Marshall Simmonds Define Media Group, Inc. Marshall@DefineMG.com mdsimmonds Information Architecture 2.0 Topic Pages – A Cautionary Tale

Clients

What are we?

Vast databases 4

Top internal list of keywords 5

Topic Pages **Goal is to synthesize all the relevant information about a topic into a single updated story

Results

Automate!

Topic Pages

Access to content 11

10,000 pages and it grew to 26,000 - fast

Site life cycle

Trainings

SEO and Link Journalism - Show and Demystify Be literal. Be specific. Be brief. Keep to 65-80 characters if possible – engines will truncate Customized on every page Most important, specific information first Focus on a keyword phrase not just a single word A string of keywords separated by hyphens does not work Avoid witty, non-specific language Keep editorial voice Do *not* use dates in title tags Exceptions: historical/annual events, date-focused content

Google Needs Help Google Webmaster Guidelines: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769

Word choice makes a difference 18

Missed Opportunities

Other sources 22

Targeted Title = Better Opportunity 24 Headline: Floating at the Edge of a Dream Optimized: Boxer Erick De Leon: Floating at the Edge of a Dream Title/e-head: Olympic Hopeful Needs U.S. Citizenship to Box for U.S. – NYTimes.com Optimized: Erick De Leon Needs Citizenship to Box for U.S. – NYTimes.com

Too much of a good thing

Googs Don’t have more than 100 links per page Not a good idea to send us to a list of links Exclude site search results “Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number.”

Post Terragram 29

One Year Later: Living Topics Curated content Primarily targeted at the “news reader” but are also useful to the “researcher” Goal is to synthesize all the relevant information about a topic into a single continuously edited story More about events, rather than people, places, and organizations. Updated every 3-6 weeks or as news cycle demands Fewer cross-links Paginate earlier New Refreshed Design/UI As Evergreen as possible 100 to start

One Year Later: Living Topics 34

Scale Clear early on these cannot be programmatic 100 articles Weekly updates Manual before automated Lots of supervision – editorially and SEO

Post Mortem Topic Page / Category Page Strategy is Dead (just because you can doesn’t mean you should) IF YOU MUST: Make sure you have the necessary resources to support the cause Heavy on the social Unique content is the key Optimization can and must change Dynamic is good within reason Automation is good within reason Be careful with cross linking / tagging External linking is OK Brand doesn’t matter Good Luck!

Marshall Simmonds Founder - Define Media Group, Inc. www.DefineMG.com Marshall@DefineMG.com mdsimmonds