Don't panic! A last-minute election SEO guide

The U.S. election is eight days away. Here’s what news SEOs can do now to prepare

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Oct 28, 2024

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Hello, and welcome back. Jessie here, back from a week in the big apple, the city that never sleeps, the concrete jungle where dreams are made of, where Eric Adams “lives” — also known as NYC. Highlights include the Guardian team bonding at Spicy Moon, pizza in the West Village and a quick jaunt to Governor’s Island.

This week: The U.S. election is eight days away. Here’s what news SEOs can do now to prepare for November 5. (With apologies to non-U.S. readers! Keep this in your back pocket for your next election cycle.)

We’re thrilled to be partnering with Indiegraf for an intro to SEO chat on Nov. 20!
Final call for NESS tickets, which starts tomorrow, Nov. 29! Use wtfseo2024 for 20% off.

Let’s get it.

In this issue:

Re-promoting pillar content
Internal linking plans
Pre-write prep
Live blogs
SERP analysis

THE 101

Stuff you’ve (hopefully) already done

As we wrote back in July, when it comes to an election, planning is key — and it’s best to start early. Hopefully, your newsroom had early conversations about the audiences you’re trying to reach and the topic areas your care about most.

Audience and SEO teams should have used the big news moments like debates to test out SEO tactics and live coverage in preparation for election day.

At this point, it's too late to do everything — but there is still time to implement a strategy for last-minute election SEO.

Join our community of more than 2,000 news SEOs on Slack to chat any time.

THE HOW TO

Things you can still do for the election

Re-promote evergreen and pillar content on the homepage

Identify must-have pillar content like results trackers, explainers or guides that were (hopefully) published early in the tentpole event-planning process. For the U.S. election, that could be a policy guide, a poll tracker or state-specific voting guides. These are likely already online; if not, publish soon and make a plan to update.

Refresh the content and update the timestamp where necessary. Consult Google Trends to check for new rising/breakout queries, and incorporate new answers into the existing guides.

Review the on-page SEO elements — such as the headline, featured image and meta description — to ensure they reflect how people are currently looking for information. Ensure this durable content is used as an internal link in every election story you publish between now and November 5.

Place these stories on the homepage in prominent positions, either in the navigation or in an election module/container. Add election-specific tag/section page links to the homepage, too. Continue this visibility from now until after the election.

Pull together an internal linking plan

If your site has a storyline-specific navigation on article pages, fill those spots with pillar content and breaking news. The Washington Post, for example, links back to their election hub page, live blog and important explainers/guides at the top of every election story.

The Washington Post's in-article navigation links to key stories and race profiles in the More dropdown.

Politico takes a similar approach to the in-article navigation: Four essential election stories.

Politico's navigation links out to the hub and a set of stories.

USA Today takes a different approach, with a related stories module at the midpoint of an article.

USA Today has this list of relevant election stories linked in the body copy of a story.

This is clearly editorial product work that takes weeks (or months) to implement. A low-tech alternative is a bullet-point list with hyperlinks to the same content.

For example, something like this can work, too:

All three methods accomplish the same goal: giving readers a curated view of the most useful and relevant election stories.

Get all pre-writes in place and pre-optimized (as much as you can)

Preparing for breaking news sounds counterintuitive. How can you plan for news that is, by definition, unexpected? It’s about laying the groundwork.

Start by outlining every file you might publish on election night, then create those files in your CMS (even if there’s no content yet). Add all the CMS links for the pre-writes into a centralized Google Spreadsheet (or your in-house system) to keep track of all of the files.

Keep a centralized Google Spreadsheet of all pre-writes

Provide on-page SEO elements early for the pre-writes. Headlines, URLs, subheadings and internal links can be largely provided — or at least suggested — when the stories are in the copy stage.

Also, provide a homepage plan that outlines which files need the highest visibility at key moments during election night, and what needs to be on the homepage the morning after.

It’s often the case that day two traffic is on par with the big night, so ensure your site is ready for those early morning readers who are catching up. That’s doubly true this year, given it might not be called on November 5.

Set up position tracking for election night SERPs

On election night, publishers will be competing for a small number of Top Stories placements, along with visibility in "For context," "Local news," "States in the news" SERP features, along with traditional organic results.

These features appear lower on the SERP. “States in the news” could be valuable for local outlets, or national publications with regionally-relevant coverage.

"States in the news" is a news box feature aimed at local or regionally-relevant content.

If you have a news SEO tool that does real-time SERP monitoring, track which keywords return a news box feature and how many stories currently rank in the feature.

These features can change. During the vice presidential debate in October, the query “vp debate” returned a mix of organic results and a Top Stories box.

In January, however, Google didn’t have a Top Stories box for searches related to the Iowa caucus. Instead, queries like “iowa caucus” returned only organic results and a live, AP-powered primary results box.

The search results pages during the Iowa caucus didn’t show a Top Stories box.

There’s no guarantee what SERPs will look like on election night. It's also very possible Google will position its own results trackers and widgets above publisher content.

Prepare for heavy competition, especially for main queries like "presidential election results." Look at long-tail keywords and localized terms relevant to your audience to break through on search.

Plan live coverage for the night of (and the days after)

Evolving news events with many moving parts like elections likely require a live blog.

Live blog coverage provides readers minute-by-minute information, with links to more relevant content; they often rank for high-volume keywords during big news moments. If your newsroom has capacity to keep a blog fresh and competitive on search, staff it for election night.

It’s entirely possible this election — like 2020 — won’t be called on November 5, so map out coverage plans for Wednesday and the rest of the week, too. Fresh content can do better in search, so that might mean a new blog each day, or updating older files with new content.

Decide early with digital editors so you can prepare those files.

Establish a plan for breakouts and add them to your pre-write tracker. Be ready to pitch these stories to homepage, social and live blog editors, too.

Don’t panic! Order election night pizza and focus on what you can control

Election nights can be high-stakes and high-stress, but advanced planning can help offset the worst of it. The best way to cut down on election night stress is to be over prepared.

Remember to focus on what you can control: your content and your site.

You can’t control the number of Top Stories boxes Google serves. But you can refresh your content and promote it again on the homepage.

You can’t control how long it will take for results to come in, but you can be prepared for multiple scenarios.

You might not win the election night pool, but everyone can take part in another sacred election night tradition: bad pizza.

Keep your primary focus on what’s in your domain, and work with the rest of the team to maximize the reach of your publication’s journalism.

Get our masterclass with Barry Adams!

The bottom line: It’s not too late to prepare for election night 2024. Focus on things you can control, like pulling out evergreen content, putting an internal linking plan together, planning live coverage and enhancing the reach of your journalism on site. Don’t panic, and enjoy the chaos.

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