Mar 4 2011

#journchat SEO and Journalism Edition Recap

This past Monday #journchat had a formal theme dedicated to SEO and journalism. To help us navigate the SEO waters we brought in expert Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz. Below is a formal recap from the hour-long conversation.

Q1 What’s the difference between optimizing for Google’s normal “web” search vs. “news search?”

  • @Randfish: @journchat Difference is big. Web search is open to anyone, based on accessibility of content, keyword optimization + links
  • @Randfish: @journchat News search requires editorial approval – http://seomz.me/gd02FZ and is based on a lot of freshness/recency features

Follow up question to Q1:

@electricmice How do you balance better SEO terms and better PR/ Marketing terms. ie Cheap vs affordable

  • @Randfish: @electricmice Balance is tough, but attainable. There’s lots of ways to have cake and eat it too if you write w/ both in mind
  • @Randfish: @electricmice Sadly, tweets are a poor format to explain http://seomz.me/gUsnK6 might help #journchat
  • @Randfish: #journchat Important thing to keep in mind w/ Google News – it can show in the main results via what’s called the “QDF” algorithm.
  • @Randfish: #journchat Basically, GG detects when a keyword/term is “trending” or “hot” and pushes fresher/news type content to the top
  • @Randfish: #journchat For example, http://www.google.com/search?q=libya+war is showing news results at the top of the page. Normal results CTR is lower

Q2 How can journs do keyword research w/ a “breaking news” topic that won’t be included in a tool like Google AdWords?

@randfish Tough to do keyword research when breaking news happens. My best advice is to use pattern recognition in headlines

Follow up question to Q2

@arhine Any thoughts on best way to optimize breaking news article, where focus of content may change often during day?

@Randfish Great question – good practice is to publish/update as the story does, but sending a new URL to Google might be best

Q3 How do the new social signals from Twitter and Facebook impact SEO for journalism and news stories? #journchat

  • @randfish: @arhine Great question – good practice is to publish/update as the story does, but sending a new URL to Google might be best
  • @randfish: @journchat Tough to do keyword research when breaking news happens. My best advice is to use pattern recognition in headlines #journchat
  • @randfish: @journchat News breaks that an earthquake hit Ohio, you might know from prior earthquake-related KWs to use “Ohio earthquake”
  • @randfish: @monicawright Great point – many journalistic orgs prepare for types of news w/ headline formats that have previously worked
  • @randfish: @NtheGame I’m partial to writing the story first, then crafting the headline based on the focus and the keyword research
  • @randfish: @journchat Twitter + Facebook are changing the SEO landscape, particularly when it comes to fresh content / QDF-triggered results
  • @randfish: Publishers need to have a great understanding of how, when, why users will tweet, retweet and Facebook like/share content. #journchat
  • @randfish: #journchat Here’s a good piece talking about the impact of Facebook/Twitter on Google + Bing rankings http://seomz.me/f0LLle
  • @randfish: @garyjmag Yes! And make sure the URLs are friendly to search engines (and consistent, too) #journchat

Follow up questions to Q3

@meganhealey What are “social signals?”

@randfish: @MeganHealey Social signals are things like appearing in a tweeted or Facebook-shared link. Google/Bing now “see” and count these #journchat

What does it mean to have URLs that are friendly to search engines? #journchat

  • @randfish: @journchat Search-friendly URLs: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/11-best-practices-for-urls Basically, easy for Google/Bing to use #journchat
  • @randfish: @mcaption Google + Bing are surprisingly excellent at counting only truly “popular” and diversely cited pages cc @journchat #journchat
  • @randfish: Solid reporting & good facts ARE good journalism SEO – no reason quality and search visibility need conflict w/ one another #journchat
  • @randfish: @lbyrd9 Just to be transparent – we’ve not yet tested or observed impact of hashtags in tweets/tweeted links on SEO #journchat
  • @randfish: “My guess is getting a story atop Google results is last thing on journ mind when writing” – @MattLaCasse If true, that’s sad. #journchat
  • @randfish: Journalists should be delivering a great story to people. Google has 1+ billion queries/day; possibly most powerful channel for news, ever.

CurtMonash How do the dozens of navigational links on typical press (or busy blog) pages affect SEO?

@randfish: @CurtMonash Usually not too negatively. Obtrusive ads, on the other hand, can seriously detract #journchat cc @prsarahevans

CurtMonash: @randfish @prsarahevans Thanks! So links in different parts of a page are now viewed VERY differently by search engines?

