Writing headlines that are optimized for search engines isn’t complicated. The same principles that applied two years ago are still, for the most part, in use today. But I think it’s important that journalists understand the difference between a page title and a headline and where these elements appear on different search results pages.

None of the following information is earth-shattering SEO news, by any means, but I find myself explaining it a lot to editors I work with.

The page title is the text that appears in the top-left corner of your web browser:

The headline is, quite obviously, the headline of your story, but notice in this example it is different from the page title above, even though it is the same story:

An article from two years ago explains why it’s important to get the most important words at the front of your page title, as this is the text that a search-engine results page (SERP) will display. However, Google News displays its results based on the actual headline, not the page title, so it’s also important that the most important information comes at the front of your headline, as well. [NOTE: Some content management systems (CMS) do not allow you to specify a different page title from your headline, in which case, your headline becomes even more important to SEO.]

For the above example, readers searching the web for information about truck driver salaries will immediately see “Truck driver salary study released …” at the beginning of the title and will immediately know what the article is about. If that same article were to appear in Google News, the most important words of the headline, “driver pay study,” are at the end and therefore are not as likely to be seen (or clicked) by a search-engine user.

Most news sites seem to be catching on to writing SEO-friendly headlines in their news articles, but where I most often see room for improvement is on a journalist’s own blog, which often is hosted by a different content management system (CMS) or does not pass through the same SEO checkpoints as a normal article.

I often see vague blog headlines like, “An Artist’s Passion,” “Big Bottom Line,” or “Shifts In Behavior.” All of those are examples from a blog about the trucking industry, but if you were to see those headlines out of context in a Google News results page, you would have no idea. For example, if you type “shifts in behavior” as a Google News search query, you will find a wide variety of results.

A good test for journalists is to type their headline into Google News before the story is published. If you see results that are similar to the topic you’re writing about, it’s probably a good headline for search. If you see the exact same headline multiple times, you should rewrite it to stand out from the others, possibly by putting different keywords at the front of the headline. If you see a random assortment of topics, you need a new headline.

Headlines are one of the most important places that an article’s search ranking can be influenced, so there’s definitely a lot more to it than what I’ve written about here. There are tons of resources available on the web for writing web headlines, and I’m sure I’ll have more to say on the topic in the future.
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Social media and how readers use it within news websites is something I got to thinking about this evening while jogging through my neighborhood in Gladstone, Mo. (aka The Happy Rock).

It probably had something to do with the fact that, while also running, I was pushing The Toddler in a stroller, which was attached to the dog, Gilda, who was trying her best to keep up with The Fearless 7-Year-Old (who I usually call “Bob” even though that’s not even close to his real name), who was pedaling away on his bike up ahead.

It was a lot to keep track of when all I really wanted was the exercise after a long day of sitting at a desk. Sometimes I wonder if readers are overwhelmed by the number of social-media options they’re presented with on a news website when all they really want is to read the news.

If you like the news, you might Stumble it, or Digg it or email it or just say “Fark it” altogether because there are too many damn options. We want readers to “follow us” or “become a fan” when some of them may still be learning the social-media ropes or are completely uninterested.

I don’t think we should assume readers know what all this social networking stuff is about (I can barely keep up myself), and I think it’s a good idea to help readers understand 1) what social media services your site utilizes and 2) how and why they might want to use them.

This also provides some search-engine optimization (SEO) opportunities, depending on the site and its core audience. Using one of the trucking B2B sites I work with as an example (again), I recently built my own version of a social media newsroom. It’s a very simple page that lists and describes each social media service we use on the site and why readers might be interested in using them. The page, which is titled “Social Media for Trucking Industry Professionals,” is also loaded with targeted keywords so that anybody that might be searching for social media for truckers or fleet managers would likely find our page.

I think it’s an easy way to gain a little bit of SEO value for your site while also providing a valuable service to some of your readers. 2142256228449621456-1820490320638240424?