Google and SEO may make you cringe, but the combo matters in search. Here are SEO examples from news outlets that range from bad to best. The blog post that complements this presentation was originally published on Mashable: http://on.mash.to/JdigwG

1. SEO Your
Headlines
by JONATHAN RICK
@jrick

2. Bad

3. ARTICLE TITLE
Beach Force One
PAGE TITLE
Beach Force One
[Time.com]

4. ARTICLE TITLE
Hacked!
PAGE TITLE
Hacked!
[TheAtlantic.com]

5. ARTICLE TITLE
The Woman Who
Knew Too Much
PAGE TITLE
The Woman Who
Knew Too Much
[VanityFair.com]

6. ARTICLE TITLE
When Anonymice
Attack!
PAGE TITLE
When Anonymice
Attack!
[Reuters.com]

7. Good

8. ARTICLE TITLE
15 Case Studies to Get
Your Client on Board
With Social Media
PAGE TITLE
15 Case Studies to Get
Your Client on Board
With Social Media
[Mashable.com]

9. ARTICLE TITLE
Scott Forstall, the
Sorcerer’s Apprentice at
Apple
PAGE TITLE
Scott Forstall, the
Sorcerer’s Apprentice at
Apple
[BusinessWeek.com]

10. ARTICLE TITLE
What Everyone Is Too
Polite to Say About
Steve Jobs
PAGE TITLE
What Everyone Is Too
Polite to Say About
Steve Jobs
[Gawker.com]

11. ARTICLE TITLE
The Bridge to Nowhere:
A National
Embarrassment
PAGE TITLE
The Bridge to Nowhere:
A National
Embarrassment
[Heritage.org]

12. Better

13. ARTICLE TITLE
Changing Times
PAGE TITLE
Jill Abramson, New York
Times’s First Woman
Executive Editor
[NewYorker.com]

14. ARTICLE TITLE
White House Party
Crashers Cause a
Hangover
PAGE TITLE
Obama Asks for Review
After Michaele and Tareq
Salahi Crash White
House State Dinner
[TheDailyBeast.com]

15. ARTICLE TITLE
Deliverance
PAGE TITLE
U.S. Postal Service: Will
It Survive?
[Slate.com]

16. ARTICLE TITLE
Snooki Slept Here. So
Did I
PAGE TITLE
“Jersey Shore,” Reality
vs. Reality TV
[NYTimes.com]

17. ARTICLE TITLE
Better Never Than Late
PAGE TITLE
Conan O’Brien Won’t
Give Up “Tonight Show”
Time Show to Make Room
for Jay Leno
[WashingtonPost.com]

18. Best

19. ARTICLE TITLE
What’s Eating the NYPD?
PAGE TITLE
Why the NYPD Is Turning on Ray Kelly
ARTICLE TITLE
What’s Eating the NYPD?
META DESCRIPTION
Ray Kelly has built the best police force in the country.
Now it is turning on him.

20. ARTICLE TITLE
What’s Eating the NYPD?
PAGE TITLE
Herman Cain’s Unlikely Republican Rise
ARTICLE TITLE
Citizen Cain
META DESCRIPTION
A month ago, he was a punchline. Now Herman Cain is
laughing. Meet the rising GOP star who is confounding
the pundits and much of black America.

21. ARTICLE TITLE
What’s Eating the NYPD?
PAGE TITLE
The Fate of Republicans Who Supported Gay Marriage
ARTICLE TITLE
When Is a Flip Not a Flop?
META DESCRIPTION
The four Republicans who broke with their party on New
York’s gay-marriage law were supposedly marked for
electoral death. But that’s not exactly how it is working
out.