Search Engine Marketing
Boost your Presence, Build your Brand
Search Engine Optimization
Practical Application
Steven Evatt, Chron.com & Ed Schipul, Schipul

Today we’ll cover:
1.Search Engine basics
2. SEM in the real world
• Natural optimization
(SEO)
• Pay-Per-Click (PPC)
3. Building SEO Into your
App

Research your target market!
• Brainstorm:
– How will your target market
search for you?
• Flowers, flower delivery, florist, special
occasion flowers, birthday flowers,
Valentine’s flowers, funeral flowers,
bridal flowers, flower shop, etc.
– Are you targeting
a geographic area? Source: http://flickr.com/photos/cunisdiabolis/139234237/
• Houston Florist, Houston flower shop, Katy
TX Florist, Victoria Florist, Austin Florist,
Barton Springs Flower shop, etc.

How does a
Search Engine work?

Keyword Density
Are you writing what you mean to say?
www.schipul.com/en/sem/keywords

Content is King
• Lets talk about the News Business! 6

Newsroom Adoption
 Top down ‘Buy-In’
 Visionaries in VP
and EVP of Online
Editorial
 Automation of SEO
Basics
 Provide tangible
tracking and
benchmarking results

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

Page Title Automation
 Automatically insert
Headline
 Leads the Title
 Includes metro area –
“Houston”
 Includes Site and
Publication Name

Meta Keywords and Description
 Refining to ensure
primary keywords are
included
 Provide mechanism for
editorial staff to avoid
code editing

Cross Linking (Internal)
 Site search
results and
resource tool
links on story
pages
 Cross linking
with Chron.com
Blog posts

Research External Link back
Opportunities!
http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop
Help file: http://www.tendenci.com/en/cms/?1470

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.

Tracking and Benchmarking
Feb 2007: #7 Feb 2007: #6

Inspect what you expect with
Web Analytics
www.google.com/analytics

Care and Feeding of SEO
 Use keyword-rich content,
 Updated constantly with less graphical text
 Topical Meta Data
 meta descriptions
 keywords
 limited to six-to-eight

Paid Placement

PPC Step by Step
1. Choose terms: keyword research
2. Create a paid placement budget
3. Campaign Set-up
4. Monitor and tweak campaign

Keyword Research
Suggestion Tools
• Overture - www.overture.com (free)
• Wordtracker -
www.wordtracker.com (paid)
www.freekeywords.wordtracker.com (free)
• Keyword Discovery -
http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html (free)
www.keyworddiscovery.com (paid)

Let’s Review!
• Content is king
– Keep it fresh
– Keep it original
• Links are powerful – be generous!
• Keep a healthy SEO and PPC balance
• Watch and tweak your campaign

Thanks
 Steven Evatt
 www.chron.com
 Ed Schipul
 www.brandtobedetermined.com

Web 2.0 in your SEM campaign

Social Media Optimization
(SMO)
• Web 2.0 = KEYWORDS!!
• Optimize your Social Media
content
• Enable Social bookmarking
and badging
• Track the buzz
24

Technorati - a new kind of
search
www.technorati.com

Be a participant in the
conversation
• Flickr (www.flickr.com)
• Facebook (www.facebook.com)
• MySpace (www.myspace.com)
• Twitter (www.twitter.com)
• Del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us)
• Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org)
• Ning (www.ning.com)
– Look for online communities in your
industry (or make your own...)