how your cms helps your seo

8/2/2019 How Your CMS Helps Your SEO

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AudienceTech T H E T E C H N O L O G Y B E H I N D T H E S O E N E SB e s t P r a c t i c e s f o r M a n a g i n gC o n t r o l l e d D i g i t a l E d i t i o n C i r c u l a t io nKN OW ING READERS' PREFERENCES C A N HELP BALANCE T H E DIGITAL-TaPRINT S U B RATIO.BY CH AN DR A JOHNSON-GREENE

FOR THE PAST few years, b-to-bpublishers have been using digital editions tosupplement their print products for variousreasons: To cater to their readers' preferences,to cut printing and shipping costs, and toreach more international audiences. There's alot to consider, however, such as balancingthe ratio between print and digitalsubscribers and navigating the audit process.Anne Drobish, associate audiencedevelopment director, NewBay Media,shared a few best practices that her companyuses to manage their controlled-circ digitaleditions.Ad just print an d d igital d tcu iat ionacc ord ing to r eader preference s .Currendy , 12 of NewBay Media's 14 tradetides have free digital editions a ttached tothem, plus two on the consumer side.Drobish, who handles the trade side, saysthat all customers have the option ofreceiving the digital version of the magazinesthey're subscribed to (about 1/3 of its tradecirc is digital), but depending on thepreferences of the readers, the staff makescirculation adjustments periodically.

"Depending on the type of audience andthe industry they're in, some do prefer thedigital format," she added. "So as a result, welowered the print circ of one of our titles andincreased the digital circ. On the other hand,there have been tides where we hoped thatthe subscribers would have an interest indigital, but for whatever reason, they didn't.So in terms of cost savings, we had to reducethat tide's digital circulation."Use d em ographic s an d job t it les tode termine wh at fon nat subscr ibers wi i ir e ce i v e .Looking at factors such as job tide, industryand how long someone has been a subscribercan also be used to determine whichcustomers will receive the digital edition and

according to Drobish. "There are certain jobtides out there that would be better servedwith a digital ed ition," she said. "But it reallydepends on the publisher and the situation."

If they haven't notified you of theirpreference, Drobish said, presidents, CEOsand other C-level executives should bereceiving the print magazine. But thosecustomers who haven't renewed in a year orwho may fall outside of the tide's targetedindustry w ill be better served with digitaleditions. "There will always be those that tryto subscribestudents, consultants andothers outside of the group your advertisersare trying to reachbut you may n ot wantto deny them a copy if they want one," shesaid. "Offering them the digital editioninstead can be a good alternadve."Stay on top of t he eve r^han g ingaud it ing ru ies.Earlier this year, BPA Worldw ide chang ed itsdigital circ auditing rules so tha t publishersare now able to convert their print customersto digital edidons with the provisions thatthey notify the customers of the change andgive them the ability to opt-out. (Publishersauditing their digital circ through ABCalready had this advantage.) "It has definitelyhelped us in terms of now being able to havemore flexibility in how requestors areviewed," Drobish said. "There isn't that lineanymore, which is great because the printformat really isn't all that different. T he onlydifference is how subscribers are receiving theproduct."

The one rule change that is moreconfining, however, is that non-requestedelectronic circ has to be categorized as "no n-qualified." "If a publisher is using outsidelists from an associadon, for example, theywo uldn 't be able to report it as 'qualified' likethey would if they were mailing a printmagazine," Drobish said. "It's not an areathat we're looking into growing right now,

H o w Y o u r C M SH e l p s Y o u r S E OWHAT YOUR EDITORS MUSTUNDERSTAND T O PROPERLYOPTIMIZE CONTENT F O R SEARCHBY BILL MICKEYA W E B C M S these days automa ticallytakes care of much of your basic SE Oresponsibilities. However, many publishersare still saddled with legacy systems thatnecessitate manual SEO opdmizad on ascontent is entered into the system. Eitherway, the editors who are responsible for thecontent production ofi:en don't realize whagoing on behind the scenes. Here's a quickprimer on what your CMS does for you, anwhat you can be doing to make sure yourcontent is optimized for search.

David Newc orn, VP of eniedia at b-to-bpublisher Sum mit Publishing, has herded hcompany through three contentmanagement systemsand he's about towork through a fourth, albeit less painful,conversion. His current CM S, a hybrid opesource Joom la/Dru pal system, will be shifi:e

. to Drupal fiiU time shordy.S E O , he said, is largely an automated

process, though there are areas wherepublishers can switch to manua l op erationwhen necessary. M anual steps, however,largely depend on yo ur editorial team'sappetite for, and affinity with, a few extra stein the w orkflow a nd technology in general.The BasicsTh e tide bar is a fundamental, bu t im portacomponent. It idendfies the contentdisplayed on a particular Web page. Searchengines use it in the search results page an dcrawl it to identify the top ic of the page."You need to make sure your C MS exposesthe headline of the anicle in the page ddes,said Newcorn. "Some people recommendhaving a separate field for th e editors to entthe browser tides barone that the editorswould write. "

