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Search Engine Optimization Advice for 25cents

Newspaper

SEO advice for only 25 cents

BY KIEN LAI
What if I told you for only 25 cents you could learn on-site Search Engine Optimization best practices that you can easily apply to your website plus get industry leading Search Engine Marketing / Conversion Rate Optimization /
Landing Page Optimization and web design / layout / user interface advice all for FREE?
You would probably bulk at even the idea given the fact that you can't even buy a stick of gum for 25 cents nowadays. Too good to be true? Allow me to present my case with the facts and you can decide for yourself.
Its been around for ages, refined and perfected in past centuries
(production), and once a goliath among the mainstream media channels that's now dead (in print form) courtasy of the world wide web (and Google); we're talking about the newspaper if you haven't already guessed.
Using the Wall Street Journal as our example, here is how the page would be broken down if converted for the web and optimized:
wsj

Notes: Looks like The Wall Street Journal has an in-house SEO team or outsource consultants (meta title plus URL structure completely gives it away). Either way, bravo WSJ for understanding the importance of helping search engines and visitors find information on your website.

All the right signals are presented to search engines that would allow them to "connect the dots". Pay particular attention to a few things that may be stairing you in the face, but not as obvious.

Depending on who you're trying to target, conduct keyword research along with due diligence competitive analysis, and you're well on your way to completing onsite optimizations. There are a wealth of simularities between the newspaper and applying SEO that can be learned through establishing correlations from critical thinking. It's far too easy to be spoon fed SEO with everyone claiming to be an "expert". Forge your own path and discover new tatics in applying what you've learned and the journey there will be that much more rewarding as you see what works and what doesn't (not to mention it's more fun that way).

By the way, the URL (http://online.wsj.com/public/page/news-politics-campaign.html) is a PR7 and the homepage (http://online.wsj.com/home-page) is a PR8. This would make any SEO person's job a whole lot easier. There are those who discredit PR as being of no value and to think otherwise is simply a myth. Ask anyone who believes this and raise the question "would you rather get a link from a site with a PR of 0 or a site with a PR of 5" and watch them contradict themselves. The importance and weight give by PR is anyone's guess and how it influences rankings on Google, but it does play a role in the SEO mix. I'll save this rant for a future article, but for now on with SEM, CRO, and LPO.

SEM / CRO / LPO

 This may seem like a counter-intuitive thing to say, but one of the most important things about CTO is not what you see on the page, but what you don't see that can make all the difference in conversion. Take your pick of high profile newspaper websites (nytimes, latimes) and it's appearrent that you're flooded with information, which forces you to skim the page (a trend all to familar across the net). Visit any of these sites and on the homepage alone you will be presented with over 20 stories (sometimes even more) and it quickly becomes appearent that you lose focus of what's most important - getting the visitor's attention. Unless you know exactly what you're looking for on the site there's no real reason why a person would subject themselves to navagating through pages, getting lost and fustrated, and finally giving up after the third click. Not a very good impression to leave with visitors coming to your site.

The intention of getting the visitor's attention > interest > and click ends up being just a click - away from your website. There's a disconnect between these type of sites and patterns in how users seek out and consume information. The vast majority of time attention and interest are through referrals from other sites and once the information is consumed the reader moves on - away from the original source who provided the information. Now compare this to the traditional print newspaper frontpage and it only has 5 or less stories with the top story commanding the largest footpirnt with an oversized photo to grab your attention (getting you to look) and big bold letters for the headline to peek your interest (getting you to pick up the paper and read more about the story). There's lots of little tid bits we can learn from the traditional print newspaper that can make a huge impact on conversion if we apply them to the web.

One of the most effective methods is to make recommendations!

TIP: Hook them by giving them "FREE! Shipping" if they add both to the shopping cart

If your news oriented or blog, show related articles / posts at the end of the story. Simple to impliment, keeps visitors on the site, more likely to convert, and what I believe to be the most important ROI - repeat visitors to the site who are loyal followers and spread the good word.

Another often overlooked example of CRO is helping them decide by comparing models in the same line (like digital cameras) or if you're confident your product is better against your competitor. This empowers them to come to their own conclusion and make their own decision on what model to purchase, but really it's already predetermined which one they will choose because it's presented as the "best value for the money".

What's also important to mention, and this also relates to web design - covered next, is the notion that scrolling is bad. It's quite the opposite and the acceptable amount of scrolling for the average user is 2,300 pixels (2,304) - about 3 web browsers (maximized) stacked vertically.

screen resolution of 1024x768
(vertical screen res x 3 max browsers stacked on top of each other)
768 x 3 = 2,304

If the purchase is over $100 users want more comprehensive information about what they're considering buying.

Web Design / Layout / UI

all front page papers are the same with minor layout adjustments

It's important to have a consistent theme and layout throughout the website. This gives the visitor a sense of direction in navigating the site and returning visitors know what to expect. The newspaper has perfected this method. Take for instance the font type used. It's something you would never think about if you picked up a newspaper because it's consistent on every page. There are exceptions if you're offering creative services, but this simple method for the most part should be taken into consideration.

If your goal is to create a simple, clean and minimal design the newspaper is one of the best sources of inspiration. For those who are looking for a more elaborate design and layout check out magazines similar to your target audience. For example if you're designing a tech related site check out WIRED magazine for design, layout ideas, and inspiration.

For those who aspire to or learning to become a web designer I have one bit of advice for you. Answer one simple question, "who is the audience I'm designing this website for?". You control the user experience and what they do next!

SEO drives traffic to the website and SEM / CRO / LPO converts them, but it is Web Design / Layout / UI that makes the user experience a positive one, which hopefully translates into them coming back and recommending the site to others.

I hope this article has inspired you to evaluate SEO from a new prospective and motivate you to find other patterns in unconventional ways. If you take another step back and extend the mass effect to link building / link bait, the front page news gets pushed to bordcast media outlets (i.e. television and radio). It's all there if you can make the correlations and connect the dots back to the world wide web, which I will save for a follow up to this 3 part series of SEO advice for 25 cents.

Cheers,
Kien Lai

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