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Content
21 September 2009, 20:53
Online journalism
How Brent D Payne increased Tribune sites’ monthly visits by a cool 20 million
By Rachelle Mone
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”.
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.
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 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.
'' 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.
Enjoy!
Margarita Nomeikiene
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