SEO guide for journalists

[jpndk]

I am looking for a white paper or similar focused on helping journalists (online) writing better and more SEO-friendly content.

If you know of anything or anyone who might be of help I would love to hear from you.

[RobertFisher]

Jens,

Assuming you are starting out in SEO my suggestion would be to start with the Beginners Guide to SEO. This will provide the underpinnings you need along with how to structure a page which is important. Whether journalist or web developer, the rules are essentially the same.

As you go along, read the blogs and the Q & A and you will learn a lot in a short amount of time.

You can also purchase books on SEO like The Art of SEO that was written by Eric Enge, Stephan Spencer, Rand Fishkin, Jessie C. Stricchiola. This is a bit deeper but a good read.

[jpndk]

Robert,

I have been working with SEO for +11 years which I should have mentioned ;o). My bad.

My reason for asking is that I service a couple of large online media-sites and the journalists dont really want to read long SEO-books etc....they need hands-on advice for writing seo-friendly articles online. I am aware that the rules of good SEO applies to their needs/what they should do but I find it difficult to come across good whitepapers/books etc. written with the aim of helping journalists in their daily job. They create most of the content online but know very little about SEO-friendly content. Be aware that their Content Management System is already well tuned for SEO so the technical part is take care of.

[Aran_Smithson]

If its a great content thats unique and a good read, what SEO would it need?

[jpndk]

This is true - The content is always a good read but the journalists often ask me how to do research which will help them perform better in search engines.

I have tried to show them how to look at Google keyword databases and to see what their readers are looking for however this tends to slow down their work (they need to produce a ton of articles everyday) so this angle is not really working.

I am therefore looking for someone with a track-record of helping journalists writing more and better articles in a way that works better with searchengines than "ordinary" content/article creation does.

Maybe it is an impossible task...or not at all necessary but I owe it to my clients to look under every rock before I tell them that it is impossible to improve what they are already doing :-).

[EGOL]

I would prepare for a meeting that would be fun... I would make up some funny headlines that can target the wrong audience...

hot dogs - can hot canines or frankfurters or hot feet

Then talk about how they can get maximum readership for their writing.  (Jens mentions keyword research with is perfect)  I would have some hypothetical stories and brainstorm with them to get possible titles.  How will people be searching for this?

Make it fun.  They will want you back.

[KeriMorgret]

You might reach out to brentdpayne on Twitter. He worked for the Tribune for a number of years and gave SEO training to reports and may have some resources and tips he could share with you.