How Brent D Payne increased Tribune sites’ monthly visits by a cool 20 million by Rachelle Money, 27 August 2009
Brent D Payne, as the Tribune Company’s in-house Director of Search Engine Optimization (and bald SEO legend), has managed a 20 million increase in monthly visits to its websites, including the Chicago Tribune and the LA Times. Payne tells Rachelle Money how these spectacular results have been achieved, including using keyword research to help give readers “the news we know they want”.
Key points
- Choose and prioritize your target keywords.
- Map your target keywords to specific pages.
- Use a page’s target keyword in its headline.
- Link to target keywords’ pages using those keywords as link text, eg by using the headline.
The Tribune Company has been in the press for all the wrong reasons in the last few months. In December 2008 it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection from its creditors as it struggled under the load of a $13bn debt. The move came weeks after the company reported a $124m third-quarter loss, compared with an $84m profit in the same period of 2007.
With hundreds of jobs under threat many journalists have looked to the online editions of their newspapers for a glimmer of hope. For some it's the only part of the industry where there seems to be good news.
SEO success story
Brent Payne was the man given the task of increasing traffic to the Tribune Company websites and he's managed just that. “In 2007 we had 14m monthly visits from search engines, in 2008 it was 21 million and in 2009 it's 34 million”, says Payne.
SEO traffic has also increased its share of total Tribune traffic. In 2007 SEO accounted for 22% of traffic, in 2008 it jumped to 31% and in 2009 it stands at 36%.
So how did he do it?
Educating journalists to use keywords in headlines was essential
Educating journalists about the benefits of SEO and keyword research has not been easy. When Payne joined the Tribune he gave a presentation to a roomful of suspicious journalists and used a simple analogy to make his case.
He told them: “Consider the news stand of today. Even though you write a great article, if no one sees that article it doesn't really matter. Online you can take a news stand and put it in the middle of Times Square by doing good SEO, or you can take your news stand and stick it in the middle of Kansas by doing no SEO. It's your choice.
“I said to them that although it may not be perfect for you guys journalistically to put a full proper noun in a headline, it makes a huge difference to the number of people who read your quality content.” Payne said his presentation connected with only around a quarter of those in the room, but that didn't dishearten him. Instead he used this minority to gain wider support in the best way he could – by exploiting the journalists' egos. Payne explains:
“Every time the stories from that 25% hit the top of Google an email went out not only to them but to their bosses as well. I sent a short email which said great job, your story got the first page of Google, you have driven this much traffic to our site - and that reaffirmed to them that this (SEO) was the right thing to do.
"From there people started preaching SEO without me even being in the room. One journalist talks to another and before you know it, it spreads like a virus through the newsroom.”
But not everyone at Tribune is converted.
Journalists not considering SEO are now in the minority
“There are still some who are stubborn, but it's the other way round now: 25% are still refusing to take SEO on board.”
Some of the old school Pulitzer prizewinning journalists aren't interested, but I'm not standing over them asking them to drink the Kool-Aid. Most of the newsroom are doing it and seeing great results, so I refuse to battle with a minority of journalists.” When asked what his involvement is once a story has been written and is ready to be published, Payne replied: “I have full access to the CMS (Content Management System) and I can edit whatever I want, like title tags, headlines, sub headlines or even the story if I wanted to.”
However, that's not the best way to do it if you want long term success. What I tend to do is edit the title tag myself and I won't touch the headline. Instead I'll email or instant message the online editor and say this needs to be better optimized. They change it and it's nothing to do with me, it's them making that change.”
Using keyword research and SEO in breaking news stories
When a breaking news story surfaces and it's crunch time for a newspaper site that has to rank high for relevant search terms, then Payne will step in to rewrite headlines.
The death of Michael Jackson is the biggest news story of the year so far. Payne told me that in the hours after the story broke he scrambled to win the race to the top of Google’s Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for the keywords 'Michael Jackson dead' and 'Michael Jackson death'.
“When Michael Jackson died I didn't win for 'Michael Jackson' which frustrates the hell out of me. I won for 'Michael Jackson dead', 'Michael Jackson death' and 'Michael Jackson obituary'.“
I nailed those but what I missed was 'Michael Jackson', and the reason was because there was so much competition. I got 10% of the queries on Michael Jackson but I also had a record day, despite having only a tenth of what I could have got.”
