SEO

Brush up on your search knowledge to help your newsroom WIN with search.  This training series covers SEO basics, Google Trends, ranking first, choosing keywords and optimizing in Presto. We will also cover SEO content strategies for newsrooms and advanced SEO skills like optimizing content for Google Feature snippets for network SEO champions.

 

How to move searchers through the subscriber funnel

Using your unique content to turn visitors into subscribers.

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    • How to use heat maps

    Heat maps are a great resource to help determine the best times for publishing a story.

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    • Evergreen Content and Search: An Expert Panel

    Evergreen experts from USA TODAY and the USA TODAY NETWORK discuss ongoing initiatives and offer tips for newsrooms who want to start their own evergreen program.

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    • SEO Champions: October Deep Dive

    The team discussed Holiday evergreen strategies, Hurricane Ian coverage and what steps to take between now and Election Day to ensure top ranking for our Midterm content.

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    • SEO Champions: September Deep Dive

    The September call focused on general election and hurricane search strategies, optimizing YouTube Shorts and discussed the impact of the Google Helpful Content update.

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    • From Preps to Pros: Football SEO strategies

     It’s the most wonderful time of the year, when we get to engage with that giant piece of audience interest called “football”. Search is a big part of football, especially […]

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    • SEO Champions: August 2022 Deep Dive

    The SEO champions team discussed 2022 Football SEO strategy and reviewed a case study on the Uvalde video published by the Austin American Statesman.

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    • SEO Champions: July 2022 Deep Dive

    The team discussed the May Google Algorithm update, USA TODAY’s Just Curious evergreen initiative, Local Evergreen strategies and real estate automation!

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    • SEO Champions: June 2022 Deep Dive

    The champions team did some brainstorming on Summer Evergreen topics and ideas to steal. We also had two very interesting case studies this month on internal linking best practices for […]

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    • SEO Champions: May 2022 Deep Dive

    We covered a lot of material on the May 2022 call: AMP depreciation, modular story format, election best practices and a Masters case study on how to break through on […]

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    • SEO Champions: April 2022 Deep Dive

    The SEO champion team discusses best practices for targeting High Volume Keywords, search strategies for covering the NFL Draft. They also review case studies on Q1 YouTube wins and March Madness.

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    • SEO Champions – March 2022 Deep Dive

    The SEO champions team discussed section front optimization and live coverage of Ukraine war. We also reviewed case studies on Super Bowl and the Texas primary.  

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    • SEO Champions – January 2022 Deep Dive

    The team discussed Why YouTube was such a good opportunity for our newsrooms and went through the Anatomy of a YouTube SEO Win. Tim Gardner went through SEO best practices for Winter Olympics and Paul Berry […]

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    • SEO Champions – November 2021 Deep Dive

    The Team discusses gallery and image optimization, holiday season evergreen and optimizing the Field of Dreams game.

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    • SEO Champions – October 2021 Deep Dive

    The SEO champions team reviewed an interesting Google Trends top-of-funnel case study, discussed YouTube SEO recommendations and generated plenty of content ideas to steal from the Fall & Holiday Season […]

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    • Election SEO resources

    Here is the complete toolkit for reporters, editors and SEO champions seeking to optimizing local and national elections.

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    • Reporters toolkit for search

    Use this tool to track and visualize search trends on Google. You can compare terms or sub-topics, and use the tool to compare keywords you can use in SEO tags and headlines. The comparison graphics, maps and list are easy to embed and share.

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    • Using search trends to stay ahead of the curve

    Narrow parameters, create comparisons and overlays and discover what local audiences are looking for in real time.

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    • SEO Champions – July 2021 Deep Dive

    The SEO champions team discussed Search strategies for the 2021 Olympics, as well as content coverage for the upcoming High School football season and Back-to-School. The team also played an […]

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    • Google Trends for graphics and SEO

    Use this tool to track and visualize search trends on Google.

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    • SEO Champions – June 2021 Deep Dive

    This training covers the Google Page Experience and Core Web Vitals update and Olympic Trials SEO strategies. It also reviews SEO case studies of the Mollie Tibbetts murder trial, Brood X cicadas, and the Indy 500.

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    • SEO champions – May 2021 deep dive

    The SEO champions discuss live blogging and SEO best practices during natural disasters such as hurricanes, wildfires and winter storms. We also review a case study on a huge SEO win for Louisville’s coverage of the 2021 Kentucky Derby.

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    • SEO Boot Camp 4: Engaging the Search Audience

    Audience engagement is a critical aspect of SEO. If people bounce out of your content too quickly or have a negative experience, you won’t retain top rankings for long. This sessions discusses ways that journalists can turn short-term scanners into engaged readers who want to return to your site over and over again.

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    • 2021 Regional SEO training

    This session covers how to write headlines that perform well in search and SEO best practices for reaching the search audience.

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    • Search champions — April 2021 deep-dive

    How USA TODAY dominated stimulus check search, NFL Draft and March Madness planning, how the Indy Star and Midwest DOT worked together on search and more.

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    • Keyword Diversity In-Depth

    SEO gurus Sandy Schlosser and Kyle Sutton discuss the importance of keyword diversity to a robust SEO strategy. Session includes a live demo showing journalists how to monitor your site’s […]

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    • SEO Boot Camp 2: What is Keyword Diversity?

    This simple explainer helps newsrooms understand the importance of targeting sub-topics in search.

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    • SEO for live and breaking news

    In this slideshow, you’ll learn how to use Google search results to amp up your breaking news and live content.

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    • SEO for reporters

    SEO expert David Stone will explore examples of where a headline missed, and where it succeeded. Remember, this means more people will find your stories.

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    • SEO for editors

    Discover what SEO expert David Stone is seeing in Google, and how you can drive your newsroom to produce more SEO-friendly content.

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    • Targeting hyperlocal keywords in search

    Using hyperlocal keywords to identify audience opportunities is an essential strategy for standing out on search, engaging audiences a little deeper in the funnel and answering key questions of public […]

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    • Google’s page experience update

    Google has launched new metrics called Web Vitals. Combining existing experience factors, these metrics will inform Google’s upcoming page experience update.

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    • SEO Boot Camp 3: Crafting powerful headlines that do well in search

    To stand out in the overcrowded SEO space, sites need to create powerful headlines that rivet audience attention and guarantee a high click-through rate. This training session showcases proven headline […]

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    • SEO Boot Camp 1: Winning with Search

    Brush up on your search knowledge to help your newsroom WIN with search. We will cover SEO basics, Google Trends, ranking first, choosing keywords and optimizing in Presto. Plus we’ll walk through several case studies across the network.

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    • Google top stories update

    Google has updated its approach to Top Stories boxes in Search results. This 10-minute training discusses the changes and strategies you can take to ensure your content ranks.

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    • SEO for photo galleries

    Standalone photo galleries can bring significant search traffic to your site if they are well optimized for Google. This 10-minute training session will help you get started.

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    • SEO for breaking news

    The Breaking News SEO training discusses several major strategies newsrooms can use to reach their audiences during big breaking news moments.

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    • Understanding Google’s Featured Snippets

    Featured Snippets are short selections of text appearing at the top of Google’s search results that are designed to answer a searcher’s query. This 10-minute training session discusses recent changes to Google’s Featured Snippets and some SEO strategies to help your site target them.

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