Instagram and pinterest for business in hancock oct 2015
Seo st. louis
1. SEO/SMO
for Journalists
ACES National Conference • April 4, 2013
Teresa Schmedding • tschmedding@gmail.com • @tschmedding
Deputy ME/Digital Daily Herald Media Group • ACES president
How to get web hits, engage readers
without sounding like a machine
2. SEO, SMO
SEO stands for search engine
optimization, which means using
words to get a higher ranking on
Google/Bing search engines so more
people click on.
SMO stands for social media
optimization, which means using social
media to draw readers in (FB, YouTube,
FourSquare, Delicious, Twitter, Flickr,
etc.).
3. Why we care
65% of college graduates get news
online
1 billion people on FB
One-third gets news from FB
Search engine growth slowing, social
media growth exploding
4. Why we care
Blog, email,
podcast “news”
traffic flat
3% get news
from twitter
5. SEO: How does it work?
Big, secret spiders
High school rules
Keywords, metadata
Keywords in URL
6. Words you control
How well your words match the
relevance of a query
Capturing readers’ attention
Compelling them to click on your item
7. How to match queries
Use key terms
Use proper
names
Use unique
terms
Know your
audience
8. The nitty gritty
What keywords are in your content?
What are people searching for?
Will it draw your audience, back your
brand?
19. What not to do
Worry about repeated words
Use puns
Count on the art
Worry about bad breaks
Put every word in a headline
20.
21.
22. Don’t forget
Your main goal is to help people who
want to read your content find it. Once
they find it, you want them to click on it.
That’s where your brain kicks in.
23. Three things not to forget
Ask yourself, if you were googling this
subject, what words would you type into
a search engine?
Don’t tie yourself up in knots writing a
gibberish summary to appeal only to a
search engine. Use your writing skills
and write a straight, clear lead
paragraph.
You are human – that’s an asset so
play it up
Bonus for us: Search engines help people find stories online that they’re searching for. Social media lets us get news in front of them
Keyword density, long tail; 70%
H1, H2, H3 display type fields
Be specific, use first, last names; Iowa FB in “Iowa” in Iowa not the same as it is in Chicago
70% of searches are in the long tail so be specific Time for complicated programs? Rocket science?
As of September, Google gets 67% of search engine traffic, Microsoft sites get 16%, Yahoo 12%; Ask 3.5%, AOL 1.8% (comScore)
Lets you compare state by state, news headlines v. web searches; split by category
Lets you explore search term trends, drill down geography from world to nation to state to Columbia
Lets you explore search term trends, drill down geography from world to nation to state to Cedar Rapids
Lets you explore search term trends, drill down geography from world to nation to state to Cedar Rapids
Paste your paragraph; it’s a good tool to use for editing, coaching
Paste your paragraph; it’s a good tool to use for editing, coaching
Good for a starting point. Tells you how a computer would read a story. The stronger the match, the more stars, bars. Colors show keywords in text.
9 words
You are smarter than the robots because you know your readers, your content, your market, your brand. Just use them to help fine-tune what you already know.