Adam Sherk

NOVEMBER 3, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk An Early Look at News Media Twitter Lists: Not Much Traction by Adam Sherk on November 3, 2009 With all the buzz about Twitter Lists I thought I’d take a look at how some major news sites are doing so far with their own Lists. Looking at selection of Twitter accounts from 30 31 news sites, I checked the number of Lists that have been created and how many followers each has attracted to-date.

News 136

News List Twitter Sites 136

Adam Sherk

OCTOBER 23, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Social Media Visitors More Loyal But Still a Very Small Percentage of Site Traffic by Adam Sherk on October 23, 2009 Yesterday posts from eMarketer and Marketing Pilgrim called my attention to some interesting social media statistics put out by advertising network Chitika. First, a study of 33 million unique users from Chitika’s network in September showed that visitors coming from Facebook and Digg were more loyal than those

Hitwise 124

Hitwise Social Media Digg Survey 124

Adam Sherk

DECEMBER 17, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Search Marketing Dwarfs Social Media in Interactive Marketing Budgets by Adam Sherk on December 17, 2009 This week both Brian Solis and SEOMoz made reference to a recent Forrester report forecasting US interactive marketing budgets for the next five years. You can check out their posts for the aspects of the report they covered.

Social Media 123

Social Media Marketing Press Release Survey 123

Adam Sherk

JULY 23, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk The Most Buried News Sites on Digg by Adam Sherk on July 23, 2009 It’s no secret that mainstream news sites are experiencing increased exposure on social news sites like Digg. Back in March Soshable noted that 46% of the Digg front page is controlled by 50 websites. Major news sites have seen strong increases in social media referral traffic over the past couple years, and Digg continues to be among the top referrers.

Digg 119

Digg Sites News Yahoo 119

Adam Sherk

OCTOBER 27, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk NewsPulse Gives CNN.com a New Way to Showcase Popular Content by Adam Sherk on October 27, 2009 One of the more promising features in this week’s relaunch of CNN.com is NewsPulse , which surfaces popular content in a simple, user-friendly interface: (Click on the screenshot above to see a larger image) NewsPulse makes it easy for users filter popular news by time period (from 15 minutes to 30 days), section and content type (

Content 112

Content Press Release Digg Survey 112

Adam Sherk

JUNE 30, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Syndication Best Practices: Reduce the Risk of Being Outranked for Your Own Content by Adam Sherk on June 30, 2009 Syndicating content is an important business development initiative for publishers; it generates revenue, increases exposure, drives traffic and helps facilitate inbound links.

Syndication 111

Syndication Press Release SEO Publishing 111

Adam Sherk

OCTOBER 29, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Google Social Search: Are You in Your Target Audiences’ Social Circles? 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.

Google 109

Google Google Reader Press Release Survey 109

Adam Sherk

AUGUST 7, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Diversified Twitter Strategies for News Sites by Adam Sherk on August 7, 2009 This week’s Sysomos study of the 5% most active users on Twitter includes a list of the top 25 users (with more than 50,000 followers) ranked by average tweets per day. @foxnews tops the list averaging 135.85 tweets per day.

Sites 105

Sites News Strategy Twitter 105

Adam Sherk

OCTOBER 8, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk The Most Common Causes of Duplicate Content on News Media Sites by Adam Sherk on October 8, 2009 Although search engines keep improving on their ability to deal with duplicate content, this continues to be one of the main SEO issues facing news and content sites. Even when the engines do a reasonable job of filtering out duplicates in their results, sites are essentially shooting themselves in the foot by splitting internal a

Sites 105

Sites News Syndication Content 105

Adam Sherk

DECEMBER 1, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Does Google News Sitemaps New Format Help Publishers? by Adam Sherk on December 1, 2009 In November Google announced a new format for Google News Sitemaps with several changes including new tags that provide additional detail on each submitted article. Google is using words like “more flexible,” “easier to submit,” “more control” and even “exciting” to describe the new format and transition period.

News 104

News Publishing Google Press Release 104

Adam Sherk

SEPTEMBER 23, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk A Closer Look at Fan Engagement on the Fox News Facebook Page by Adam Sherk on September 23, 2009 My post on Facebook Page engagement for news sites has drawn some interest in the fact that Fox News averages many more “likes” and comments per update than any other news site, despite having significantly fewer fans than CNN, NPR or The New York Times.

News 104

News Engagement Facebook Press Release 104

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. Major stories that emerge (such as Michael Jackson or the health care debate ) can bring large spikes in search traffic, but it’s common to see the numbers drop after May and not pick up again until Septembe

Engineering 102

Engineering Hitwise Health Care Press Release 102

Adam Sherk

AUGUST 11, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Pro PR Tips: 100 PR Tips from Rafe Needleman Published as a Book by Adam Sherk on August 11, 2009 Yesterday I received a copy of Rafe Needleman ’s Pro PR Tips in the mail from ITDatabase. I’d seen some of the tips previously via Twitter and on the Pro PR Tips blog , but the book presents them in a nice, clean format that makes for a good read.

