How to run a post-mortem

Turns out: The debrief starts during news. Keep screenshots and notes in one central place (a Slack thread) so the review is easy

Jun 24, 2024

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Hello, and welcome back. Shelby here, counting down the days until my new puppy is in my possession (five days!). I can see clearly into my future: Corgi glitter (so much fur), nightly debauchery, no more sleep and a large credit card bill because I keep buying toys. I can’t wait.

This week:

📅 Mark your calendars! On July 17 at 11:00 a.m. ET/3:00 p.m. GMT, we’re hosting another community call! The topic: Help! My traffic is declining! What should I do? More details to follow soon.
Also! If you’re a solo news SEO, join our new, private channel to talk about the unique challenges of being the only search person in a newsroom.

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This is a team of people ready and eager to review critical feedback. Photo by Redd F on Unsplash

Let’s get it.

In this issue:

What is a post-mortem and why is it important?
When and how to start planning for a post-mortem.
Executing a post-mortem effectively.

THE 101

What is a post-mortem? Why are they important?

A post-mortem is an examination of how a publication performed on a news moment conducted after an event is done. It's a retrospective on what went well, what went wrong and what can be improved next time. It’s also an opportunity to get buy-in for SEO — as it highlights how your work as a news SEO contributed to overall success.

These lookbacks include scrutinizing everything from the preparation, execution, communication, collaboration and overall performance of the event and its stories.

Why are post-mortems important? One of the foundations of news SEO is buy-in. Post-mortems are effective because you not only look back at everything that was done, but you provide all stakeholders an opportunity to reflect.

A post-mortem can be conducted in multiple ways, depending on the importance of the news moment. An in-person/virtual meeting with all stakeholders is the most effective — and preferred — method, because you get to hear from more than just one team involved.

Who should be there? All stakeholders. This is a great chance to talk to people outside your SEO/audience team that have different perspectives.

Sometimes that’s not possible, or the learnings are meant for a smaller group. In that case, an internal report is perfectly fine.

Organize a post-mortem when it makes sense. These can take time from peoples’ schedules, but are an important factor in reviewing your performance and getting better. Try to slot 45-minutes for the meeting.

Look at post-mortems as teaching moments. The best way to get better is by being open to constructive criticism and feedback. Also, use this time to reinforce SEO best practices, highlighting stories or moments where search was a major driver of traffic, and where you saw opportunities to try something new in the future.

The more you reinforce SEO best practices — and show how they contribute to overall success — the more they will be ingrained in an editor’s mind as overall best practices.

THE HOW TO

How to plan for a post-mortem

1. Create a place to communicate with your team and collect notes and screenshots

To plan for a post-mortem, you have to have your end goal in mind from the beginning. Create a Slack channel to house communication, notes and screenshots for a news moment, so it saves you time later when compiling the review.

Make use of Slack threads and/or a Google doc to compile this information. This also allows you to be more effective in the moment, when you have so many teams working together.

During breaking news moments at The Athletic, a member of the audience team creates a thread in our channel for communication and collaboration. This thread houses everything — screenshots of push alerts, communication on who has worked on the headline and URL, which social editor is posting on which platforms, if we’ve pitched the story on other surfaces (like Apple News), and every other lever we pull.

The thread acts as a mini post-mortem for editors to reflect on their process. After, if the event is big enough, what is posted in the thread gets added to a bigger report for wider distribution.

Take the initiative to create these threads — whatever information you need to effectively execute a post-mortem is your responsibility.

2. Add stakeholders to the process early

A lot of people across your organization are involved in big events, or even in routine breaking news moments. Everyone has a different perspective, too, that can be helpful for understanding gaps in the process.

Add key stakeholders as soon as possible to any channels, reporting and documents. The earlier all stakeholders are looped in, the more likely they will contribute and you'll get a more complete picture.

Pro tip: Audience editors are customer service. Our best skill is asking, “how can we help?” Invite stakeholders to provide feedback early and often. Ask if trend information is better, or if they need help with publishing times on a set of similar stories.

3. Keep detailed notes about how the event went

During big news, we’re all busy. It’s nearly impossible to optimize a story, work with editors, watch SERPs, look at Google Trends, pitch stories while also keeping notes of any kind. That’s why Slack threads or documents are so important.

