How to succeed as a news SEO
We asked industry leaders from NBC, The Athletic, Vox, Red Ventures, NYT Cooking and The Washington Post for tips on how to be a high-achieving newsroom SEO
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Hello, and welcome back. Jessie here, fresh from a long walk through Torontoās ravines and giving my credit card a good workout ā two trips in the books! Itāll be a summer of yoga retreating off the coast of B.C., and paddling through northern Ontario. Shelby, meanwhile, is enjoying a birthday trip to sunny Jamaica!
This week: You landed the job. Youāve met the section editors. You retrained Slack with the correct emojis in the quick-serve bar ( š, š, š). Youāre ready to crush it as a newsroom SEO editor ā but how? We reached out to editors from NBC, The Athletic, Vox, Red Ventures, The Washington Post and The New York Times Cooking for tips on how to be a high-achieving newsroom SEO.Ā
ALSO! We are š SO THRILLED š to announce our first-ever masterclass call with
of Polemic Digital and the SEO for Google News newsletter. Join us March 28. More details and registration information now available. (Also available: Totes!)Ā
Letās get it.
THE HOW TO
What are the characteristics of a really strong audience or SEO editor?Ā
āHigh-achieving news SEOs are able to combine a strong editorial sensibility with a strong understanding of the search landscape in which their newsroom is trying to compete,ā says Alexia LaFata, Senior SEO Manager at Vox Media.
Crafting great content
They should have editing or writing experience and a strong grasp of their publicationās brand so theyāre better positioned to make āpitches and recommendations that would not only succeed in search, but would also be well-received by an editorial team,ā Alexia says.
Alongside these editorial abilities, a good SEO editor should also have enough data and analysis understanding so that they can āturn an SEO analyst's recommendations into traffic success for their brand,ā Alexia says.Ā
āA great audience editor is a great coach and reader advocate,ā says Candace Mitchell, the Senior SEO editor for the Washington Post. These editors can translate research into āactionable insightsā and can explain the why behind their recommendations, Candace says.Ā Ā
Building trust and strong relationships
Earning the trust of newsroom colleagues is key to your overall performance, says Kyle Sutton, Director of SEO at The Points Guy (Red Ventures). āIf SEO consulting has been a revolving door for a publisher, it can be difficult to hear new or potentially conflicting guidance and make for a tougher road to buy-in for the next person in line. But if you can level-set with the team early on and really work to forge those relationships, itāll make your job much easier and, in turn, the team more successful,ā he says.Ā
Erin Seims, the SEO Director of Cooking at The New York Times, agrees. āBuilding relationships and continuous communication is the most successful way to get buy-in for SEO,ā she says. āI look for individuals who have experience doing just this.ā
The ultimate objective of news SEO, Kyle says, is about āexpanding reach and audience.ā The most direct path to success is to make SEO compelling for an editor ā instead of just another item on a long checklist of to dos. Advice should be ārelatable yet actionable,ā he says.Ā
A really successful newsroom SEO will always āgo the extra mileā to really embed within editorial teams, Kyle says. That means joining standups, editorial planning for tentpole events or post-mortem meetings, he says. āBy presenting yourself as a team player, [section editors will be] much more likely to reach out to you directly and collaborate on strategy.āĀ
Thatās the difference, Candace explains, between pointing to a Google Trends report, saying āX is trending,ā and communicating people-first guidance. Using language like āreaders are searching for XYZ, likely with the intent of learning XYZ and I think X reporter can fill this reader's need by writing X story in Z way because they have experience covering this topicā is much more effective, she says.Ā
Understand the brand ā and take accountabilityĀ
Jason Mandragona, the Senior Director of Audience at NBCUniversal News Group, reiterates the importance of knowing trending topics that make sense for a brand. A strong SEO editor, he says, must have keen editorial abilities, but also need to be able to āidentify trending topics that align with our brandsā editorial voice, while also deconstructing these trends to tailor content for the specific queries of our audience.āĀ
SEO editors are editors, says Claudio E. Cabrera, the VP of Newsroom Strategy and Audience at The Athletic. In some newsrooms, SEO editors are sometimes not fully considered editorial staffers, or are thought of as ātraffic chasersā who just share trends and search volume stats. Instead, Claudio says, the best SEO editors have the ability to help section editors visualize what a story would look like ā including the story angle, story structure, possible headlines and who in the newsroom can write it.Ā
A sharp editor can differentiate between good and bad pitches ā and be accountable for the shortcomings of their efforts. Where some staffers might blame rejection on the assigning editor, a great editor will see where they couldāve made better strategic decisions. āIād like to just see audience teams as a whole really sit down with themselves and say āI could have been betterā here,ā Claudio says.
Meanwhile, evangelizing SEO in a newsroom āisnāt just about traffic but about lessons,ā Claudio says. Instead of reporting on traffic numbers alone, great SEOs can explain why coverage succeeded, how it stood out from previous years, or the lessons to be learned from competitors.Ā
Be curious and open to collaborationĀ
Curiosity, says Rocky Rhodes, Senior SEO Manager at Foundry, is a central trait of the best SEOs. These editors are ādriven as much by their curiosity as they are by any other incentive,ā he says. āThey are hungry to find an answer to a question, and are curious and tenacious problem solvers.āĀ
Many organizations wonāt always have all the necessary information to make a decision right away ā so going outside the traditional avenues, Rocky says, is a necessary next step. āIf youāve iteratively Googled the problem and still donāt have a satisfactory answer, be willing to try something else ā and keep trying something else when that fails,ā he says. That could be progressional networks, online forums, other internal or external data.
