GET Ready

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GETReady!
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Blogging Essentials for Journalists
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• The Knight Digital Media Center UC Berkeley
  Graduate School of Journalism
• February 2009

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Jerry Monti

• jtm_at_berkeley.edu
• 510.643.1532

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Presentation Contributors

• Geeta Dayal
• Paul Grabowicz
• Scot Hacker
• Jerry Monti
• Jeremy Rue

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This Session

• Writing a blog for people and spiders.
• Overview
• SEO Basics
• SMO Concepts

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Blogs Change Journalism

• Survey results from online journalism blog

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Blog Breaking News

• 2006 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service cites the
  blog run by the New Orleans Times Picayune.
• latimes.com fire story.
• Bakersfield

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Preparing for Breaking News

• Select a blogging tool and have it ready to go
• Identify and train your bloggers
• Have a plan to backread and edit the blog

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For Breaking News

• Post as soon as you have news...
• Dont wait for enough
• Always carry a camera

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Writing for Spiders

• Technically easy
• Requires creativity
• Attention to detail
• Discipline
• Time

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Whos Responsible?
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You!
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Whats SEO?
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Paid Results
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Natural Results
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80 click on one of the first three search
results.
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Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine
rankings. Google Webmaster Guidelines
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Another useful test is to ask, Does this help
my users? Would I do this if search engines
didn't exist?Google Webmaster Guidelines
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Google Basics
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Google Analytics
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Two Major Elements for SEO
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Content

• Relevant content
• Correctly structured

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Links

• Who thinks you have good content?
• How important are the sites that think you have
  good content?
• How relevant are external links?

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Keywords
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Most searches use 2 - 3 keywords.
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Develop Keyword Phrase
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Check Keywords

• google.com/trends
• adwords.google.com

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Helping Spiders See

• The page title should not be more than 12 words
  long.
• Description lead with the same key phrase
  words.
• Keywords present the same keywords in the
  same order.

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Helping Spiders See

• Only the Title is displayed in search results.
• Description and Keywords are scanned and help
  determine page content relevancy.

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Stress keyword phrase

• Headline
• Headings and subheads
• Within the first 200 words
• Linkseither directly or adjacent
• Image file name, alt tag, caption
• Tags

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Writing Headlines and Page Titles
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Headlines/Page Titles

• Page Title is most important element
• Only first 65 characters impact SEO
• Beginning words most important
• Plan headlines for searches

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Guidelines

• Think how you would search
• Include subject and context
• Concise
• Use keywords
• Put facts in the head
• Avoid clever or vague language

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Bill Clinton campaigns for his wife
SEO Weak
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Bill Clinton campaigns for Hillary Clinton in Iowa
SEO Strong
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Rescue workers pull a young girl out from under
the rubble of a collapsed school
SEO Weak
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Earthquake relief workers rescue a girl from a
collapsed school in Sichuan China
SEO Strong
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Semantic Markup
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AestheticContent Structure
to spiders
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Semantic Markup

• Whenever possible use a specific content
  identifying tag instead of a general appearance
  tag.

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Semantic Markup Basics

• Use the Title tag to define what the page is
  about.
• Use one H1 tag to designate the most important
  point on the page.
• Use H2, H3, H4, H5 and H6 to designate points in
  decreasing order of importance to the main point.
• Use ltstronggt or ltemgt tags. Dont use ltbgt or ltigt
  tags to indicate importance.

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Your Best Resource
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Do NOT pay for search engine submission
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Links
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In general, webmasters can improve the rank of
their sites by increasing the number of
high-quality sites that link to their
pages.Google Webmaster Guidelines
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Beyond SEO
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Social Media OptimizationSMO
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• The concept behind SMO is simple implement
  changes to optimize a site so that it is more
  easily linked to, more highly visible in social
  media searches on custom search engines (such as
  Technorati), and more frequently included in
  relevant posts on blogs, podcasts and vlogs.
• Rohit Bhargava

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Remixed from a blog post onmasternewmedia.org
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• Great, original content is what makes good links
  rain from the sky.
• Robin Goodmasternewmedia.org

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Be Promiscuous

• Be an easy date hookup with everyone

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Showcase your links
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Make Content Portable
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Portable Content

• Create .pdf versions (especially features)
• Create podcasts
• YouTube
• RSS feeds

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Say it, email it, post it
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Be a the resource

• Link to competitors.
• Link to people who have related content.
• Quote, link to and praise people in your niche
  that have good ideas and good content.

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Be real
Fakers Fail.
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Tag Everything!
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Why Tag?

• Content more findable and useable by readers.
  More granular than TOC.
• Efficient way for readers to scan.
• Readers can find other content on your site that
  is related to their interests.
• Use categories for major beats, tags for
  fine-tuned taxonomy

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Dont Stuff!
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Credits
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Idea Credits

• Social Media Optimization Rohit Bhargava
• Increase Linkability
• Make tagging and bookmarking easy
• Reward inbound links
• Help your content travel
• Encourage the mashup
• Dont be afraid to let go of a message or idea
  and let others own it

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Idea Credits

• Be a resource, even if it doesnt help you
  Jeremiah Owyang
• Reward Helpful and Valuable Users Jeremiah
  Owyang
• Participate Cameron Olthuis
• Know How to Target Your Audience Cameron
  Olthuis
• Create Content Cameron Olthuis
• Be Real Cameron Olthuis

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Idea Credits

• Dont Forget Your Roots, Be Humble Loren Baker
• Try New Things, Stay Fresh Loren Baker
• Develop a SMO Strategy Lee Odden
• Choose Your SMO Tactics Wisely Lee Odden
• Know How to Target Your Audience Lee Odden
• Enable Content Creation Lee Odden
• Encourage the mashup

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Idea Credits

• Tag, Tag, Tag Robin Good
• Share Really Valuable Stuff Robin Good
• Market and Promote Great Stuff From Others
  Robin Good

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Image Credits

• Google Analytics Panayotis Vryonis
• Tag Everything! Flynn-Burhoe
• Be Real Bill Oriani
• Thank You! Barca Girl Flickr.com
• Showcase Your Links Randall Quon
• Social Media Landscape Fred Cavazza

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Image Credits

• Make Content Portable Jessica Wilson
• Helping Spiders See pahrkm Flickr.com
• Link Tag Daniel Greene
• Clean URLs M.A. Enriquez