@randfish: @CurtMonash Re: a page’s ability rank, num of links on the page doesn’t matter too much – used in other aspects of SEO though #journchat

Q4 Does confirming to the AP’s iAtom feed standards help your rank in Google News results? #journchat

  • @randfish: @journchat @shotgunconcepts As far as I’m aware, AP iAtom standards don’t provide any special SEO benefits #journchat
  • @randfish: @HULKGAMECRIT I believe we (humans) are naturally social, and that news, in particular, should be built to share and spread. #journchat

Q5 @randfish How have new changes to #google social search affected journalists? Pos and Neg. #journchat

  • @randfish: @journchat @navahk Overall, new social signals positive for journalists, IMO. Lots of sharing on Twit/FB means more opportunity #journchat
  • @randfish: @navahk Q5 That said, for outlets that haven’t embraced social, competition’s tougher + building a following is getting harder
  • @randfish: @znmeb Agreed, but I like what @mattcutts says “Don’t chase algo; chase what people want. That’s what Google wants, too.
  • @randfish: @joegullo I think “quality journalism” IS great SEO. IMO, you can’t do truly good SEO with a poorly researched/written piece #journchat

Q6 What are some of the top SEO for media “urban legends” (things people think are true but are not)?

Q7 What advice (or cautionary words) do you have for journalists or media outlets who do not care or disregard SEO?

  • @randfish: @journchat Q7 – if you don’t care about SEO, you miss the opportunity to expose your wonderful content to curious readers.
  • @randfish: @journchat Q7: Imagine a newspaper that refused to utilize the wire to transmit their work. Semi-similar w/ the “No SEO” crowd #journchat

Follow up questions from after the chat

@shortformernie Does Google’s algorithm favor large news sites over smaller ones?

Rand Fishkin: There are biases that make larger, more well-referenced sites likely to outrank smaller sites (due to features like domain authority). That can be frustrating for smaller sites, but there’s also a lot of opportunity to target niches and build community and passion around specific topics vs. a very generic news site.

@schronico: A lot of people I know live by keywords and the story suffers as a result. how do you find balance?

Rand Fishkin: Keywords should never be causing a story’s quality to suffer. If you write a piece about Intel’s new Atom chip and you need to include the words “Intel Atom Chip” in the title, that’s likely a very good thing, because it accurately describes the content and gives a clear signal to users. There’s no need to worry about SEO myths like keyword density or raw repetition. Having a natural flow and great writing is far more powerful than using a keyword phrase 4 extra times in a piece.

@SusannaSpeier: I understand how algorithms can reward good research w higher rankings. But how can algorithms rate bias?

Rand Fishkin: They typically don’t, although Google does have some ways of measuring diversity of topics and focii in the results and including multiple sources and source types. http://www.seomoz.org/blog/does-query-deserves-diversity-algorithm-exist-at-google

@NicWirtz: Is it possible for journalists to keep up with SEO changes. especially their training?

Rand Fishkin: I believe so – in the 8 years I’ve been in SEO professionally, there have been big changes every year or two, but it’s certainly not overwhelming and for those who simply publish for the web, those changes are few and far between. SEO isn’t a topic journalists need to stay addicted to every week or even every month – going to a single SEO event/training every year or two or reading something like the Search Ranking Factors biennially.

@CurtMonash: Is it still helpful to repeat keywords rather than, say, use pronouns?

Rand Fishkin: Only very slightly – even as someone who thinks a lot about SEO, I almost never worry about

@NicWirtz: Can you put a percentage on how important headlines are to body text for SEO?

Rand Fishkin: From an SEO perspective, following the 80/20 rule, headlines are the 80% – they’re the majority of what you need to think/worry about.

@NicWirtz: Does SEO writing have to be repetitious? Clearly this wouldn’t work in journalism.

Rand Fishkin: From an SEO perspective, following the 80/20 rule, headlines are the 80% – they’re the majority of what you need to think/worry about.

@MattLaCasse: Most important in SEO; metatags or writing content correctly?

Rand Fishkin: Meta tags mostly don’t matter. In fact, the only tag you need to think about is the meta description tag (which should be short, capture a searchers attention and pull them into a story). http://www.seomoz.org/learn-seo/meta-description

Meta tag optimization (like the meta keywords tag) was abandoned when the engines stopped paying attention to it in the early 2000’s. Danny Sullivan wrote well on this topic - http://searchengineland.com/meta-keywords-tag-101-how-to-legally-hide-words-on-your-pages-for-search-engines-12099

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SEO Tools/References

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List of Tools Mentioned during #journchat

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List of Blog Posts Mentioned by @Randfish during #journchat

Who is Rand Fishkin?
Rand Fishkin is the CEO & Co-Founder of SEOmoz, a leader in the field of SEO software. He co-authored the Art of SEO from O’Reilly Media and was named on the 40 Under 40 List and 30 Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs Under 30. Rand has been written about in The Seattle Times, Newsweek and the NY Times among others and keynoted conferences on search around the world. He’s particularly passionate about the SEOmoz blog, read by tens of thousands of search professionals each day. In his miniscule spare time, Rand enjoys the company of his amazing wife, Geraldine.

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