5 quick news SEO wins every editor can get right now
Improve your search visibility right now. We share five simple tactics to that can demonstrate the value of SEO and increase the reach of your journalism
Paywall masterclass with WTF is SEO?
We’re pleased to present the third workshop in our series of WTF is SEO? masterclass calls!
Join an all-star lineup for a masterclass on paywall SEO for publishers. Jessie Willms and Shelby Blackley (WTF is SEO?), Barry Adams (Polemic Digital), and Harry Clarkson-Bennett (Leadership in SEO Substack) will lead attendees through two hours of paywall tactics and strategies.
In this session, attendees will:
Learn the fundamentals for the technical side of implementing and optimizing a paywall;
Understand how to build a successful commercial strategy for monetizing your site;
Know how to structure, surface and optimize paywalled content to continue to reach search (and other off-platform) audiences.
Attendees also receive lifetime access to the masterclass slides, a tip sheet, a recording of the call along with a transcript, and a private Slack channel with the experts and other students.
Hello, and welcome back. Jessie here, back from the snowiest day in recent memory! Toronto and a large swath of North America got hit with a massive storm system this weekend, which resulted in more than 40 centimetres of snow. For the laggards still using the imperial system, that’s an extreme volume of snow! We could build a hockey team’s worth of snowmen!
This week: Five quick wins for news SEO! Search is a long-term investment and long-term gain, but there are incremental things you can do to accrue wins right away. These wins prove the value of SEO, making it easier to request bigger investments in the future.
Let’s get it.
THE HOW TO
Five quick news SEO wins
SEO is a long-term investment. Consistent effort over time is the way to meaningfully improve your site’s overall visibility on search. But work done now can make an impact. By executing — and documenting — quick news SEO wins, you highlight the value of your work. This increases buy-in for SEO, too, making it easier to do that long-term work.
Here are five things to take action on right now to see results.
1. Highlight and share key lessons to the newsroom
What it is: Communicate to the newsroom what success looks like for your journalism on search. Identify a specific area of opportunity, or a tactic that is working right now. Explain to the newsroom through a report or analysis why it worked and why it is an important consideration for growth.
How to do it: Internal reports can be as straightforward as a Slack message or brief email to relevant editors highlighting a quick win. From there, if you haven’t already, build out a daily or weekly performance report that showcases effective tactics (a well-optimized headline, consistent internal linking to showcase E.E.A.T, a live blog that had great visibility, etc.).
Internal reporting should inform the newsroom about performance and opportunities, create a space for celebrating wins and experiments, while encouraging feedback and constructive criticism.
A short Slack message could be: “Because of close collaboration between audience and editing teams, all Oscar nominations coverage included strong internal linking between related stories and tag pages. Along with other efforts, this helped drive 100k page views across all Oscars coverage, up from 80k PVs last year. Internal linking increased referral traffic, too: we saw a 12% lift in per-visit page views compared to last year. In short, we found and kept more readers than we did last year. Let’s keep this up for the BAFTAs.”
This creates a space to celebrate the win and recognize the work involved in executing search strategy. The message clearly explains the tactic (internal linking), how it was implemented (cross-team collaboration), the impact (increased page views and internal referrals) and when/how to repeat (the next tentpole event).
News SEO is most effective when learnings are communicated to the entire newsroom (and not just audience teams).
2. Internal linking
What it is: Internal links are hyperlinks from one page on your website to another. They are an SEO “superpower,” helping Google and readers discover additional content. Google uses internal links to understand which pages are important, while connecting relevant information on a topic together.
How to do it: Internal linking should be done all the time, starting with high-value stories. Link to relevant tag/topic pages, related stories, previous coverage and other important pages as it demonstrates E.E.A.T signals that are important both for search and AI visibility.
Use relevant keywords for the anchor text (i.e., the hyperlinked text) and avoid linking on “here” or irrelevant words.
If you notice many stories are missing internal links, send a short reminder to the relevant editors. People are busy! Sometimes things get missed. As SEO editors, it’s our job to establish best practices and ensure they’re followed.
3. Breakout opportunities for “trending” stories
What is it: A news SEO tactic that involves looking for additional story opportunities within a coverage area. It is “broken out” from the main story or aggregated from exclusive reporting. This includes uncovering questions and topics with rising interest on search, new formats to add to your coverage, or reviewing existing content to see if it is too broad.
How to do it: Review coverage on a storyline. Use Google Trends or social media to identify the questions readers are asking, then use your editorial judgment to determine if there are other stories that would be useful to the reader.
For example, within ‘winter storm,’ there’s interest in ‘weather map.’ Does your coverage include a visual guide for the extreme weather event? If you have a map embedded in stories, can it live as a standalone page, or could the headline be revisited to signal the visual element?
