Online Newspaper MarketingScott Bateman

Feb. 22, 2012

Schedule10:00 - 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 SEONewspapers historically have gained search engine audiences in two important ways:

1.People do searches on the newspaper name– Search engines favor sites with new and high-

frequency content (i.e., newspapers)

But everyone else is figuring that out ...

Market ShareThe problem: Online newspapers are losing market share.

The solution: Newspapers can adopt the same tactics as their competitors. 

Tactics9 major online marketing tactics:

1.Search engine optimization– Link building– Social networking (Facebook, etc.)– Blogging (on other sites)– Email marketing (in decline)– Content marketing– Pay per click (Google AdWords)– Video marketing (YouTube)– 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 SEOIdentify one to three keywords and use them in these ways:1.File name– Slug– Lead (if possible)– Two to three times in the story– Headline– Photo file name (images.google.com)

Page SEOPage SEO is related to article SEO, but it has some distinct requirements.

1.Page title– Headline tags: h1 and h2– Meta description– 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 SitesWhy blog elsewhere? The links.

Target high-value feature content.Major blog sites:• BlogSpot• Tumblr• Live Journal 

Content MarketingContent 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.

ProfilesEvery 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– Type of site– 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