SEO Journalism In The Newsroom

Naeem Alvi — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 11:38:37 +0000

By NAEEM ALVI

It is clear SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is becoming a necessary feather in the hat for any online hack looking to stand out, and it’s likely the more forward thinking universities around the world will soon introduce SEO techniques as part of online modules. The tricky thing for today’s journalists to accept, especially in print media, is whether the efforts to gear towards SEO techniques in a bid to increase page rankings will stifle creativity?

In November 2009, the BBC website announced it would begin optimising its story headlines for search engines algorithms to help BBC pages appear higher in search results. Sam Tilston, online marketing director of vitabits.co.uk, commented on the announcement:

”The BBC is optimising its own headlines along with many other online news publishers…They are not only optimising their headlines but also doing internal linking within the articles, which is a very effective SEO method.”

In the SEO best practice guide, published on econsultancy.com last month, it said, ”at the beginning of 2010, the total worldwide search market had more than 131bn searches conducted by people aged 15 or older from home and work locations.”

Figures which equate to 4bn searches per day – expected to have increased a further 46% in the 2010-2011 period.

With such escalating trends, it is clear online news outlets need SEO techniques to survive. However, as Mr Tilston highlighted, online media outlets need to tread carefully, as “overstuffing” a headline title with too many keywords could not only damage a website brand and reputation, but could also result in a Google penalty which will drop their rankings.

Clearly, the BBC will have ensured their SEO strategy is among the most forefront and effective in the digital marketing industry, but the conflict of keywords versus creativity raises an interesting dilemma, especially for the struggling local rag which is looking to increase print and online sales, but not lose their existing print readership through what might be seen as less humorous, or less creative headlines.

For example, The Daily Mirror‘s recent headline for the Ryan Giggs super injunction controversy of ”Naming Private Ryan” clearly stood out amongst its competitors. From an SEO point of view, including the subjects full name might have scored more points in the keyword battlefield, but of all the newspapers I saw that day, I remembered that headline more than any other.

Furthermore, as Lisa Barone explains in Why Journalists Need To Stop Resenting SEO, one of the biggest complaints from today’s journalists seems to be that SEO is ruining their headlines. She argues, SEO-powered words will make content easier to find, and not using them will lose traffic. To demonstrate her point, she draws upon this example:

”When U.S. Airways Flight 1549 crashed into the Hudson River, The New York Times was the first outlet to break the story. For some reason, they didn’t use the term “plane crash” in the title and created something clever instead. The result was that no one saw their story. All of their readers and their potential readers were searching for “plane crash”.

This small decision meant the newspaper missed out on thousands, or possibly millions of potential readers who were desperately searching for information about what had happened.

The simple answer it seems, is to have a sub-editor work on the headlines for the print story and leave the SEO maximised headline for an online specialist. Or even run the SEO headline as a sub-heading in the print edition?

However, as job cuts continue throughout the regional press in England, and more online friendly graduates are forced to enter an extremely competitive market where there is little room for risk, it seems newspapers at least need to embrace an SEO middle ground, or they will inevitably fall by the wayside.

With the rise of new media, outlets are faced with an audience which demands readily available and increasingly concise news in the most accessible form. An argument which The Independent has clearly cottoned on to with their recent release of the I.

Fortunately, print media will continue to hold an authority based on each publication’s history and time-built reputation against online outlets, but editors and managerial staff need to work together to make print synonymous with online news in an SEO friendly manner.

After all, news is what journalists choose to make from the facts.

Naeem Alvi is multi-platform journalist and photographer based in the south-west of England. somescribblings.com is Naeem’s personal stamp on the internet.

Get social with Naeem at Twitter.

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SEO Journalism In The Newsroom