Improving SEO for press releases — Drafted 9/19/12; Revised 10/24/12
Improving Search Engine Indexing for Online Articles
Search engines look at several places when indexing information on the web:
URLs
o File names of articles are in the URL
o <title> tags are the words you see at the very top of a browser
 For articles, the <title> tag is the headline
 Search engines look at this the MOST
Heading tags
o h1 and h2 are given the most weight
o Headlines in articles are h1
Links
o Internal links (i.e. VT News article linking back to CALS’ homepage)
o Links from elsewhere (i.e. Master Gardener blog linking to VCE’s
homepage)
Meta tags
o Hidden tags within a web page
o Description meta tag
 Within the CMS, it’s shown as “Description”
 In search engines, this text is the two-lines of text below the site
title
 Keep it at 130-155 characters; anything over will be truncated
 Does not need to be complete sentences; can remove
unnecessary words if the meaning doesn’t change
o Keyword meta tag
 Within the CMS, it’s shown as “Keywords”
 Search engines don’t give as much weight to this area because this
area has historically been abused to “trick” search engines
 But it’s still important to have this field filled out with
relevant keywords
What should I include in my articles?
Descriptive headlines

Include keywords in headlines, which will be used both in the <h1> tag and
the <title> tag
Improving SEO for press releases — Drafted 9/19/12; Revised 10/24/12
Descriptive file names

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Good:
o 081012-ext-turfgrassvideo
 For added strength, it could read “turfgrass-video” so the
search engines read it as two words in a keyword phrase
Bad:
o 080812-dsa-clubs  “clubs” is too generic
The more descriptive you can be, the more keywords are put into the URL
Descriptive links within your text



Good:
o “… who is making significant contributions to research and teaching in
animal related programs in the College of Agriculture and Life
Sciences.”
o “The 2012 Swiger Land-Grant Award went to Gordon Groover.”
Bad:
o “Click here for more information.”
Put links on text that contains relevant keywords to strengthen search engine
indexing
Using the ‘Description’ and ‘Keywords’ field in the CMS

Description field
o Should use keywords within the description
 Bad: The Department of Horticulture offers a broad spectrum of
educational opportunities for both undergraduate and graduate
students and a friendly, welcoming atmosphere.
 Good: The Department of Horticulture at Virginia Tech’s College
of Agriculture and Life Sciences offers undergraduate and
graduate opportunities in horticulture, plant science,
agribusiness, organic gardening, and more.
o Does not need to read like a complete sentence
 It could be shortened: Horticulture, within Virginia Tech
agriculture and life sciences, offers undergraduate and graduate
opportunities in plant science, agribusiness, organic gardening,
and more.
o Used on search results pages
 Only 130-155 characters show
 Put most important information at the front for visibility
 If a description does not exist, the text grabbed will be the first
available
o What’s in it for me? Use the description to explain the benefits of
reading your article
Improving SEO for press releases — Drafted 9/19/12; Revised 10/24/12

Keywords field
o Not used as heavily because the fields were getting used
inappropriately and were being “stuffed”
o Still a good idea to fill out with relevant keywords to give you a place
to hash out words to use in your article
 Make sure the keywords you use also generally appear within
the article, photo captions, sidebar content, titles, headings,
and URLs
Suggested Keywords and Keyword Phrases



Keywords and keyword phrases are separated by commas
Capitalization does not matter — the search engine ignores it
The following are a starting point — include as many keywords as you deem
appropriate
General college terms
college of agriculture and
life sciences
virginia agriculture
agriculture careers
college of ag
college of life sciences
sustainable agriculture
virginia tech
organic farming
vt agriculture
Departmental terms (also include full department name)
For Ag Tech:
For Horticulture:
For BSE:
For FST:
For APSC:
For AEE:
For AAEC:
agricultural technology
two year ag program
ag career
agribusiness
garden tips
horticulture jobs
green energy
renewable resource
alternative fuels
food
IFT
food technology
vet school
animal husbandry
animal science
virginia colleges
national ffa
agriculture degree
ag econ
agribusiness
ag tech vt
2 year ag program
farm school
organic gardening
landscaping
vegetable gardening
biofuel
agricultural engineering
bioethanol
microbiology
food science
food processing
life science
chicken farm
zoology
agriculture education
future farmers of america
extension education
organic farming
agriculture jobs
Improving SEO for press releases — Drafted 9/19/12; Revised 10/24/12
For BioChem:
For CSES:
For DASC:
For Entomology:
For HNFE:
For PPWS:
economics
bio chem
virginia biochemistry
bioinformatics
environmental jobs
turfgrass (turf) (grass)
crop production
dairy science
dairy industry
dairy farming
vector control
integrated pest
management (ipm)
crop pests
fitness and health
nutrition facts
healthy eating
invasive plants
plant biology
wssa (weed science
society of america)
virginia farming
molecular biology
genomics
nanotechnology
environmental protection
lawn care
agronomy
milk production
agribusiness
virginia small farmer
insecticide
pest control
stinkbugs (lady bugs)
obesity
health food
exercise
botony jobs
turf weeds
plant disease
How to generate story- or site-specific keywords
1. Write down the first three words or phrases you’d logically associate with
your topic
2. Include all subjects’ names, first and last
3. Include full names of other non-VT institutions or companies
a. Common misspellings aren’t necessary — search engines
automatically look for them
4. If you’re stuck on more keywords, visit adwords.google.com and use the
“Find keywords” tool for suggestions
What to do with your keywords
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Work keywords and phrases into titles, headings, captions, general content,
and links within your story
Put keywords in the “Keywords” field in the CMS, separated with commas
and lowercase
Write a description in the “Description” field using as many keywords as you
can without it sounding “padded”