Editorial SEO Best PracticesDrew Broomhall | Head of Search HCM
What (some) enterprise C-level management think SEO is
“It’s putting lots of keywords on all our pages”
“It’s tricking Google into making our pages rank above everyone else”
"There is no doubt that certain websites are best described as parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the internet."
"We're going to stop people like Google and Microsoft and whoever from taking our stories for nothing."
What (some) journalists think SEO is
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/09/weekinreview/09lohr.html
?“The Database of Intentions is simply this: The aggregate results of every search ever entered, every result list ever tendered, and every path taken as a result”
What is SEO for media companies?
CONTENT Content is created to a plan that meets business objectives
Content is written to appeal to an online audience
Content is published in a timely fashion to capitalise on market trends
Writers and editors are trained to write content that appeals to readers and is highly relevant to search engines
MARKETING Actively promote content via distribution channels such as aggregators and bloggers
Promote content via social media to reach new readers
Create some content with goal of maximising reach (linkbait)
Make offline marketing and PR work for online benefit by aligning strategies and sharing objectives
TECHNICAL Websites must be fast and technically sound
Navigation must be clear and consistent
Websites must not breach search engine guidelines (e.g. spamming)
We optimise all our content - video and images also deliver strong traffic
STRATEGIC We measure everything. Capture data, focus on actionable insights
Focused reporting for key team members e.g. news traffic reporting
Always balance commercial and editorial objectives
Anticipate threats, evaluate competition, and always plan ahead
The enterprise SEO machine
PR
Sys
Admin
What it actually looks like
Writing content
Writing advertorial
Blogger outreach
PR for linkbuilding
Planning content
Information Architecture
Offline PR activityFront end code
Hosting issues
Performance optimisation
Social media management
Pure linkbuilding
Web design
Publishing content
Microsites
Keyword research
Email bulletins
Strategic partnerships
Site analytics
PPC
Reporting
Events
Marketing plans
Usability testing
Keyword overload
RESEARCHING KEYWORDS Start with existing keywords if site is in play
Use subject domain experts in organisation for seed keywords
Use business owners to set commercial angle
Never trust just one keyword source, and use horses for courses
PRIORITISING KEYWORDS Triage your keywords to refine a large list
Use conversion, bounce rate, pages viewed or your preferred metric to attribute a value
TRACKING KEYWORDS Tracking at enterprise scale can become expensive
Track for benchmarking before you implement a change
Track on a per project basis
PREDICTING KEYWORDS Build out calendars for seasonal trends
Use your insider knowledge to predict big trends, big products
Don’t forget that people use temporal qualifiers all the time
How this would work for Clinical Advisor
“Keyword research is really user research that details how your customers are using language to describe your products, services, and content. Make sure you use the language that they are accustomed to.”
Build definitive list of medical conditions that core CA user should be able to diagnose
Build list of keyword modifiers – “diagnosis”, “how to identify”, “in children” and more
Pull current known rankings from SEO tools
Augment with site search data
Seek out real user behaviour data
Create master keyword list containing all conditions and all modifiers
Generate keyword lists for each variation
Get keyword popularity data for each term
Balance popularity against the needs of the audience
Factor in keyword difficulty to see which terms are ‘low hanging fruit’ and which are hard to win
Decide which keywords can be addressed through templating and IA, and which through ongoing editorial
Build an editorial plan around relevance, demand, opportunity, seasonality
The defining characteristics of keywords
HEAD TERMS: ‘lyme disease’High volume means high competition, hard to rank for, usually battling established competitors
MID-LEVEL TERMS: ‘diagnosing lyme disease’Good regular traffic volume, high competition but easier to rank, require systematic approach to content
LONG TAIL TERMS: ‘diagnosing lyme disease in children pictures’Low traffic but endless variations drive volume. Harder to plan for, but very easy to produce content and rank
Targeting all the keywords that matter
Keyword tools you should use
Getting more out of existing ranked keywords
Analyse the competition
Learning to be a definitive resource
Learning to be a definitive resource
Content that wins
Commodity news
Exclusive news
Brandinitiatives
Brilliantfeatures
Amazingreviews
Bad long-Tail content
Originalproduct
The worst words an SEO can hear…
“I’m launching this product next week. Could you SEO it for me?”
HOW TO RESOLVE THIS Involve SEO stakeholders early in
development process
Have a shared development and SEO roadmap
Build red flags and approvals into development process
Build SEO security into your processes
The end of SEO 101
DEVELOPMENT Crib sheets and Wikis for SEO standards
Workshops to cover common issues
Train product owners and project managers as well
Put milestones and flags into project plans
MARKETERS Focused keyword training using appropriate tools
Train on the relationship between SEO and social media
ANALYSTS Define advanced and specific SEO metrics
Create analysts who can share their knowledge
Track on a per project basis
WRITERS Quickfire keyword research for busy journalists
Copywriting and headline writing for people AND search engines
Teach writers how to market their own content
GENERAL ADVICE Bespoke training using specific and relevant examples
Build tools and workflows that simplify processes
Prevention is better than cure
A word on Authorship
One methodology for getting quick results
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11+
Improve clickthrough by adding structured data
Rewrite generic page title and description rules
Create custom titles and descriptions for tricky pages
Focus text
Work on manual internal linking
Work on automatic cross linking
Fix problem IA issues
Build links via partners
Build links via likely linking sites (fansites)
Develop social media contacts to widen reach
All the above and more….
SERP
Thank you
[email protected]@drewbroomhall