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

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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

drew.broomhall@haymarket.com@drewbroomhall