This step depends on two things: Youreditors' ability to write straightforward, We


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willingness to do so. "That ain't going tohappen with our [editorial] staff," saidNewcorn, who added that editors at hiscompany are still largely print focused andhave not made a complete transition to adigital skill set. A separate production staffhandles conten t flow into the CMS. One step that editors arebeginning toincorporate is writing a separate Webheadline at the article origination stage. Thejournalist simply writes two headlinesonefor print as oblique and pun-filled as theywantand a second one that's tailored forsearch engines and the quick-scanningreader experience online. "When it'sarchived to the Web, it gets copied andpasted into the tide bar field. We'reconstandy battling the 'punny' headline, sohaving a Web headline is something theeditors can do," said Newcorn.KeywordsSummit's CMS automatically tags storiesbased on predetermined keywords it finds inthe article. This saves a step for the staff, whodon't have to scan the article for keywords andmanually enter them into afield."That's arelief for editors. They've historically hatedtak ing," said N ewcorn. "The downside is [theCMS] is right about 80 percent of the time."Ctos&UnkingA cross-linking featurerelated articles,most popular articles, and so onis notjust a helpful reader funcrion, it helpssearch engines crawl through more of yoursite. Witho ut it, search engines may not beindexing as much of your content as you'dlike. It's a very common function in today'scontent management systems, but requiresdiligent attention from editors whotypically need to enter or select articleheadlines and their assigned urls into arelated links field.Meta Description TagNewcorn's team has set up the CM S toautomatically pick up an article's dekas themeta description taga brief summ ary ofthe content on apage. Deks inherentlymarket the angle of the article, so this makessense from an SEO perspective. Metadescriptiori tags factor in to search engineranking algorithms, but also influence a

results page. "If you have a choice ofprogrammarically making the metadescription come from the dek or niaking itblank, make it happen. Cet some Cooglejuice," said Newc orn.HyperiinkingSummit has a print-first workflow, w hichputs some of the CM S prep-work burden onthe front endof content generation. Theproduction editors who work w ith the CMSdon't necessarily know which words orphrases to link within stories. Editors mustdo that at the front end. "If your editors are

, not going into the CMS, it's much harderfor the production staff to indicate whichwords get linked. Now we have the editorsspend more time thinking about the termsthat get linked within an article wh en it'soriginated," said Newcorn.

A n E m a i i C r e a t i v eT i p S h e e tS U B J E C T L IN E S T H A T S T A N D O U TA N D B O D Y C O P Y T H A TP R O D U C E S T H E C U C K T H R O U G H .

BEYOND THE technical issues that couldhamper email promotion delivery, there areabout as many tactics to produce creativecopy that entices the reader to open andclickthrough as there are products that they hawk.

Tim Langlitz, director of online businessdevelopment at F+W M edia, shared some ofhis favorite tactics in a recent AudienceDevelopment Webinar entided "MasteringEmail Marketing for New Business andRenewals."THE SUBJECT UNE"Wh en you're designing the subject line, it'svery important to consider how that showsup in your readers' in-box," said Langlitz. Todo that, he highlighted two tacrics:

I Make the Subject Line Powerful T o do this, put the value proposition,

of the stateme nt. "Cenerally, you're safe tostay below 60 characters to make sure it'sread," said Langlia. For example, "Win$3,000 with Your Short Story" achieved a34.2 percent better open rate than "YourShort Story Can Win $3,000."

"The $3,000 is very impo rtant andpresent in both of those," said Langlitz, "butby putting the value emphasis up frontmaking sure the $3,000 stood outimmediately, regardless of how much of thesubject line was visible, had a very keybenefit."

2 Keep ttie Subject Line Concise In F+Ws testing, shorter subject linesoutperformed longer ones by a huge margin.This is probably not a shocker, but thetemptation to provide extra detail can behard to ignore. "The 2nd 'Neon Dragon'PefFer W orksho p No w Available" performed53 percent poorer than "New Workshop:Nancy Reyner's Acrylic Revolution."THE EMAIL B O DYLanglitz noted that direct mail habits don'tnecessarily translate to email. People readmore slowly online than in print, he said."This means visuals are critical. Don'tassume the three or four-sentence text thatworks in your print direct mail package orflyer is going to be as efFecrive online. It's notbecause it's consumed in a different way."

1 Avoid ttie Seco nd Scroll "M ake sure you have tha t clear message.When possible, try to avoid the second scroll.Th e longer you get, especially withsubscription messaging, the lower yourresponse is going to be," said Langlitz.2 Engineer a Quick R esponse Make the call to action prominent andbe clear about what the reader is supposed todo, said Langlitz. "Direct them out of theirinbox onto the sub form."

Also create a sense of urgency. "People,quite frankly, do not go back topromotional messages if they don't have agood reason to or a sense of urgency. In thistype of marketing your competition iseverywhereFacebook friend requests.Twitter messages, Coogle alerts they've setup. Any single thing coming into the inbox


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