MTV, TMZ and people like MichaelJackson.com won. And then someone who bought MichaelJacksonDead.com. You have to sometimes realize that you won't win every time.”
Most people who do SEO won't have to contend with thousands of pieces of content being published on their website every day. In the 15 minutes Payne spoke during the interview, more than 300 content items were published on Tribune websites. That includes photos, columns and stories. 38,031 different items went out on Tribune feeds in one recent day.
When you are responsible for that much content your SEO process must be watertight.
Payne's SEO process for the Michael Jackson story
First Payne decided which website should own the story and be linked to by the other websites. With Michael Jackson's death this was the LA Times.
Successful SEO needs inbound links from other sites and Payne can create links from over 50 Tribune websites to the one version of the story. As these are substantial sites, that’s a lot of link power. Eg, The Chicago Tribune linked directly to the LA Times Michael Jackson story.
Michael Jackson dead was chosen as the primary target keyword.
Payne worked directly with the journalist working on the story. He helped edit the headline, eg making sure Michael Jackson dead was in the headline and not the King of Pop is dead or Wacko Jacko.
Relevant old stories were 301 redirected to the lead story. Eg, ‘Michael Jackson may be dead’ and ‘Michael Jackson believed to be dead’ stories from the same day were redirected to the lead story.
Google crawls the chicagotribune.com home page every three minutes. Putting links to the now redirected old stories on the home page made sure that Google passed all their link power to the new lead story.
Keyword research was used to find the best keywords to use on static pages like the home page, category and sub-category pages.
Traffic and SERPs rankings were monitored to see results, find new trends and adjust on-page optimization accordingly.
A record day for traffic was enjoyed.
Online is helping offline deliver the news people want
Payne says that he has seen online search behavior change fundamentally the way publishers produce news for both on and offline.
When asked if he has ever told an editor to change a story on the front of the print newspaper as a result of what people were searching for online, Payne replied: “It's not my role to do that but I see it happen all the time. I am good friends now with the online editor here in Chicago, and absolutely what happens online sways what happens offline.” He adds:
“Our mindset has changed from aiming to deliver the news we believe people should have to give them the news we know they want.”
What you can learn from Brent D Payne’s SEO process, by Mark Nunney
Unlike Brent, you might not work with a large network of newspapers’ websites. But you can still learn from Brent’s SEO techniques, and Wordtracker SEO Mark Nunney adapts those techniques for you below:
For your site as a whole and for each of your products and services, choose which keywords you are going to target. Eg, when Michael Jackson died, Brent’s primary target keyword was Michael Jackson dead. But note that he also chose a range of other popular keywords containing and about Michael Jackson.
Map your chosen target keywords to specific pages. Brent chose one news page to target Michael Jackson dead. Then he used his ‘static’ pages like relevant category pages to target other Michael Jackson keywords.
You can do something similar. Let’s use an example that is deliberately a long way from covering the death of The King of Pop. Perhaps you have a shoe shop. You might sell Nike shoes and you know a new model is coming out: I’ll call it the Nike Example.
You know Nike Examples are going to be searched for as sure as Brent knew people would search for Michael Jackson dead. Make a page for the Nike Example that targets the keyword Nike Example.
Optimize the page for Nike Example.
Find more Nike keywords to target with your category (eg Nike shoes) and subcategory (eg, Nike running shoes) pages. Like Brent used his category and subcategory pages to target more Michael Jackson keywords.
Go to Wordtracker's Keywords tool, enter Nike as the seed keyword. See the first 10 of 1,000 results in the grab below:
Delete any of the keywords that are irrelevant to your website and save the results to study at your leisure and update over time as your customers’ tastes change and new models are launched.
Now choose the keywords you want to target and which pages to target them with. Map one primary keyword to one page.
Chances are you don’t have a network of websites like Brent does, but you can link to your new Nike Example page from your site’s home page and all other key pages.
You can also do a little link building. For example, you might write the definitive article about the new Nike Example and use your social media network to promote that article.
When linking to a page on your site, use its target keyword. Eg, use Nike Example when linking to your new Nike Example page. This includes internal links from your own site and external inbound links from other sites.
Never stop looking for new keywords because SEO never stops.
More Kick-Ass keyword tactics from Aaron Wall
You can find many more money-making keyword strategies in Aaron Wall's book: 50 Kick Ass Keyword Strategies.
