Not long to the pub …

About me

SEO and trending topics

Where can you find what people are searching for now?

How can you use that info if your site is in Google News?

How can you use it if you’re not in Google News?

How can you make the most of Google News?

URLs for all sites: www.malcolmcoles.co.uk/news-search-tools

What people are searching for nowFree sources of data

The best data

Good sources: Google / analytics

Interesting sources

News organisations

Ignore Google trends

How to use that info if your site’s in Google News

How are they searching?

When Leslie Nielsen died

Adding years to reality shows

I’m a Celebrity 2010

What if you’re not in Google News?

Karen Gillan’s underwear

This graph:http://mcol.es/fag1QF

Karen Gillan’s underwear

Weekends

Kelly Brook Playboy

Some testing I did …

What time is the Carling Cup final? – 10 mins work - Risk of jail: low

Snoods banned – 5 mins work - Risk of jail: low

Census question 17 blank – 15 mins work - Risk of jail: low

Vodafone blogs hijacked by anti-cuts protestors – 15 mins work - Risk of jail: low

Google Circles: a new social network – 10 minutes work – Risk of jail: low

Coventry sack Aidy Boothroyd – 2 mins work - Risk of jail: low

What time is the Carling Cup Final?

I only thought of this the night before …

Original headline was “What time is the Carling Cup final”. Changed headline and published second post based on most popular keyphrase – all too late.

Also some search terms triggered a Google News box.

Search traffic: 516 Total traffic: 715

Lessons

Plan ahead

Think about your headline carefully

Publish twice

10mins

Snoods banned

First piece of content published to the internet about the banning of snoods. But fairly quickly triggered a news box.

Hardly anyone searched.

Headline was terrible. As was the content.

Search traffic: 48, Total traffic: 103

Lessons

Think about your headline carefully

You can’t compete with Google News

5mins

Census question 17 blank

Lots of questions on Twitter.

Some forums and a couple of blogs beat me to it – but I still beat lots of news organisations.

Got lots of tweets – and ranked far higher than I expected…

Search traffic: 2,250 Total traffic: 2,809

Got 2 links!

Lessons

Answer a genuine question people have around a topical issue.

15mins

Vodafone blogs hijacked

Second person to publish on this. But story died a death.

Search traffic: 40 Total traffic: 145

Got a link by telling someone about the screenshot I had!

Lessons

If you’ve got useful content, tell news blogs.

15mins

Google Circles

Second site to publish something on this.

Was briefly 3rd in Google.

But initial headline of “Google Circles” was crap.

A news box was triggered – and I was quickly bumped by other news sources.

Search traffic: 76 Total views: 285

Lessons

You can’t compete with Google News.

Think about the headline.

10mins

Coventry sack Aidy Boothroyd

Published very early – but still beaten by Reuters driven sites.

Got edged out by Google News and other publishers very quickly.

Search traffic: 6 Total traffic: 14

Lessons

You can’t compete with Google News.

Headline was a bit crap – too optimised.

2mins

Conclusions

Your blog can compete with news organisations – but not if a Google News box appears. So don’t try to compete with “hard news”.

Publish as soon as you can.

Spend time on the headline.

Do it for links, not traffic – which means find something useful to say (with more time a Carling Cup countdownometer might have been a good bit of linkbait)

Social media is important. Tell everyone you want them to RT is as part of an experiment for a free SEO event?

Any questions?

Blog: www.malcolmcoles.co.uk

Twitter: @malcolmcoles

URLs are at: www.malcolmcoles.co.uk/news-search-tools

Graph is at http://mcol.es/fag1QF

Check out www.holymoly.com