Online Newspaper Marketing Scott Bateman Feb. 22, 2012

Schedule 10:00 - Session 1: intro, SEO 10:55 - Break 11:05 - Session 2: other tactics 12:00 - Lunch with optional breakout 12:45 - Session 3: analyzing your own sites 1:45 - Wrapup, final questions

Background Indexed pages are growing 70% a year Sites are growing 25% a year Audience is growing 7.5% a year Competition for eyeballs getting much hotter

Newspaper SEO Newspapers historically have gained search engine audiences in two important ways: 1.People do searches on the newspaper name 2.Search engines favor sites with new and high- frequency content (i.e., newspapers) But everyone else is figuring that out...

Market Share The problem: Online newspapers are losing market share. The solution: Newspapers can adopt the same tactics as their competitors.

Tactics 9 major online marketing tactics: 1.Search engine optimization 2.Link building 3.Social networking (Facebook, etc.) 4.Blogging (on other sites) 5. marketing (in decline) 6.Content marketing 7.Pay per click (Google AdWords) 8.Video marketing (YouTube) 9.Microblogging (Twitter)

Competition

Newspaper SEO Tactic #1 What: search engine optimization How: tweak the editorial production process

First Steps What is the first thing a reporter does when she or he sits down at a computer to write a story?

Slugs How many of you still use slugs?

Keywords Both the file name and the slug should use the same keywords. And the keywords should be search friendly.

Keywords What makes a good keyword? (Group discussion)

Article SEO Identify one to three keywords and use them in these ways: 1.File name 2.Slug 3.Lead (if possible) 4.Two to three times in the story 5.Headline 6.Photo file name (images.google.com)

Page SEO Page SEO is related to article SEO, but it has some distinct requirements. 1.Page title 2.Headline tags: h1 and h2 3.Meta description 4.Photo alt tag

SEO Results Who is responsible for daily SEO management? If the answer is no one, getting there will be much more difficult.

SEO Results Which media outlet is No. 1 in news in Charlotte, NC?

Online Newspaper Marketing 10-Minute Break

Link Building Internal linking: - Most important keywords on the most important pages External linking: - Likewise, most important keywords on the most important sites / pages

Link Building There is a profound difference between news stories with a short shelf life and feature stories with a long shelf life.

Link Building A link with relevant keywords is a vote. A click on that link is another vote. If the linking page is important, it’s a lot of votes. And yes, the search engines track those clicks.

Social Media Facebook... to a point Twitter Digg and Reddit StumbleUpon Google+ (writer profiles) Think of links, not just branding. Values: audience, branding and links

Blogging - on Other Sites Why blog elsewhere? The links. Target high-value feature content. Major blog sites: BlogSpot Tumblr Live Journal

Content Marketing Content marketing is the practice of publishing your content on another site in order to put links in that content back to your own site. HubPages Squidoo EzineArticles Your newspaper partners

Profiles Everytime someone registers on a site, such as Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or LinkedIn, they create the opportunity for a profile with invaluable links.

Profiles Every byline should have a link to a profile page. Every profile page should show articles by that writer. They also should have links to Google+, LinkedIn, Twitter and/or Facebook pages for that writer. An RSS feed for every writer should update those pages. Those pages should have links back to keyword- important pages on your site.

And the Rest Video marketing (YouTube) Answers.Yahoo, Quora, Answers.com Flickr Pay per click What's important is not to link to everything from everywhere, but focus on critical pages and sections of your sites.

And the Rest Analyzing your sites (Group brainstorming)

Wrapping Up Online newspaper marketing is an extremely complex subject with many iterations. The key is developing a structure, a schedule and a set of priorities to cover the most important aspects: optimization and link building.

Wrapping Up Organize tasks by: 1.Day, week and month 2.Type of site 3.Priority, i.e., rank of site, amount of audience Use calendar reminders to complete the tasks. Consistency is essential.

Wrapping Up Final questions and comments