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: 713.362.2937
Email: steven.evatt@chron.com
Site: www.chron.com