Specialised Information Publishers Association (SIPA) Annual Conference by Rachelle Money, 7 August 2008

Search Engine Optimization is beginning to creep into all sorts of industries, and the publishing sector is no different. At a major conference in London last month, publishers met SEO specialists and Social Media Marketing to learn more about creative opportunities online.

In July, Wordtracker's very own Ken McGaffin, chief marketing officer, was in London giving a speech at the Specialised Information Publishers Association's annual UK conference in London. Ken's presentation to publishers from across the country explained the importance of keyword research, link building and site structure.

It would only be fair to share Ken's knowledge with our newsletter readers.

Ken started his presentation with a problem - he had a seagull nesting on his roof. He explained that when he searched for 'seagulls nesting on my roof' a BBC news story came up top. It wasn't because it had great SEO - it was completely down to the structure of the BBC news website.

What's the lesson?

Ken said: “If you structure your material well, Google will understand the site. You should use keywords in your site to draw in visitors. Use the language they do.”

Keyword research is of course the only way to find out what words and phrases people are using in search engines.

Ken gave a fantastic example of this at the conference when he talked about writing an article on 'sustainable buildings.'

“If you used Wordtracker to carry out keyword research on this phrase you would soon find that ‘sustainable buildings’ isn't the best word to use. The related search function gives 300 alternatives, and the top one 'green building', is 20 times more popular than 'sustainable building'. Therefore, the writer who uses 'green building' in the article is reaching out to very many more people.

“This shows you the keywords most people are searching for, so that's what you should be writing in your headlines, copy and title tags,” explained Ken.

During his presentation Ken told the audience there were three fundamentals in succeeding online:

1. structure
2. keywords
3. links

Structure

Ken said: “You have got to get the structure right - it's the foundation of the website. Make it easy for journalists to publish, make sure it's SEO-friendly, make sure you can easily build categories, and reply to comments.

“For example: the seagull problem and the BBC website. The BBC didn't optimize for seagulls but they did come top because of the structure and due to the fact that they used keywords.”

Keywords

That takes us on to the second of Ken's fundamentals; keywords. So what are keywords? What they're not is the words that get you on top of Google. Ken always likes to use Tony Buzan's definition (he was the man who created mind maps), which is “keywords are words which carry meaning.”

Ken told publishers they “must use meaningful words in their headlines and in their copy“.

He went on to say, “If you tell a journalist that it's their job to use keywords in their stories they will quite rightly tell you where to go. However, if you tell a journalist to use the words which will make their stories easily found by readers and get more response and comment, then journalists are much more likely to listen. Writers want to be listened to and their articles read and responded to.”

Links

Ken's third fundamental is links, and by this he means engagement with your marketplace.

He broke down this definition into two parts:

1. Engagement with readers who respond to stories, make comments and create dialogue.
2. Link to useful resources you like, and then they will link back to you.

“If a publisher concentrates on these three things they will do really well. If you don't do any of them you undermine the whole effort,” Ken said.

This idea of engagement extends to the everyday. The thing people have to remember is that writers must be encouraged to have a discussion with their readers; they should look at comments, look for inspiration from you the reader, and respond to comments. This rarely happens because journalists aren't encouraged to do so.

Publishers, editors and journalists play an important role in their readers’ lives, which is something a lot of writers and publishers take for granted.