Adam Sherk

NOVEMBER 20, 2014

Google Panda was designed to go after sites with a high volume of thin or low-quality content (among other things) in an effort to improve the overall strength of the search results. But the unfortunate reality is that with just about every Panda update well-established brands with good content get caught in the filter.

Sites 278

Sites Google Syndication Template 278

Adam Sherk

APRIL 16, 2013

Social sites use infinite scrolling as a way to offer a never-ending stream of new content, and it has appeal for sites that want to offer a seamless browsing experience for large groups of items. This type of progressive enhancement is good for usability as well as SEO. SEO Guidelines for Sponsored Content and Partner Links.

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SEO Tips Module Guidelines 245

Adam Sherk

MARCH 8, 2012

To provide a strategic overview and set a framework for the discussion I came up with a list of questions that summarizes the types of issues we frequently encounter in helping publishers with social media. One interesting takeaway was the user base and types of content that do well in Social Reader can be quite different from the main site.

Publishing 215

Publishing Questions Social Media Activities 215

Adam Sherk

MAY 14, 2013

When it comes to link building publishers have a significant advantage because editorial content, be it hard news or evergreen content, lends itself naturally to linking and sharing. In addition producing quality content on a daily basis creates a steady stream of new opportunities. Partner links. Shine or MSN Living.

Publishing 209

Publishing Module Syndication Badge 209

Adam Sherk

DECEMBER 22, 2009

Data like this is interesting to check out, and it can provide useful insights for marketers and content producers in getting a better understanding of user interest and activities in both search and social media. What types of content generated the most social media sharing and inbound links? were most (and least) popular?

Trends 167

Trends How To Digg Press Release 167

Adam Sherk

FEBRUARY 14, 2012

StumbleUpon Channels are a good opportunity for publishers (and any business involved in content marketing) because they create a direct pipeline to users that are specifically interested in your content. Check out their Channels to get an idea of the types and frequency of their shared pages. Lifestyle Content.

StumbleUpon 120

StumbleUpon Brands Directory Real Estate 120

Adam Sherk

NOVEMBER 14, 2011

Google’s recent algorithm change that favors the most recent content for certain types of queries offers good opportunities for news and content sites. Prior to the freshness change the news onebox would have still been prominent but only 2-3 of the natural listings would likely have been brand new content.

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Reputation Google Wikipedia Embedding 155

Adam Sherk

DECEMBER 9, 2014

In working with a wide range of news and content sites, I know that becoming an approved source and maximizing Google News visibility (through avoiding news crawl errors and editorial optimization) continue to be important priorities. Assuming that figure is accurate that’s an unusually high percentage for a site of that type.

News 279

News Sites Publishing Data 279

Adam Sherk

MAY 30, 2012

Among the types of boards that are popular are lifestyle content (recipes and food, fashion, home, etc.); There are some good examples out there however such as Fox 8 News in Cleveland, KARK 4 News in Little Rock, Seattle’s KING 5 and WHSV 3 in Harrisonburg, VA.

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Team News Digg Fashion 148

Adam Sherk

FEBRUARY 25, 2010

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Make the Most of Your Retweet Buttons by Adam Sherk on February 25, 2010 In working on my presentation for the Twitter Marketing Tactics session at SMX West next week I’ve been looking at the various types of share and retweet buttons used on news sites.

Syndication 117

Syndication URL Press Release SEO 117

Adam Sherk

JUNE 27, 2012

Search Data a shout-out in Search Trend Optimization for Evergreen Content but it continues to be a useful resource so I wanted to bring it up again. Take a look at some recent tweets: Crafts of all types are buzzingon @ Yahoo including “paper crafts”, “kids crafts”“duct tape crafts,” “4th of July crafts”. — Yahoo!

Yahoo 116

Yahoo Trends Publishing Data 116

Adam Sherk

FEBRUARY 2, 2011

As I covered in my post on blog tag optimization this type of over-tagging has little SEO benefit and in the extreme it can even be a negative. In the second post above the tags take up almost as much space as the actual editorial content. In a word: no. It’s certainly not helpful for users either.

Sports 118

Sports SEO News Issues 118

Adam Sherk

AUGUST 7, 2009

With this in mind, it is beneficial for news and content sites to take a diversified approach to Twitter, offering a range options for users to subscribe to. While the variations are limitless, the main opportunities include: Content Broadcasting – this is essentially RSS feeds on Twitter, used for simply pushing out links to new content.

Sites 105

Sites News Strategy Twitter 105

Adam Sherk

APRIL 19, 2011

Articles like “How to Pour Water Into a Glass Cup” make it difficult to dispute eHow’s reputation as the poster child of content farms. It should be pointed out however that with over 10 million nytimes.com pages in Google’s index the keyword overlap represents only 1% of NYT content. It was #46 on the overall list of competitors.

Sites 125

Sites News Posterous Reputation 125

Adam Sherk

DECEMBER 1, 2009

While designed to help Google News better interpret and categorize the content in the sitemaps, the tags also provide publishers with additional chances for exposure. It also has the potential to do the opposite; users may disregard non-editorial content such as press releases in greater volume now that it is easier to identify.

News 104

News Publishing Google Press Release 104

Adam Sherk

DECEMBER 15, 2010

To reach an overseas readership online publishers must ensure that they properly localize their content. One of the pivotal processes when localizing your online publication is ensuring the content is properly translated. Add local content. Here are a few issues to consider when localizing an online newspaper or magazine.

Publishing 124

Publishing Tips Syndication Resources 124

Adam Sherk

OCTOBER 29, 2009

by Adam Sherk on October 29, 2009 This week Google unveiled Google Social Search , an opt-in feature that provides additional search results with content from a user’s “social circle” of friends and trusted sources. If not how do we get there? Related posts: Does Google Want Brands in Your Social Circle?

