SEO for journalists

Journalists & SEO
Chris Snider • chrissniderdesign.com

What would you do
if you wanted to learn
more about SEO?

In the month of May 2008, Google processed
nearly 6.7 billion U.S. searches. This is equal to
approximately 214 million searches a day. An increase
of 38 million search queries a day since July 2007.
Source: http://www.internetrix.net

Therefore: Search is a great
way to drive trafﬁc to your site.

What you see when you perform a search...

paid search results
paid
search
results
natural search results

• 5 search engines receive more than
90 percent of all search trafﬁc
• Google,Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Ask

How does SEO work?
And how can it work for you?

Simpliﬁed SEO
• Build a great site with great content
• Find the right keywords
• Get other quality sites to link to you

title
URL

headlines

title
URL

headlines

text

What Google shows...
title
meta description

What Google shows...
title
meta description

URL

But what if Google
doesn’t know I exist?

You need to get Google to crawl your site

One way to do that is to submit your blog to Google

Search “submit site” or “submit blog”

Or/and get other sites to link to your site.
When their site is crawled, it will crawl your site.

How to know if your site is being crawled:

Search cache:http://www.yoursite.com

Figure out what words people should
search to ﬁnd your site.

Remember: The goal is to be helpful
to readers, not to trick them.

Then: Research those words.

Why research?
• To ﬁnd words people actually search
• To make sure you’re not trying to optimize
a word you will never get ranked for

http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/gtrends/

Warning: People don’t know how to use the internet!

What people search to ﬁnd DesMoinesRegister.com

Therefore, be sure to optimize for the
(possibly incorrect) words people will search.

Don’t use abbreviations

People search des moines not D.M.

People search Shawn Johnson not
WDM gymnast Johnson

Write straightforward headlines

Put the best info up high in your articles/posts

Try to get other credible sites/blogs to link to you.

Best way to do that is to link to them.

Read other blogs - and comment on other blogs.

Be sure to leave your URL when you comment.

Promote your best work on:
• Digg
• Delicious
• Reddit
• Newsvine
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Other blogs

Just don’t overdo it.

Occasionally dip into Google Trends to see
what topics people are suddenly searching.

If those topics are relevant to your site/blog,
take advantage of that fact (and optimize appropriately)

Write articles/posts that people will want to link to.

Look closely at your metrics to see what is popular.

Remember the Chris Brogan list...

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SEO for journalists

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