authorship deep dive smx advanced 2013

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AUTHORSHIPTHE DEEP DIVEJohn CarcuttDirector of SEO and Social Media

Advance Digital Inc.

@JohnCarcutt

OUR NEWSPAPERS

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OUR WEB SITES

OUR ORGANIZATION

Search & Social Group

• 6 Team Members - SSG

• Authorship Organizational Coordination

• Content Strategy Team – ADI• Technical Services - ADI• Local Publishers - Papers• Local Editorial Staff – Papers

• Over 1000 Authors

OUR ORGANIZATION

OVER 1000 AUTHORSTo be Set-up with Authorship

Then trained to build AuthorRank

OUR CHALLENGES

• Early Adopters

• Technical Implementation

• Mass Training

• Author Pushback

• Google+ Indifference• Time and Priorities

EARLY ADOPTERS

We love our early adopters !

But they can get caught up in early issues with products as is the case here.

• Photographers Love Google+

• Reporters not so much

• Email Verification is a problem for us

NEGATIVE FACTORS

Syndicated Content

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TECHNICAL IMPLEMENTATION

Request for the Implementation of Authorship was made Mid 2011

Implementation happened1st Quarter of 2013

MASS TRAINING

Something we are very familiar with.

• Annual in-person training for each market

• www.advancessg.com• Monthly internal newsletters

MASS TRAINING

What did we add to training?

• Creating a Google+ account• Connecting their account to our sites• Managing their “Contributor to” links• Using/Optimizing Google+ overall• The effectiveness of G+ Communities• Why this all matters

AUTHOR PUSHBACK

Why are we adding one more thing for them to worry about?

• Too many social accounts to manage• No one is on Google+ • There are better uses of my time• I don’t have time

Adoption is slow. I’m happy with 20%.

NEGATIVE FACTORS

Syndicated Content

NEGATIVE FACTORS

Selling AuthorRank .. It’s already happening

“ … they have connected their web sites to their Google+ profiles and all of the content they write appear in the Google search results along with their photo that shows their Authorship status.”

This might work for a while .. But not for long.

AUTHORSHIP OWNERSHIP

When an author leaves the organization what happens to their authorship?

• We never change by-lines.• Policy strongly suggests no “Hybrid” account

names such as “JimDuncanTP”• Authors that have moved on will continue to

build AuthorRank and improve our site too.• At some point, Authorship/AuthorRank will

become a hiring consideration

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THANKSJohn CarcuttDirector of SEO and Social Media

Advance Digital Inc.

@JohnCarcutt