SES NY Keynote: SEO Lessons and the Wall Street Journal

After gathering around the caffeine this morning for Day 3 of SES New York, attendees gathered to listen to a keynote from Gordon McLeod, President, The Wall Street Journal Digital Network.

Gordon led the audience through the evolution of SEO within the Wall Street Journal organization, noting that they didn’t necessarily do things right the first or second time.

Since 1996, The Wall Street Journal has grown to incorporate SEO as a strategic business decision, not a grouping of tactics.

Here are some of the lessons they learned along the way:

1. Website is 1.0
Content has to be in places other than the company’s website. So stop holding onto it for dear life. Let your content transcend online channels including social.

This social channels are often hard for clients to grasp and get behind. Especially in the B2B market, companies don’t want their content in social media channels, they don’t need the ‘young audience’ who is known for interacting with social content.

This is a mistake. First, there is an increasing number of social users 25+, but that’s a whole different post. 🙂
What companies are overlooking is that the ‘young audience’ will be THE audience in the next couple years and why wait until then to build the relationship?

2. SEO is not a project
To get the most out of SEO, it really needs to be an integrated, longterm effort.

TopRank clients performing SEO longterm experience better results, because it takes time to make changes, measure, test and repeat.

In addition, you have someone on your side. You have a team, skilled in SEO and up to date on the latest information helping you adapt and be as effective as possible.

3. Free is good
For content sites,breakdown the barriers to users getting the content. As the Wall Street Journal did, let folks read 1-2 paragraphs and then ask for a subscription, increasing overall subscribers.

If you are currently leveraging SEO, keep going and be open to the new approaches that are offered up by your consultants. SEO results are deep-rooted in the ability to test and refine.

If you are not integrating SEO into your business, consider it. Perhaps I’m biased, but managing clients day to day I see first hand the impact improved search engine visibility has on the bottom line of the business.