On Google Trends for ‘winter storm,’ there’s rising interest in ‘amtrak cancellations winter storm.’ If geographically relevant, is there capacity for a service journalism piece on just train delays, cancellations and travel advisories?
If you have a main explainer (’what we know so far’) that answers many questions, can it be split up? Instead of answering everything in one big piece, would two or three shorter guides better serve specific reader and search interest?
Additional content creates the opportunity to create a topic cluster, which helps build subject matter expertise and authority. Link between each piece, and aim to package the coverage on your homepage for maximum impact.
4. Perform a technical audit
What it is: A technical SEO audit is an evaluation of a website’s structural foundation. The goal is to identify and fix any technical issues that might negatively impact a site’s search performance. In an AI world, a technically sound site is imperative. “Quick win” technical audits are more narrow in scope.
How to do it: Using the SEO tool of your choosing — or even Google Search Console — check for error messages, broken backlinks and low-value pages.
Error messages like 500s (a server issue that affects site access) can impact crawl budget and Google’s inclination to return to your website. 400-level errors (404 and 410) offer no value to readers and can impact user experience and ranking. These should be reduced and implemented appropriately. 400-level errors are acceptable, but links shouldn’t be to 404s (more below).
Backlinks are when an external site provides a link to a page on your site. However, if these are broken — providing 500s, 400s or 300s — these can impact your site health and authority. If a page is broken or passing through a redirect, it also impacts the link’s value. Fix broken backlinks by emailing the brand in question to correct the link; implementing proper 301s across site; and fixing those links that redirect; and disavowing spammy links.
Low-value pages are URLs that have little or no added value to readers. These can be tag pages with very few stories linked, author pages for writers with limited output, articles with fewer than 100 words or data pages with limited text. They’re often considered thin content and contribute to crawl budget waste, or can be hit by a manual action for spam. To fix, expand the page’s content, merge it with related pages or consider deleting/redirecting the page entirely.
Improving the technical health of your overall website is not quick, but changes — even small implementations — can have an immediate and substantial impact on your performance.
5. Review and revise title tags and subheadings of high-value pages
What it is: Headlines and subheadings can always be improved. Review your newsroom’s recent output and look for ways to improve the on-page SEO, specifically the H1 and H2 headings.
How to do it: Review the title tag and headlines to ensure they mirror how people actually search for the topic. Set reader expectations in the headline (i.e., if it’s an explainer, consider ‘what is X’ language; if it’s a visual guide, consider ‘X topic in maps and charts’). Consider A/B testing headlines, or trying different variations for different headline fields (if you can).
Take stock of the page’s H2s (or subheadings) as well. Subheadings are very useful for answering audience questions, while catering directly to a phrase readers use to search. These headings should help readers skim a piece and navigate the page, and be written with long-tail queries in mind.
The bottom line: SEO is a long-term investment. But there are some quick — and efficient — wins you can implement right now to benefit your publication’s visibility on search.
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THE JOBS LIST
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RECOMMENDED READING
Google news and updates
🤖 Google: Personal Intelligence in AI Mode in Search: Help that’s uniquely yours.
Even more recommended reading
1️⃣ Danny Goodwin: The same URL in AI Overviews and organic search results (i.e., blue links) counts as one Google Search Console impression.
🔎 Roger Montti: Jesse Dwyer of Perplexity explains how AI search works.
💰 Matt G. Southern: 56 per cent of CEOs report that AI has neither lowered costs nor increased revenue over the past year.
🪦 Ethan Smith: Debunking the myth that search is dying.
↘️ Danny Goodwin: Organic search traffic is down 2.5 per cent year-over-year, according to new data.
‼️ Despina Gavoyannis: SEO for brand marketing: How to create a brand guide that drives search visibility.
🔬 Harry Clarkson-Bennett: How to analyze Google Discover.
What did you think of this week’s newsletter?
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Catch up: Last week’s newsletter
Have something you’d like us to discuss? Send us a note on Twitter (Jessie or Shelby) or to our email: seoforjournalism@gmail.com.
Written by Jessie Willms and Shelby Blackley
I find point 4 a bit misleading for the journalism industry. In most newsrooms, there is a clear divide between content editors and the technical team. Expecting an editor to conduct a technical audit is unrealistic, as their focus is on content strategy and quality. Technical health is a job for developers or dedicated SEO experts, not the editorial staff.
Couldn't agree more. The discussion on smart paywall optimisation for search audinces is incredibily insightful. What if search engines eventually require an explicit 'paywall API' for optimal indexing, like a digital bouncer?