Shannon Emmerson Canada Wide Media Limited Improving Findability in Magazine Sites MagsU Masterclass: SEO Toolkit
Jan 27, 2015
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?
[email protected] / @semmerson (twitter)