Tips 102

Tips Publishing Press Release Syndication 102

Adam Sherk

JULY 30, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Videos in Press Releases are Cool – If They Provide Meaningful Content by Adam Sherk on July 30, 2009 Executive quotes in press releases are notorious for lacking any kind of substantial information. It’s the most common place to find fluff in a release, and they tend to be largely ignored.

Press Release 102

Press Release Video Yahoo Microsoft 102

Adam Sherk

MAY 26, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Where Do You Want Your Social Media Press Releases to Live? by Adam Sherk on May 26, 2009 The discussion about HubSpot’s post on the syndication of social media press releases vs. traditional press releases called my attention again to PitchEngine , a platform for creating and sharing social media releases (SMRs).

Press Release 102

Press Release Social Media Syndication Hosting 102

Adam Sherk

AUGUST 14, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Great Example of a Multimedia News Article from ESPN.com by Adam Sherk on August 14, 2009 Recently I wrote about the importance of including meaningful content in videos embedded in press releases. Today I came across a great example of how to incorporate video and other multimedia content into a news article.

Examples 102

Examples News Press Release Embedding 102

Adam Sherk

AUGUST 20, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Google News Now Recrawling Updated Articles by Adam Sherk on August 20, 2009 This week Search Engine Roundtable highlighted a Google News Help thread in which Google confirmed that it is now able to recrawl articles that have been updated within a “short period of time” of the original publishing.

News 101

News Google Syndication Press Release 101

Adam Sherk

NOVEMBER 23, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk I Hope News Corp Does Block its Content from Google by Adam Sherk on November 23, 2009 More developments in the Rupert Murdoch vs. Google saga today, as the Financial Times reports that discussions have taken place between News Corp and Microsoft on an exclusive deal with Bing that would lead to News Corp blocking its news sites (such as The Wall Street Journal ) from Google.

News 101

News Google Hitwise Press Release 101

Adam Sherk

AUGUST 31, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Yahoo Adds Enhanced News Results to SearchMonkey by Adam Sherk on August 31, 2009 On Friday Yahoo announced new additions to its SearchMonkey enhanced results, including options for news content. SearchMonkey allows sites to use structured data to include additional information in their Yahoo search results such as addresses and phone numbers, review scores, pricing, etc.

Yahoo 101

Yahoo News Syndication Press Release 101

Adam Sherk

MAY 29, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Your Mom’s Coming to Facebook, But She May Not Stick Around by Adam Sherk on May 29, 2009 Inside Facebook published some new statistics this week on Facebook’s US audience growth over the last 60 days. Interestingly, users over 55 decreased by 650,000 during this period: This is a big change from the previous 60 days which had shown considerable growth in that demographic.

Facebook 101

Facebook Press Release Syndication Blogroll 101

Adam Sherk

JULY 22, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Smart Move from Condé Nast: GQ and DETAILS Should Have Their Own Websites by Adam Sherk on July 22, 2009 There’s been a lot of coverage this week of Condé Nast bringing in McKinsey & Company to help them restructure the business, which hopefully will work out for them. Props to Silicon Alley Insider for including a photo of the consultants from Office Space in their write-up.

Press Release 100

Press Release Syndication Blogroll Consultant 100

Adam Sherk

JULY 17, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Twitter Suggested Users – Today’s Studio 54 Velvet Rope by Adam Sherk on July 17, 2009 One of the ways that higher profile Twitter accounts have built up large numbers of followers is by being included among the “suggested users” shown to users signing up for a new account: Each new user has a group of 20 Twitter profiles suggested to them; one click of a button and they’re automatically following each one.

Twitter 100

Twitter Press Release Syndication Blogroll 100

Adam Sherk

JULY 9, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Yahoo News Syndication: Attribution Links Not SEO-Friendly by Adam Sherk on July 9, 2009 In my post on syndication best practices I noted that one way to reduce the likelihood that partners will outrank you for own content is to require a link back to your original on every syndicated article, for example: This article originally appeared on Example.com: [direct link to original article, ideally with the headline as the link

Syndication 100

Syndication Yahoo SEO News 100

Adam Sherk

MAY 19, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk So Far so Good for Seattlepi.com by Adam Sherk on May 19, 2009 Hearst released some numbers this week on how things are going with seattlepi.com two months after moving to an online-only model. From their statement: Two months after becoming the nation’s largest newspaper to move to an all-digital news model, seattlepi.com’s year over year numbers show that it has more users this April than last April, when the Post Intellige

Hitwise 100

Hitwise Press Release Syndication Blogroll 100

Adam Sherk

MAY 15, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk New York Times Plans to Implement Permanent Redirects on IHT.com URLs by Adam Sherk on May 15, 2009 For anyone who’s been following the story of the shutting down of IHT.com and the migration of International Herald Tribune content to the New York Times Global Edition , there has certainly been criticism over the lack of permanent redirects from the old IHT.com URLs to the corresponding new URLs on NYTimes.com.

URL 100

URL Syndication SEO Press Release 100

Adam Sherk

APRIL 30, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Publishers: Solve Tracking Code, Duplicate Content Issues with the Canonical URL Tag by Adam Sherk on April 30, 2009 Really you shouldn’t need it. What you should be doing is avoiding duplicate content altogether. Every piece of content on your site should exist on one permanent, unique URL, and any duplicate pages should be consolidated through 301 redirects.

