword already included in other tagging.

• Tag business and brand names. Company names will be useful in coming directory enhancements. Include the whole name in normal mixed case. Try to avoid abbreviations.

• Tag events using full titles. Aim to be complete and consistent: "Kennett Square Mushroom Festival" not just "Mushroom Festival."

• Tag topics. Coordinate with your market captain to establish a consistent taxonomy everyone follows: "crime," "weather," "fire" and so forth.

TIP: → Proper nouns need to be uppercase.

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MAIN TEXT FIELDS FOR "BEST OF" LISTS & GUIDES The main input text of your post is not read start-to-finish by either users or search engines; usually only the first 600-pixel "screenful" of content gets seen. You have 1.7 seconds for this top space to convince users your webpage satisfies their search needs. Watch the tabs on the right to know which editing mode you are using. New posts default into the last mode used. "Visual" mode editing tends to keep most rich-text formatting (bold, italics, Web links) when cut-and-pasted from a Web browser or Microsoft Office. "HTML" mode allows manual entry of some "raw" markup code. → WARNING: Using Visual mode to re-edit Posts which have had custom tags previously entered in HTML mode may corrupt the formatting of the whole post. Some basic points about creating a good SEO-friendly "best of" Main Text Fields:

• Start your list or guide with a brief intro paragraph rich in appropriate, frequently searched keywords.

• Stack details blocks noting the venues' Name, Street Address, Phone Number, linked to Business Directory listing (if available, else official website) and a brief blurb as to why this option made the list. Link to your site's business directory listing as much as possible from each list, using the "Details, Reviews & Directions" as the link text.

• Shorter is better; cut you usual word count in half compared to conventional writing. • Add links between pages of your site as much as possible, including links to popular

tags. • Conclude with the list or guide author's name and credentials or background

displayed with a dash in italics text. (- Anna Van Lenten is a photographer and poet living in Brooklyn. Her creative work can be found at avanlenten.tumblr.com.)

• All guides and lists should have your market site (CBSNewYork, CBSChicago, etc.) selected as their source.

MANUAL CSS/HTML TAGGING OF LISTS & GUIDES Guide formatting is tricky and should be left to the charge or managing editors or site developers. It requires use of HTML code. For your reference, below is the style format created by CBS New York's Christian Conte for CBS Local guides. Unofficial Style Guide For Posting Guides/Lists: [*Note – "rw" in <div class="basicsection fifty50_rw divider">refers to whether text should wrap around the image or not. This should be based on discretion of the editor. If there is enough text, it should wrap around the image (default size 300x225). However if there is a tall image or a small amount of text, code can remain "fifty50_r" and text will not wrap.*]

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NYC Guides – Unofficial Style Guide Outline – For Use In HTML Posting

<div class="basicsection divider">

Short, 1 paragraph description of the guide. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Donec odio. Quisque volutpat mattis eros. Nullam malesuada erat ut turpis. Suspendisse urna nibh, viverra non, semper suscipit, posuere a, pede.

</div>

<div class="basicsection fifty50_rw divider">

Venue Image – 300x225

<h3>Name of Venue</h3> 123 Sesame St. New York, NY 10010 (212) 123-4567 <a href=" http://directory.yourmarket.cbslocal.com/directory/listing/12345-Name-of-Venue">Details, Reviews & Directions</a>

Description of the Venue. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Donec odio. Quisque volutpat mattis eros. Nullam malesuada erat ut turpis. Suspendisse urna nibh, viverra non, semper suscipit, posuere a, pede.

</div>

<div class="basicsection fifty50_r divider">

Venue Image – 300x225

<h3>Name of Venue</h3> 123 Sesame St. New York, NY 10010 (212) 123-4567 <a href=" http://directory.yourmarket.cbslocal.com/directory/listing/12345-Name-of-Venue">Details, Reviews & Directions</a>

Description of the Venue. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Donec odio. Quisque volutpat mattis eros. Nullam malesuada erat ut turpis. Suspendisse urna nibh, viverra non, semper suscipit, posuere a, pede.

</div>

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STORY IMAGES The default size for a featured image is 420 x 316. Images to be used in the two-column Top List format should be sized to 300x225. IMAGE TITLES All photos and graphics need to have a title when entered into the Media Library! These titles will appear when people hover their cursor over the image. It is vital you make sure they are written properly.

• Incorrect: petstore04222 • Correct: The Urban Pet

Note: If you post content in Alt Text field below title, it will not override title, though it will make your image/story more SEO friendly. PHOTO CREDITS Non-CBS photographs MUST be credited to their source. This needs to be included in the caption of all non-CBS photos. The correct style for photo sourcing includes parenthesis, the word "credit" and a semicolon.

• (credit: AP) • (credit: John Smith/Getty Images) • (credit: John Smith/AFP/Getty Images) • (credit: CompanySite.com) • (credit: CBS)

Example: The Urban Pet (credit: theurbanpet.net) FEATURED IMAGES Every post needs a featured image – even a generic. TIP: → Do not insert the same photo into a post as the featured image. Just select featured image or it will appear inside the article twice.

TIP: → Do not use a business logo as a featured image, as it will appear as an ad on the Best Of category front layouts. Using a logo is allowed (as a last resort) to illustrate a detail block on a list, but use generic creative stock for the list or guide's Featured Image.

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DYNAMIC LEADS Dynamic Leads for the "Best Of" section need to be swapped out once a day. Unlike posts, you may update a guide's timestamp. This will not affect the permalink.

cbslocal.com handbook 2.0static.cbslocal.com/station/national/temp/cbslocalhandbook02dot2… ·...

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