By Joe Grimm
As more journalism is posted online, we have to change the way we organize our stories to take full advantage of the Web.
Regular readers of our Web sites will find our stories based on how and where they are posted. But there is a much larger audience possible, based on how well we organize our stories to show up in Web searches. Building Websites and content to help the largest number of people is called optimizing for search engines, or Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Headlines are important, of course, and so is the way stories are named for the Web site, as well as the nature of the Web site itself.
But reporters have tremendous influence over the hits they get, just by following a few practices.
The largest search engine running is google, of course, and the recent launch of the google Chrome browser makes it seem likely that Google's importance will grow. Engineers at Google are constantly tinkering with the rules behind the Google search engine, trying to make it deliver the right story as high up in the results as they can.
This is what we know about Google searches today, and how reporters can use that knowledge:
Google searches work on the words typed in by users. Search terms and typically nouns. The terms used to find material about a football game between Michigan State University and Notre Dame, for example, would most likely be "MSU, Michigan State, Notre Dame, football" and perhaps the name of a coach or standout player. People would not search on terms like "blowout, awesome, afternoon or East Lansing."
When you write for the Web, write for your readers but organize your story so search engines can find you. Here is an outlining technique you can use:
LIST the top half-dozen nouns someone will use to find your story. Make sure the top one or two are in your lede (they should also go in the headline) and once again in the first 100 words of the story (that's as far as Google looks).
INCLUDE the remaining words somewhere else in the first 100 words.
SUBHEDS do not help search engines, but they help Web readers, who tend to scan. Write a subhead about every 4-6 grafs.
LINK to related stories or definitions that can help readers understand your story. Links can also raise our profile on search engines.
As more journalism is posted online, we have to change the way we organize our stories to take full advantage of the Web.
Regular readers of our Web sites will find our stories based on how and where they are posted. But there is a much larger audience possible, based on how well we organize our stories to show up in Web searches. Building Websites and content to help the largest number of people is called optimizing for search engines, or Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
Headlines are important, of course, and so is the way stories are named for the Web site, as well as the nature of the Web site itself.
But reporters have tremendous influence over the hits they get, just by following a few practices.
The largest search engine running is google, of course, and the recent launch of the google Chrome browser makes it seem likely that Google's importance will grow. Engineers at Google are constantly tinkering with the rules behind the Google search engine, trying to make it deliver the right story as high up in the results as they can.
This is what we know about Google searches today, and how reporters can use that knowledge:
Google searches work on the words typed in by users. Search terms and typically nouns. The terms used to find material about a football game between Michigan State University and Notre Dame, for example, would most likely be "MSU, Michigan State, Notre Dame, football" and perhaps the name of a coach or standout player. People would not search on terms like "blowout, awesome, afternoon or East Lansing."
When you write for the Web, write for your readers but organize your story so search engines can find you. Here is an outlining technique you can use:
LIST the top half-dozen nouns someone will use to find your story. Make sure the top one or two are in your lede (they should also go in the headline) and once again in the first 100 words of the story (that's as far as Google looks).
INCLUDE the remaining words somewhere else in the first 100 words.
SUBHEDS do not help search engines, but they help Web readers, who tend to scan. Write a subhead about every 4-6 grafs.
LINK to related stories or definitions that can help readers understand your story. Links can also raise our profile on search engines.
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