Issues 100

Issues Publishing URL Syndication 100

Adam Sherk

JULY 28, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Article Highlights: Good for Users, Good for Search Engines by Adam Sherk on July 28, 2009 Yesterday Steve Rubel pointed out how the article highlights on sites like CNN.com and iMedia Connection are a good time saver for him. CNN.com places a “Story Highlights” section with bullet points to the right of the headline, for example : While a great feature for users, article highlights are also an effective SEO technique.

Engineering 100

Engineering Press Release Survey Syndication 100

Adam Sherk

JUNE 12, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk The Daily Show Visits The New York Times by Adam Sherk on June 12, 2009 I couldn’t resist sharing this great video from The Daily Show of Jason Jones visiting The New York Times. The back-and-forth with Assistant Managing Editor Rick Burke about “aged news&# is my favorite part.

Press Release 100

Press Release Syndication Blogroll Foursquare 100

Adam Sherk

JUNE 9, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Do People Search for “Breaking News”? by Adam Sherk on June 9, 2009 Among news sites “breaking news” is a sought-after keyword phrase; I see it prominently placed in home page title tags all the time: And it’s not just general news sites. “Breaking news” is featured in the title tags of sites covering sports, entertainment and a wide range of topics.

News 100

News Hitwise Press Release Syndication 100

Adam Sherk

JUNE 9, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Do People Search for “Breaking News”? by Adam Sherk on June 9, 2009 Among news sites “breaking news” is a sought-after keyword phrase; I see it prominently placed in home page title tags all the time: And it’s not just general news sites. “Breaking news” is featured in the title tags of sites covering sports, entertainment and a wide range of topics.

News 100

News Hitwise Press Release Syndication 100

Adam Sherk

JUNE 5, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Google JavaScript Changes Put Publishers in Violation of Sponsored Link Guidelines by Adam Sherk on June 5, 2009 Last week at the Google I/O developer conference it was announced that Google is now able to execute JavaScript onClick events, which basically means that links in JavaScript that were previously inaccessible can now be read and pass PageRank.

Publishing 100

Publishing Google NoFollow Guidelines 100

Adam Sherk

MAY 22, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Google News Wants Title Tags to Match Headlines? by Adam Sherk on May 22, 2009 In looking over a post on the Google News blog from a few months ago on ways to help Google News better crawl your site , this tip in particular caught my eye: * Article Titles in Google News In order for Google News to crawl the correct titles for your articles, make sure the title you want appears in both the title tag and as the headline on the

News 100

News Google Syndication Press Release 100

Adam Sherk

MAY 19, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Hitwise Reports News and Media’s Share of Search-Referred Traffic Declining by Adam Sherk on May 19, 2009 According to data released by Hitwise a few days ago, News & Media is one of the few categories showing a YoY decline in share of search-referred traffic: Fortunately the majority of sites we work with in this category are bucking the trend, as most are seeing strong improvements in YoY search engine referral t

Hitwise 100

Hitwise News Report Press Release 100

Adam Sherk

MAY 19, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Hitwise Reports News and Media’s Share of Search-Referred Traffic Declining by Adam Sherk on May 19, 2009 According to data released by Hitwise a few days ago, News & Media is one of the few categories showing a YoY decline in share of search-referred traffic: Fortunately the majority of sites we work with in this category are bucking the trend, as most are seeing strong improvements in YoY search engine referral t

Hitwise 100

Hitwise News Report Press Release 100

Adam Sherk

MAY 18, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Newsweek’s Tim Geithner Interview Live on Facebook: Don’t Forget to Link to the Video Afterwards by Adam Sherk on May 18, 2009 Today Newsweek offered live streaming of Jon Meacham’s interview with Treasury Security Tim Geithner on its Facebook page. This is a good example of how publishers are attempting to add more value to their official pages on social media sites, which is certainly needed as many of the

Facebook 100

Facebook Press Release Syndication Blogroll 100

Adam Sherk

MAY 18, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Newsweek’s Tim Geithner Interview Live on Facebook: Don’t Forget to Link to the Video Afterwards by Adam Sherk on May 18, 2009 Today Newsweek offered live streaming of Jon Meacham’s interview with Treasury Security Tim Geithner on its Facebook page. This is a good example of how publishers are attempting to add more value to their official pages on social media sites, which is certainly needed as many of the

Facebook 100

Facebook Press Release Syndication Blogroll 100

Adam Sherk

MAY 13, 2009

Home About Contact PR Publishing SEO Social Media Subscribe Adam Sherk Rich Snippets: Increase Google Visibility for Reviews through Microformats by Adam Sherk on May 13, 2009 One of the announcements at Searchology yesterday was a new enhancement called Rich Snippets, in which Google is using structured data embedded in web pages (microformats and RDFa) to give users “convenient summary information about their search results at a glance.&# Initially Google is supporting data on reviews an

Review 100

Review Google Embedding Press Release 100