Google 109

Google Google Reader Press Release Survey 109

Adam Sherk

AUGUST 25, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk 5 Ways to Deal with Seasonal Dips in Search Engine Traffic by Adam Sherk on August 25, 2009 July and August are a time when many content sites see a seasonal dip in all forms of traffic, including search engine referrals.

Engineering 102

Engineering Hitwise Health Care Press Release 102

Adam Sherk

JULY 15, 2013

Ross Hudgens – Ross is another smart link builder and content marketer; like Richard his deck was full of specific tactics that are worth checking out. Pete Myers – Dr. Pete delivered as always, sharing a bazillion examples of the various types of SERPs out there plus ways to make the most of the current landscape.

SEO 148

SEO Tips Startup Loyalty 148

Adam Sherk

MAY 13, 2009

Reviews in particular offer a good opportunity for publishers as many content sites produce multiple types of reviews on a regular basis. Through Rich Snippets you can draw greater attention to your listings in the search results, which helps to increase clickthroughs to your content.

Review 100

Review Google Embedding Press Release 100

Adam Sherk

MAY 4, 2010

So what types of updates drew the most user feedback? For other leagues, I’ve seen huge discrepancies in numbers, part of it because teams in that league had financial incentive to promote their on content pages in order to get money from the league for driving traffic to the league’s site.

Team 165

Team Engagement Facebook Press Release 165

Adam Sherk

JUNE 9, 2009

But I don’t think I’d ever simply type “breaking news” into a search engine. And if I want to get an overview of the current news of the day I’ll go to Google News or Yahoo! News , or direct navigate to a major news site. Adam is part of the Define Search Strategies consulting team, which is owned by The New York Times Company.

News 100

News Hitwise Press Release Syndication 100

Adam Sherk

JUNE 9, 2009

But I don’t think I’d ever simply type “breaking news” into a search engine. And if I want to get an overview of the current news of the day I’ll go to Google News or Yahoo! News , or direct navigate to a major news site. Adam is part of the Define Search Strategies consulting team, which is owned by The New York Times Company.

News 100

News Hitwise Press Release Syndication 100

Adam Sherk

NOVEMBER 2, 2010

To access Blekko’s SEO data for a domain or a specific URL click the “seo” link within Blekko’s search results: Or simply type the domain or URL into the search box followed by “/seo”: You can also access the SEO data through the Blekko toolbar. The Most Common Causes of Duplicate Content on News Media Sites.

Sites 112

Sites News Postrank SEO 112

Adam Sherk

SEPTEMBER 23, 2009

Adam is part of the Define Search Strategies consulting team, which is owned by The New York Times Company.

News 104

News Engagement Facebook Press Release 104

Adam Sherk

MAY 1, 2012

YoY natural search referrals – this simple and straightforward metric is the #1 measuring stick for news and content sites. Branded vs. non-branded – publishers with well-established brands tend to pull in a lot of branded searches, so separating non-branded referrals is a better way to judge your overall content optimization efforts.

Metrics 164

Metrics SEO Publishing Analytics 164

Adam Sherk

MARCH 30, 2011

Many publishers are now doing a good job of developing social media strategies for brand awareness, content promotion and user engagement. It’s an interesting topic and one that is more challenging for news and content sites than some other types of businesses. But is it possible to extract user intent in a meaningful way?

Publishing 131

Publishing Social Media Aggregator ROI 131

Adam Sherk

JANUARY 16, 2013

Anyone on staff at a news or content site can attest to the importance of Google News and news search optimization. And I’d venture to say just as many people have experienced a range of technical and content issues that have impeded the indexation and performance of their news content. Article Format / Content Errors.

News 261

News Google Embedding How To 261

Adam Sherk

JANUARY 12, 2011

First content is created then the key page elements (title tag, headline, URL, image attributes, etc.) There are a variety of free search and social trend tools available and the data is useful both for keyword targeting and for discovering content opportunities. are optimized to improve keyword focus.

SEO 198

SEO Hitwise comScore Adwords 198

Adam Sherk

AUGUST 21, 2012

Beyond personalized search results the engines are also looking at social activity in aggregate to help evaluate the popularity or relative importance of content and the authority of both sites and authors. Unfortunately many social media sites add a “nofollow” attribute to any links within user generated content. Secondary Links.

SEO 278

SEO Social Media NoFollow Engineering 278

Adam Sherk

NOVEMBER 11, 2010

By now Twitter is an important part of most publishers’ audience development and content promotion efforts. But in reviewing the Twitter presence of newspapers, magazines and other content sites on a regular basis I’m often surprised by the mistakes and missed opportunities that still occur.

Industry 200

Industry Social Media URL Module 200

Adam Sherk

MARCH 24, 2010

Thus there isn’t any type of official Google profile for companies as there is with Facebook Pages or branded YouTube channels. Despite these challenges companies are experimenting with Social Search and the launch of Google Buzz has increased the number of brands setting up Google profiles , particularly news and content sites.

Google 129

Google Brands Google Reader Digg 129

Adam Sherk

JUNE 29, 2010

We see this type of marketing speak over and over in press releases and promotional materials. I hadn’t come across any anti-buzzword content lately so I thought I’d do my own research. because it was among the first search-friendly services so I figure its content is fairly well indexed. David – thanks.

Press Release 279

Press Release Marketing Class List 279

Adam Sherk

SEPTEMBER 22, 2010

Benguiat, who died recently, was an influential type designer for decades. Lubalin collaborated with Ralph Ginzburg on the magazine Avant-Garde, and the typeface he designed for the magazine’s logo is still in use. Adam is part of the Define Search Strategies consulting team, which is owned by The New York Times Company.

Press Release 131

Press Release Issues News Wikipedia 131