What do you think about Brent D Payne's work with the Tribune websites?
Use the comments form below to share your thoughts and ask questions about this article.
About Rachelle Money
Rachelle Money is a freelance journalist based in Scotland, UK. She graduated from the Scottish School of Journalism in 2005 where she was awarded an internship with two national publications - The Sunday Herald newspaper and The Big Issue magazine. Rachelle has been working with Wordtracker since August 2007 and is a regular contributor to the newsletter.
45 comments
I would like to hire someone to do some key research for me but I do not know where to go?
Do you know of anyone?
Clearly Brent is the real deal when it comes to big time SEO - in addition to being a nice guy. Good job Brent. And thanks for an interview that clearly shows the fundamentals are pretty much the same all the way to the top.
Good article. Google's new "Wonder Wheel" tool can help with this sort of research. You can get to it under "show options" at the top of the Google search results.
This is an excellent article and will help me utilize the linking power of my companies other website.
Thanks Rachelle,
What a treat :)
Payne’s process is simple and effective. It's strange why so many are stubborn and won't change their paradigm.
"There are still some who are stubborn, but it's the other way round now: 25% are still refusing to take SEO on board.”
Don't worry, a long time ago people thought the Universe revolved around the Earth, but eventually the paradigm of the world has changed.
Absolutely brilliant post. Thanks for reporting on that story. I also liked how you tied it into tips for us smaller SEOs.
For my site (about getting six pack abs), I found that having one page per keyword worked, as you suggest. My main keyword is "six pack abs", but I also have pages for "how to get six pack abs" and "best ab exercises".
It works.
I get about 20% of my search engines traffic from those two keywords to these two pages.
Thanks for the tips!
Carl Juneau
Great story and a really good example of thoughtful and well-planned SEO.
Using keyword research for breaking stories is a must: I advise clients with a blog to use this approach for each post so that the page title, meta description, H1 and body copy all have a good dose of on-page SEO. This works incredibly well, getting page 1 on Google for all but the most competitive keywords/themes.
Thanks for the story, and thanks to Brent for sharing these practical tips. Inspirational for anyone who has to convince a big team to get on board with SEO.
Well obviously it would be a breeze to get a lot of hits and reach the top of google.com if you had 50 major websites and more to point to your new article. The other stuff is important, but, the links make the real difference and few of us have all those websites we can link from at will.
Well that is and is not real SEO. Walking into one of the largest newspapers with millions of readers and claming you used SEO to get those millions is a big hype. Start with Zero visitors and a website or business nobody has heard of and do that then you can claim your an SEO...
Great article. If you are not in the SEO business like I am but simply a small business trying to succeed on the internet take this article to heart as you can learn the insight into gaining ground in Google. We practice this same methodology for our clients which are small businesses trying to compete against the big businesses and it works- we get them to the top all the time. The first step to any well qualified seo process is good keyword research so take that to heart Google even provides a free tool to help you do it.
Great article, it is good to see how the big companies are using SEO in there business and to compare how the smaller companies are doing it. I have added to link for this page to my website www.themediabusiness which I will be doing from now using it as a place to store great media business ideas.
I posted a response (too long for here) on my blog (linked to above via the 'bald SEO' anchor).
Rachelle, it was a pleasure to speak with you and I am very impressed by your ability to make, even me, sound professional. ;-)
@Ira - I hear that a lot. What people fail to think about though is that my competitors aren't local bloggers. They are huge competitors like CNN (PR10), NYT (PR9), FoxNews, MSNBC, etc. etc.
All of these sites have multiple domains and subdomains too. So it's still a challenge to be successful. It's not about what you have, it's about what you have compared to your competitor's for the same keyphrase.
"Well obviously it would be a 'breeze' to get a lot of hits and reach the top of google.com if you had 50 major websites". I don't think it would be a breeze. In two years traffic increased by over 140%. An increase of 140% is a breeze if you have a reasonable amount of traffic to a site, but 140% on 14million visitors is a sterling effort. Well done.
Where is a good place to put such content? If you have a site where your home page generally does not change would it be more detrimental to put it in a blog or forum?
Great story. Ranking for the right and relevant keywords is the best way to get long term targeted traffic.
Amazing post. I learnt more from Rachelles' post than I have from reading dozens of posts this month. I especially liked the Journalist area. I have never thought for a second about making sure they keep any optimization I have done intact. Great post.