āThe best SEOs have a high degree of tenacity to overcome obstacles and find the motivation to try other routes to the solution when one avenue fails to produce results,ā Rocky says.
Great SEO editors champion collaboration ā within the newsroom and across the organization. Erin says the ability to work with technical and non-technical staffers is an essential skill. āThe willingness to translate SEO best practices and industry updates to different types of stakeholdersā is a trait she looks for when hiring.Ā
Being curious about what readers are looking for, then effectively communicating with newsroom colleagues and translating search research into a framework that resonates with reporters are hugely valuable characteristics of the high-achieving SEO editor.Ā
How do you motivate your team to work in a way that supports the big picture?
Audience should not feel separated from the wider newsroom ā since the objective of the team is in alignment with the overall publication. āPart of our mission is to translate search KPIs and objectives into a language reporters and editors can understand,ā Candace says. āMy teamās skills shine best when weāre highly engaged with editors early in a storyline, in the planning phase rather than getting looped in to optimize for search audiences at the end,ā she adds.Ā
Kyle echoes the sentiment, saying: āItās important to understand your role in the bigger picture and how your teamās effort can ultimately meet those goals.ā While business-side targets with subscriptions or advertising revues are not always the metrics audience editors care about the most, itās worthwhile to connect editorial efforts with overall success.Ā
When SEO research helps drive thousands of page views to a story ā and bring in subscribers ā thatās a success. āCelebrating those wins can help bridge those gaps and show the team how theyāre making an impact,ā he says.
As a manager, are there things you wish your staff were more internally motivated on (or were more keen to improve on)?
āInformation equals influence,ā Rocky says. Aspire to be someone who can make sense of data and produce clear insights. āDonāt shy away from digging into tough problems that may not have immediately clear solutions,ā he says.Ā
Excelling means taking ownership over your work ā meaning āthe buck stops with youā for all things SEO. āOwnership requires advocacy for the direction of your site toward best practices, a willingness to keep asking questions, and over-communicating your roadmap and initiatives to stakeholders,ā Rocky says. āIt's totally fine to say āI don't have that answer right now, but I'll look into it and get back to youā ā as long as you actually do look into it and follow up,ā he adds.Ā
Effective communication and collaboration within audience and SEO teams is essential for achieving the overarching and shared goals of both teams, Jason says. This collaboration means teams are invested in each otherās successes. āIt injects a lot of fun and motivation into what will be a very busy year for our group,ā he says.
Identifying the areas where you need to grow professionally can be a challenge for anyone ā at any level within an organization. That means knowing your strengths, weaknesses and being eager to make progress is a key skill. āConstructive feedback isnāt always easy to hear, but keeping an open mind and assuming positive intent can go a long way to making those improvements,ā Kyle says.Ā
The bottom line: High-achieving SEO editors have strong editorial sensibilities, know what makes a great pitch and arenāt afraid of feedback. They understand the dynamics of search and can translate data into actionable insights for their newsroom. Like any other newsroom editor, theyāre curious, tenacious and eager to collaborate with the wider newsroom to drive audience growth and engagement. Sharp SEO editors understand broader publication goals, communicate effectively and celebrate the successes of colleagues.Ā
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THE JOBS LISTĀ
Audience or SEO jobs in journalism. Want to include a position for promotion? Email us.
Vox Media is hiring an SEO Analyst to support our commerce SEO efforts (remote ā US only).Ā
The Athletic is hiring an Associate Newsroom SEO Editor (Remote, U.S. or Canada).
Boston Globe Media is hiring a Newsroom Initiatives Senior Coordinator (Boston, USA).
RECOMMENDED READINGĀ
š¤ Google news and updatesĀ
Google: New scrolling carousel that displays as a rich result that can be used for products, local businesses and eventsĀ
Google is testing a new "Most-read articles" carousel.
(Wonder how theyāre deciding whatās āmost-readā? Must be links and clicks ā eh,
?)
Google Canada: Canadaās Online News Act and the open call process
Even more recommended readingĀ
šļø Adweek: Google is paying a handful of local news publishers to test using generative AI products to produce three stories per day. View the conversation on SEO for Journalism.Ā
š Steve Toth: Hereās how to copy Googleās Auto Suggest results directly from the search bar.
šļø Lily Ray: What's up with all these spammy results on Google in 2024?Ā
š§ People vs Algorithms podcast: Dotdash Meredith CEO Neil Vogel talks about how a publisher reliant on search traffic is back in growth mode (and much, much more).Ā
šÆ Search Engine Journal: How should SEOs implement E.E.A.T in their strategies according to recent statements from Googleās SearchLiaison?
šļø Search Engine Journal: āGoogleās beta AI content rewriting tool is said to be āincentivizing the production of AI-generated slop.āā
šļø Chris Long on LinkedIn: Hereās how quickly Googleās results have morphed into ecommerce results.Ā
Ā š° Nieman Lab: Google tests removing the News tab from search results. See the conversation on our SEO for Journalism Slack.
Google Search Liaison: āThe News filter is available to users now and we do not have plans to remove it.ā
John Shehata: The News filter drives less than two per cent of clicks to publishers.
š Glenn Gabe: āHeads-up! We've seen some crazy volatility over the past week or so.ā
š¼ The Daily Beast: Three progressive media outlets ā Raw Story, AlterNet and The Intercept ā have ājoined The New York Times in suing the ChatGPT creator, the latest salvo in an ongoing battle between the media and artificial intelligence.ā
š¼ Search Engine Roundtable: āGoogle has posted its post-trial debrief document for the DOJ trial that talks about many different things, including stating that its search quality continues to improve.ā
What did you think of this week's newsletter?Ā
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Have something youād 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 BlackleyĀ