Findability Seo Toolkit

Shannon Emmerson Canada Wide Media Limited

Improving Findability in Magazine Sites MagsU Masterclass: SEO Toolkit

Contents

Defining Findability

About Canada Wide Media Limited

Successes & lessons in findability Strategy & Organization Design & Development Content Marketing & Measurement

Takeaways

Questions/Discussion

Defining Findability

“The fundamental goal of findability is to persistently connect your audience with the stuff you write, design, and build.”

-Aarron Walter, Author, Building Findable Websites

DevelopmentDesign

SEO InformationArchitecture

MarketingDevelopment

UsabilityAccessibility

Findability

Defining Findability

-Aarron Walter, Author, Building Findable Websites

About Canada Wide Media

Largest independently owned magazine publisher in Western Canada

30 year history

Diverse range of media products and services

50+ titles including self-owned and custom

Largely print-based publishing until 2007

6 million readers ... and growing

About Canada Wide Media

Launched digital media division in Jan 2007

Digital team now manages and maintains seven sites, ten enewsletters

With ten employees, we are a full-service design and development house, and manage all ad sales, editorial, marketing and measurement

About Canada Wide Media

1. Extend brands into digital environment

2. Contract out consulting, design and development for initial sites

3. Concurrently build and/or develop in-house teams

About Canada Wide MediaStarting Out in Digital

Initial Strategy

Initial Site Goals

1. Give advertisers a desirable online platform

2. Make the most of existing content & make it findable online

3. Create sites that honour their respective brands

4. Grow communities

5. Evaluate and improve

About Canada Wide MediaStarting Out in Digital

If you build it ...

About Canada Wide MediaStarting Out in Digital

About Canada Wide MediaYear One

About Canada Wide MediaYear Two

About Canada Wide MediaThis Year

Consider findability from the start: hiring, training, planning, strategy

‘Build it and they will come” only works if you build it SO they will come

Success & Lessons in FindabilityStrategy & Organization

Know Your Site Goals

Success & Lessons in FindabilityStrategy & Organization

Business and strategic goals must inform your findability/search strategy

Discuss and agree on what you want people to find

Identify tactics, assign resources

Document and communicate

Measure

Adjust

Increase return visits, time spent on site

Convert readers to eNewsletter subscribers

Improve interaction: quizzes, polls, surveys, comments

Remind readers about the print mag

Increase content submissions, enable readers to contact and find our team

Increase traffic

Goals: YouThink.ca

Success & Lessons in FindabilityStrategy & Organization

Success & Lessons in FindabilityStrategy & Organization

Success & Lessons in FindabilityStrategy & Organization

Success & Lessons in FindabilityStrategy & Organization

Success & Lessons in FindabilityStrategy & Organization

Goals: YouThink.caGoals: YouThink.caKnow Your Target Audience

Who do you want to find you?

Knowledge of your audience informs your search/findability strategy

Different, wider audiences accessible online

Target digital content accordingly

Observe, test and survey

Success & Lessons in FindabilityStrategy & Organization

Success & Lessons in FindabilityStrategy & Organization

Goals: YouThink.caUse the Right Tool for the Goal

Advertisers shifting from raw traffic to engagement (CPM to CPA)

Consider social media tools as a part of your search strategy: ‘flip the funnel’

Success & Lessons in FindabilityStrategy & Organization

BCBusiness & Twitter

Success & Lessons in FindabilityStrategy & Organization

Success & Lessons in FindabilityStrategy & Organization

Success & Lessons in FindabilityDesign & Development

Prepare to Iterate

Findability Must Inform Design

Success & Lessons in FindabilityDesign & Development

Success & Lessons in FindabilityDesign & Development

Real content - no search tricks

Hierarchies and web standards

Established domains

Easy to understand URLs with keywords

Keyword-rich content (but not gamed)

Indexability (spiders need room to move)

Quick load times

Inbound links from decent sources

Search Engines Adore...

Success & Lessons in FindabilityDesign & Development

Open Source can support you: there’s someone out there working on it...

Active open source communities provide fresh updates

SEO is a hot topic: guides, SEO-specific upgrades, blogs are all out there

Your CMS can Help

Success & Lessons in FindabilityContent

Editor’s job: Provide content readers will like

If you don’t know, guess

See if you’re right online; get editors acquainted with analytics tools

Check what most popular, least popular, most commented, most entered, most existed, etc.

Ask and answer WHY

Answers direct placement of effort in creation, placement, production, promotion ...

Guess, Analyze, Improve

More content=more chances of being found=more time on site

Good, varied content is the best content

Short works well

Blogs are brilliant: time on site, interaction, speed, freshness

Start collecting packages

Success & Lessons in FindabilityContent

More IS Better

Keywords, Metatags,

and more Keywords

Title tags, meta description, meta keywords, and URL -- in that order

Title tags: your calling card; rename them if you can and make ‘em keyword-rich; truncated at 70 characters

Meta Descriptions: unique for each page including targeted keywords (search engines pull snippets); truncated at 150 words Tip: Make it interesting: it may wind up on Google’s search results page!

Success & Lessons in FindabilityContent

Keywords, Metatags,

and more Keywords

Meta keywords: relevant themes Trick: use Google Adwords, SEOBook.com, Wordtracker or similar tool to find out what keywords are dense on your page, along with related words and phrases.

URL: no query strings; include keywords where possible

Success & Lessons in FindabilityContent

Success & Lessons in FindabilityContent

Example

Hire Rock Stars

You need people who are comfortable with chaos & constant change.

Varied backgrounds help.

Anthropologists. Storytellers. Experimenters. Hurdlers.

Success & Lessons in FindabilityBonus Lesson!

: “Best Companies | GM’s Death Rattle” (46%); “Vancouver Reality Check | Can West Death Watch” (44.1%); “Let GM Die | Best Ever Cdn Albums” (42.6%)

Email is Not Dead

Success & Lessons in FindabilityMarketing & Measurement

Love those inbound links

Know your communities and go for a visit

Reply: have actual conversations!

Develop good relationships

Success & Lessons in FindabilityMarketing & Measurement

Connect & Communicate

Takeaways

Prioritize. You can’t do everything.

Encourage all roles to embrace findability.

Choose & care for your CMS wisely.

Design and develop for findability, not just aesthetics.

Do keyword research. Lots of it.

Create new content with findability in mind. Think multiplatform, think content collections.

Experiment. Learn. Enjoy.

Don’t you just love Flight of the Conchords?

What’s your sign?

Questions

What is the secret to the universe?

Can I get these slides?

What are those little things on the end of shoelaces called?

Can’t we all just get along?

semmerson@canadawide.com / @semmerson (twitter)