Steve
i really inspire from Brent D Payne...and He worked very hard and sincerely and he got success....
Warm Regards Sunil Kumar
Wow! What a powerful story. It's absolutely fascinating the way 'old school' and 'new school' journalism are coming together.
As an SEO newbie, I'm awed! And I really appreciate the connection of Brent's Michael Jackson experience to a smaller scale SEO effort. Thanks for the informative article!
The big key factor is getting the journalist to use your keywords as links to your site with the keywords in the title. The more each one is unique and not duplicate articles, the better it works. Hats off Brent
Wow that is amazing how it all works we have clients that we used keyword tracker and the use of some cleaver domain names. We also used keyword specific domains scoring big results. First link second third links all in a row first page of Google along with traffic of the keywords we picked.
Brent - way to go, you will be in the online and print text books as the man who saved the Tribune by bringing in a tribe of readers turned followers.
I remember how much pain it took to try to learn SEO and apply it. It is so much better just to write without bothering about SEO. Thanks Rachelle for reminding me that SEO never stops. I'm sure I'll be referring to this great article of yours in my present and future SEO processes.
great stuff
Thanks Rachelle,
Absolutely brilliant post. increased my info to a new level keep it up man
Excellent post! Although I do not have the power of many websites to link to a single article, I am going to try linking to pages from the home page to see if that helps.
Also, I noticed the SEO Blogger plugin for firefox while reading this article and have installed it. Thanks for that too!
Interesting article. Obviously the links program that Brett Payne can utilize is beyond those of us in small business, as are the number of posts added each day. Both of these have a huge influence on rankings. Nevertheless a good read, and he's winning in his 'niche', something we are all aiming for.
Nice post... very informative..Thanks
Thanks Rachelle for a great article and thanks Brent for being so open and forthcoming.
Ahead of your time Ms. Money, ahead of your time. Spot on article, its inspirational & motivational. This new arena of making money is all about the competition and not so much about the money. Ha!!!!!
That was a great SEO success story. A lot of business owners just don't get it and they will never get it. Like the 25% of the writers. But to increase clicks like that by applying SEO basics is inspiring... we can all do that.
For me your blog is really interesting, I can see your experience on this field, I started no so long time ago blogging and I would really love to get some feedback from you to my blog. http://www.ilikewebsites.com/blog/category/affordable-web-site-design/
Nice article and thanks Rachelle for sharing. Now doubt, keyword research and analysis is more important in SEO.
I am agree with this statement or comments""#
Well that is and is not real SEO. Walking into one of the largest newspapers with millions of readers and claming you used SEO to get those millions is a big hype. Start with Zero visitors and a website or business nobody has heard of and do that then you can claim your an SEO... # Thomas W. ""
It's always great to see a newspaper that actually gets SEO and search engines. I feel that the tribune may be the only one - what with the rest scrambling to put up pay walls and block Googlebot.
I learned a lot from what Brent has done. Good luck to you and all of your journalists who uses the SEO technique
The best seo article for the last month I've read.
And the thing that i really value in this post is the method of getting more traffic, by looking and writing for fresh stories and events, i think that's the golden advice that must me followed.
Thank you for this insightful article. But it is hardly an example I can follow.
I am a Realtor in Palm Springs area and the SEO I can use is very limited to real estate and specific descriptions... I am not a newspaper or nike.. So how about giving us a more achievable example to learn from in the future?
Thank you for all your hard work and informative articles which I never miss.
Good article, but I find what Mr. Payne stated as very alarming :
"Our mindset has changed from aiming to deliver the news we believe people should have to give them the news we know they want.”
So where do we find News we should know?
@ryan - check out The Guardian; they get it too. I suspect there'll be more.
Comprehensive post and a practical one that we can use for similar occasions.
Sometimes, using the same keyword in the links you circulate among friends in social media could have similar effects.
How am I supposed to get any work done when you interrupt my day with such high impact journalism? Shame on you!
I would think that these newspapers would already have this knowledge, but that is because I am involved in SEO.
It is a shame that newspapers have to modify the headlines for the big G because I like "catchy" titles.
But, that is not how the game works...
Great article. Some simple tips in there that I wasn't aware of, such as using the keyword for a page when setting up inbound links.
I'm going to spend more time focusing on targeting links in future.
It is very hard to get traiffic. after one year my website getting 12 to 20 hits per day.