Search Engine Optimization Practical Application

Steven Evatt, Chron.com

Today We’ll Cover:

• Search Engine Basics

• Building SEO into your CMS

• Measure your success

How does a search engine work?

Who to optimize for? Market share

Google – 55% Yahoo – 11% MSN/Live – 5.4%

Chron.com Google – 68.3% Yahoo – 13.8% MSN/Live – 8.0%

Newsroom Adoption

Top down ‘Buy-In’ Visionaries in VP

and EVP of Online Editorial

Automation of SEO Basics

Provide tangible tracking and benchmarking results

Content is King

Page Title Automation

Automatically insert Headline Leads the Title

Includes metro area – “Houston”

Includes Site and Publication Name

Cross Linking

Site search results and resource tool links on story pages

Cross linking with Chron.com Blog posts

Keywords are derived from links

Newsroom Editors:Their Role

Page Text Education: SEO best

practices to newsroom Promo Graphics

Easy editing tools so both graphic and text changes are within content management system

Meta Keywords and Description

Refining to ensure primary keywords are included

Provide mechanism for editorial staff to avoid code editing

Site Discoverability

File Structure Hierarchy and Taxonomy

Maintain Site Maps Nav, Links, Story

redirection on Error pgs RSS throughout site

Back End Configurations

Robots.TXT 404 Error Page Server Side Redirects

Configure multiple URLs to avoid returning the exact same content. 

ie www.chron.com == www.houstonchronicle.com == chron.com == etc.

301 vs 302

Tracking and Benchmarking

May 2006: #5 May 2006: #4

NewsKnife.com Rating

• Year to date 2007 - #3

• 2006 - #15

• 2005 - #47

• 2004 - #58

Care and Feeding of SEO Continuous Process Use keyword-rich content Updated constantly with less graphical text Topical meta data

Meta descriptsion keywords Limited to six-to-eight

Future Growth

Let’s Review

Content is King Keep it fresh Keep it original

Unique title tags Links are powerful – be generous! Automate

More Information

SEO Blogs http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/type/googleseo/ http://www.schipul.com/sem/seo.asp http://googleblog.blogspot.com

SEO Tools http://www.marketleap.com

Google News Rankings http://www.newsknife.com

Site Maps http://www.sitemaps.org

Thanks For Coming!

Steven Evatt www.chron.com – The Houston Chronicle

Phone: 713.362.2937Email: steven.evatt@chron.comSite: www.chron.com