SEO for News Media. Jesse Kohl Content Optimization Manager

Transcription

1 SEO for News Media Jesse Kohl Content Optimization Manager

2 Who I am... Present 12+ Years in Journalism, Communications & Digital Marketing Past Content Optimization Manager Toronto Star / thestar.com Digital Marketing Manager Field ID (B2B Software) Consultant / Search & Content Optimization Manager Environics (Agency) Newspaper Reporter/Photographer Metroland Journalism Diploma Humber School of Media Studies

3 The most important tip you ll ever hear on Search Engine Optimization (SEO)...

4 Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines. Quality Guidelines, Basic Principles Google, 2014

5 SEO - Special Considerations for Media Authority, Quality, Freshness, Competition Visibility in both Google Search & Google News SEO vs. Editorial Quality High Volume of Content Monetization Conflicts (Sponsored Content, YouTube)

6 How Users Find News Continues to Change Web, News, Video, Images, Maps, Shopping 81% of searches include universal results 45% of the time, images show 54% of video results come from YouTube 7% of the time, News results (keywords of the day) Universal Search Google USA, SearchMetrics

7 Your SEO Should Help Readers Find You It... Influences how your content will compete and rank for audience Helps control your content s appearance in search & CTR Signals the relevance of your content (to engines & searchers)

8 It goes beyond search, into social...

9 and comes back again

10 It follows your content everywhere

11 How To Find A Searcher

12 Know Your Audience Inform Content Choices with Keyword Research It s better than guessing Sometimes it s obvious, sometimes it s not It s like a thesaurus with data Balance Volume, Relevancy, Diversity

13 Keyword Research Tools Google Keyword Planner (Recommended) Comprehensive search volumes Google Adwords account required

14 Keyword Research Tools SEMRush.com (Limited Free) Comprehensive tools, with keyword data $69.95/month

15 Keyword Research Tools Moz.com Comprehensive tools, with keyword data $69.95/month Bing Keyword Research Tool Bing Ads account required

16 Keyword Research Tools Google Trends (Free) Basic trends & data, visual interface, related queries, rising trends

17 Keyword Research Tools Your Own Data Google Webmaster Tools Analytics What s working vs. what s popular Social Trends Trending, hot topics for keyword hints Combine with research

18 Think about the words users would type to find your pages, and make sure that your site actually includes those words within it. Design and Content Guidelines Google

19 Produce Great SEO Headlines Research & choose a target keyword Shorter is better Include target keyword Start with your keyword, when possible Think short: characters Great... Even Better

20 Produce Great SEO Descriptions Not Optimal SEO Descriptions help convince a searcher to click your story Include target keyword or close variation Think short-ish: characters Ask: Does this increase the likelihood of a click? Better

21 Produce Better SEO Keywords 5 to 7 keyword phrases total Use keyword research tools to gauge demand (search volume) Include names - if the volume is there (politicians, celebrities, etc) <meta name="news_keywords" content="world Cup, Brazil 2014, Spain vs Netherlands, soccer, football"> [Source: Google]

22 Include keywords in your URL Avoid random URLs Descriptive is better Headline to URL is best Close to root

23 Optimize Media When Possible Help search engines understand nontext content Name images, video and audio with both keywords and good judgement (filenames & titles) Apply an alt tag to describe visual media, if possible; include keyword in cutline

24 Apply SEO thinking to social channels Consider keyword research against social trends and vice versa Opportunity to diversify, use synonyms Optimize for readers through search and social

25 Support SEO with Solid Foundation

26 Clean Sitemaps Sitemap Separation Web News (once approved) Images Video Mobile Protocol at sitemaps.org support.google.com

27 Smart Internal Linking Links support site structure Stories should link back to important pages (hot topics, sections), when relevant Individual stories will rise and fall; longer term pages deserve stronger link structure Avoid click here

28 External Link Awareness Link Profiles Google Webmaster Tools (Bing too!) MajesticSEO OpenSiteExplorer

29 Avoiding Duplicates Every page - section or story - should have unique SEO elements Every URL unique content

30 Improving Load Times PageSpeed Insights GWT Crawl Stats

31 Crawling & Fixing Errors Google Webmaster Tools (Bing too!) AnalyticsSEO.com Moz.com Ahrefs.com ScreamingFrog

32 Measuring Success Your Analytics Google Webmaster Tools (Bing too!) SearchMetrics.com AnalyticsSEO.com Moz.com SEMRush.com

33 Optimizing for Mobile

34 Mobile vs. Desktop Search 62% of organic searches show different results on a desktop vs. smartphone 27% of websites misconfigured for smartphone searches 68% loss of smartphone traffic Sacrificing smartphone rank by almost two positions (1.82 on average) Mobile Share Report - June 2014, BrightEdge

35 Making It Mobile-Friendly Know your approach Responsive Dynamic Serving Separate Adapt to guidelines, eliminate problems Avoid common mistakes: Page speed Unplayable videos Faulty redirects Incorrect canonicals Blocked assets (robots.txt) Smartphone-only 404s Irrelevant cross-linking HTTP Vary header

36 Always Be Testing Site search ( site:m.thestar.com ) Anecdotal tests on multiple devices Developer tools, Chrome emulator Pagespeed Insights

37 The Final Word

38 Official Google/Bing Guidelines Smartphone Quality Design & Content Technical Official Google Guidelines Structured Data Markup

39 Questions

40 Thank You! Jesse Kohl Content Optimization