SEO Basics

GET
Ready!
Saturday, November 7, 2009 1

News21
Carnegie-Knight Initiative
for the Future of
Journalism

Knight Digital Media
Center @ USC Annenberg
November 6-8, 2009


Changing America 2010
Enhancing the Future:
Innovation &
Collaboration


5


<title>
Introduction
to SEO
</title> 6


Contributors
Paul Grabowicz
Scot Hacker
Jerry Monti
Jeremy Rue
Josh Williams
7


80% of users click
one of the ﬁrst three
search results.

8


SEO is the process of
getting your content to
display near the top of
appropriate search
results.
9


10


One True Way
“Make something great. Tell
people about it.
Do it again.
It’ll take time. A lot of time.
But it works. And it’s the only
thing that does.”
Derek Powazek http://powazek.com/posts/2180

11


Who’s Responsible?


You

With good writers and good
web skills, SEO techniques
are “obvious.”

powazek.com/posts/2101
16
14


SEO
= great content
+ good structure
+ quality links

15


SEO

•Black magic
!
•Silver bullets
•Rocket science
16


Content
17


SEO is only useful if you
have good content...

…completely useless
if you don’t.
18


Unless your
content rocks…
…don’t even think
of getting on the
ﬁrst SERP.
19


Content
•Unique
•Fresh
•Valued
•Connected
20


Content
•Focused
•Details
•Organized
•Scannable
21


Keywords
22


Keywords
80% of users click
one of the ﬁrst three
search results.

23


3.1
Words
24


Keywords
•Make content ﬁndable
•Connect content to
readers
•Deﬁne your product
25


Developing
Keywords
Reﬁning your awareness
of how people search for
your content
26


Keyword Tools
•Google Adwords
•Google Zeitgeist
•Community Sites
•People
27


Keyword
Experiment

28


29


30


KW—Copy
•heds
•sub-heds
•body

31


KW—Images

•ﬁle name
•alt tag
•caption
•photo credit
32


News
•Just write good copy.
•Dateline information
•Detail rich lede
•Clear hed—facts & hook
33


Structure
34


Technical
•<title>
•<meta “description”>
•Semantic HTML tags
•Clean URLs
35


<title>
<title>
Great keyword-rich
information
</title>

36


37


<title>Kick-Ass Title </title>
• High SEO score for relevancy
• SERP
• Bookmarks
• First contact
• Unique on every page of site
• No more than 66 characters
38


<title>
Title Exercise
</title>

39


News <title>
<title>
hed + section + site name
</title>
40


41


Semantic HTML
•<h1>, <h2>, <h3>
•<strong> <em>
•<blockquote>
•<p>
44


45


46


Clean URLs
•Human-readable
•Keywords
•Short
•Provide “breadcrumbs”
•Use dashes instead of
underscores
47


48


49


Links
50


Links
•Measure of value
•Drive qualiﬁed trafﬁc
•Frequently “uniques”
51


Links
•How important are the
sites that think you have
good content?
•How relevant are external
links?
52


Be a the resource
• Link to competitors.
• Link to people who have related
content.
• Quote, spotlight and praise
people in your topic niche that
publish good content.
53


54


“Avoid tricks intended to
improve search engine
rankings.”

Google Webmaster Guidelines

55


Summary
56


keywords in <title>

57


keywords in
<h1>hed</h1>

58


include content summaries

59


use proper formatting

60


link to related content

61


Mobile

Actions

67


GWT
•Sign up for Google
Webmaster Tools
•Read Google
Webmaster Blog
68


Analytics
•Sign up for Google
Analytics
•Read Google
Analytics Blog
69


Start Today
•Longevity counts
in SEO
•Blog before you
leave
70


Blog about…
• Plans
• Staff
• Wireframes
• UGC
• Design
• Testing
• <more>
71


Develop inbound
links


Conversion
University
Certiﬁcation

73


Q&A 74


SEO Basics

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