SEO/SMOfor Journalists

The Gazette • Oct. 22, 2012

Teresa Schmedding • tschmedding@gmail.com

AME Daily Herald Media Group • ACES president

How to get web hits, engage readers without sounding like a machine

Who is online? 83% of 18-29 are online; 70% of 30-49;

51% of 50-64; 33% of 65+ 89% of women 18-29 “No significant difference”: race, ethnicity,

income, education, urban/suburban/rural Faster growth among older users 1 billion FB users; 36% get news on FB

Source: Pew

SEO, SMO – Display type

SEO stands for search engine optimization, which means using words to get a higher ranking on Google/Bing search engines so more people click on.

SMO stands for social media optimization, which means using social media to draw readers in (FB, YouTube, FourSquare, Delicious, Twitter, Flickr, etc.).

The basics

Big, secret spiders High school rules Keywords, metadata Keywords in URL

Words you control

What you can control is how well your words match the relevance of a query

Capturing readers’ attention Compelling them to click on your item

Matching queries

Use key terms Use proper

names Use unique

terms Know your

audience

The nitty gritty What keywords are in your content? What are people searching for? Will it draw your audience, back your

brand?

Figuring out those keywords Easiest way is start typing in search

bar, follow suggestions

Figuring out those keywords Google Trends (google.com/trends) lets

you enter terms, see which is trending higher

Figuring out those keywords http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends or

http://www.google.com/trends/explore

Figuring out those keywords http://www.google.com/trends/hottrends or

http://www.google.com/trends/explore

Figuring out those keywords

OpenCalais (http://viewer.opencalais.com/) lets you go even deeper

OpenCalais

What not to do

Worry about repeated words Use puns Count on the art Worry about bad breaks

Don’t forget

Your main goal is to help people who want to read your content find it. Once they find it, you want them to click on it.That’s where your brain kicks in.

Critical elementsCorrect +

Concise + Consistent + Complete

And, in social media world

Conversational + Genuine

Frank Russell, University of Missouri

Social media common themes

Don’t be coy, don’t oversell Consistent voice Your audience, your voice Write tight Write in context Identify yourself

Know your audience

Reflect philosophy of your company Use proper tone, taste FB, twitter, Pinterest, web not the same Never

tweet more than100characters

Know your goals

Do you want to engage? Do you want to draw clicks? Do you want to build brand awareness? How many times are you going to tweet

a day? How many times are you going to FB?

How will it look?

How will it look?

How willit look?

How will it look?

What to do with words

Stick to seven words or less Write to an individual Be clear Use “key” terms in the summary (vs. generic

words) Be specific Use proper nouns If the story updates, update the display type

Two things not to forget

Ask yourself, if you were googling this subject, what words would you type into a search engine?

Don’t tie yourself up in knots writing a gibberish summary to appeal only to a search engine. Use your writing skills and write a straight, clear lead paragraph.