Do your best to keep notes on how things are going during the news moment. You never have more clarity about what is and isn't working — or the level of effort involved — as when you're doing it.

For example, during the Euro 2024 tournament, a player gets a second yellow card in two games, which means he is suspended for the next game. Suddenly, The Athletic’s story on the rules around yellow card suspensions takes off on Chartbeat, denoting a spike from search.

When I’m observing this, I'll take a screenshot of Chartbeat and write down the peak concurrents from search, plus a screenshot of the Google landscape. This information then gets relayed to an editor involved in the news on Slack, and included in our thread. That communication and documentation makes it much easier during the post-mortem to reinforce our strategies around explainers and being prepared before an event.

Share this newsletter with a colleague who runs effective meetings!

4. Set the in-person/virtual meeting as soon as possible post-event

Once again, we’re all busy! And likely, if the event is a tentpole or planned news event, some editors will take time off after to recuperate. Wait 48-72 hours for teams to process and debrief before hosting a post-mortem. You want all stakeholders to have their freshest thoughts before they move on to the next event.

5. Be self-reflective and critical

Feedback truly is a gift. It is the only way we get better. And looking at what you can do better can help you become a better news SEO.

News SEO is all about learning on the job.You won't know every great tactic right away. But after a few events/moments, you’ll feel a lot more comfortable.

Ask yourself, “what could I have done better?”

Could you have offered a headline quicker? Or adjusted the headline after some time based on interest?
Were you too hesitant to pitch a story idea because you weren’t sure how it’d be received?
Did you forget to link a story because you were busy on something else?
Could you have reached out to the editor sooner to get a better understanding of their upcoming stories?
Did something technically go awry, but you weren’t sure how to fix it, but want to learn how?

A lot of the time, we look at the above as failures. But they’re not. They’re learning moments for the next time a news event comes around.

6. Beginning compiling your data as soon as possible

Wait 24-48 hours after the event is over, then start compiling your report. If your organization doesn't have a set process, use our template for breaking news moments. Here are some other things (and metrics) to consider:

Organic traffic from search: How did search perform for this event? What percentage of traffic was organic search? Which stories broke through? Did any stories overperform expectations?
Keywords: For the targeted keywords, did your stories rank on the first page? Were there other keywords that overperformed/broke out?
- Check Google Search Console or another SEO tool to see which keywords drove the most traffic to your stories. Were those the keywords you targeted?
Competitors: Use a news SEO-specific tool, or a general analysis of the SERPs, to determine how you and your competitors fared. Did they constantly beat you in SERPs, or did you find that you stuck around more?
- Competitive analysis is also a great way to show your newsroom you’re always keeping an eye elsewhere.
Other SEO considerations: How did Google crawl your content? Were you consistently updating stories and live blogs? How did you link stories together? If it was a scoop or a breaking news moment, did you see any aggregation from other outlets?

7. Run the meeting and keep notes (for next time)

Facilitate a meeting focused on growth. Ask the following questions to get a sense of the key takeaways:

What did the team do well?
How do we feel we did from a coverage perspective?
What stood out from an editorial perspective?
Was there anything new — topics/entities, formats or approaches — that really took off? Can we include this in coverage going forward?
How did we feel search performed?
How did social/programming/other surfaces perform?
What are some things we learned in the moment that we could not have known?
If applicable: What stories drove subscriptions? Which had the best engagement/retention levels?

Everything in a post-mortem is about learning for next time. Keep notes and identify where you can grow.

The bottom line: The post-mortem starts during big news moments. Keep all your communication, notes and screenshots in a centralized Slack channel or thread so when it’s time to regroup, you’re ready. During the debrief, solicit and accept critical feedback — all so you’re better prepared next time.

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THE JOBS LIST

Audience or SEO jobs in journalism. Want to include a position for promotion? Email us.

The Athletic is hiring an Associate Newsroom SEO Editor (Remote, CAN/US eligible).
Business Insider is hiring an SEO Manager (NYC, remote eligible).
Newsweek is hiring an SEO Journalist (preference in the UK).