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

Mar 04, 2024

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Hello, and welcome back. Jessie here, fresh from a long walk through Toronto’s ravines and giving my credit card a good workout — two trips in the books! It’ll 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. You’ve met the section editors. You retrained Slack with the correct emojis in the quick-serve bar ( 🎉, 👀, 🙃). You’re ready to crush it as a newsroom SEO editor — 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.

ALSO! We are 🎉 SO THRILLED 🎉 to announce our first-ever masterclass call with
Barry Adams
of Polemic Digital and the SEO for Google News newsletter. Join us March 28. More details and registration information now available. (Also available: Totes!)

Let’s get it.

THE HOW TO

What are the characteristics of a really strong audience or SEO editor?

“High-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,” 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 publication’s brand so they’re better positioned to make “pitches and recommendations that would not only succeed in search, but would also be well-received by an editorial team,” Alexia says.

Alongside these editorial abilities, a good SEO editor should also have enough data and analysis understanding so that they can “turn an SEO analyst's recommendations into traffic success for their brand,” Alexia says.

“A great audience editor is a great coach and reader advocate,” says Candace Mitchell, the Senior SEO editor for the Washington Post. These editors can translate research into “actionable insights” and can explain the why behind their recommendations, Candace says.

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). “If 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, it’ll make your job much easier and, in turn, the team more successful,” he says.

Erin Seims, the SEO Director of Cooking at The New York Times, agrees. “Building relationships and continuous communication is the most successful way to get buy-in for SEO,” she says. “I look for individuals who have experience doing just this.”

The ultimate objective of news SEO, Kyle says, is about “expanding reach and audience.” The most direct path to success is to make SEO compelling for an editor — instead of just another item on a long checklist of to dos. Advice should be “relatable yet actionable,” he says.

A really successful newsroom SEO will always “go the extra mile” to really embed within editorial teams, Kyle says. That means joining standups, editorial planning for tentpole events or post-mortem meetings, he says. “By presenting yourself as a team player, [section editors will be] much more likely to reach out to you directly and collaborate on strategy.”

That’s the difference, Candace explains, between pointing to a Google Trends report, saying “X is trending,” and communicating people-first guidance. Using language like “readers 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 topic” is much more effective, she says.

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Understand the brand — and take accountability

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 “identify trending topics that align with our brands’ editorial voice, while also deconstructing these trends to tailor content for the specific queries of our audience.”

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 “traffic chasers” 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 — including the story angle, story structure, possible headlines and who in the newsroom can write it.

A sharp editor can differentiate between good and bad pitches — 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 could’ve made better strategic decisions. “I’d like to just see audience teams as a whole really sit down with themselves and say ‘I could have been better’ here,” Claudio says.

Meanwhile, evangelizing SEO in a newsroom “isn’t just about traffic but about lessons,” 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.

Be curious and open to collaboration

Curiosity, says Rocky Rhodes, Senior SEO Manager at Foundry, is a central trait of the best SEOs. These editors are “driven as much by their curiosity as they are by any other incentive,” he says. “They are hungry to find an answer to a question, and are curious and tenacious problem solvers.”

Many organizations won’t always have all the necessary information to make a decision right away — so going outside the traditional avenues, Rocky says, is a necessary next step. “If you’ve iteratively Googled the problem and still don’t have a satisfactory answer, be willing to try something else — and keep trying something else when that fails,” he says. That could be progressional networks, online forums, other internal or external data.

“The 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,” Rocky says.

Great SEO editors champion collaboration — within the newsroom and across the organization. Erin says the ability to work with technical and non-technical staffers is an essential skill. “The willingness to translate SEO best practices and industry updates to different types of stakeholders” is a trait she looks for when hiring.

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.

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 — since the objective of the team is in alignment with the overall publication. “Part of our mission is to translate search KPIs and objectives into a language reporters and editors can understand,” Candace says. “My team’s skills shine best when we’re 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,” she adds.

Kyle echoes the sentiment, saying: “It’s important to understand your role in the bigger picture and how your team’s effort can ultimately meet those goals.” While business-side targets with subscriptions or advertising revues are not always the metrics audience editors care about the most, it’s worthwhile to connect editorial efforts with overall success.

When SEO research helps drive thousands of page views to a story — and bring in subscribers — that’s a success. “Celebrating those wins can help bridge those gaps and show the team how they’re making an impact,” he says.

As a manager, are there things you wish your staff were more internally motivated on (or were more keen to improve on)?

“Information equals influence,” Rocky says. Aspire to be someone who can make sense of data and produce clear insights. “Don’t shy away from digging into tough problems that may not have immediately clear solutions,” he says.

Excelling means taking ownership over your work — meaning “the buck stops with you” for all things SEO. “Ownership 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,” Rocky says. “It's totally fine to say ‘I don't have that answer right now, but I'll look into it and get back to you’ — as long as you actually do look into it and follow up,” he adds.

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 other’s successes. “It injects a lot of fun and motivation into what will be a very busy year for our group,” he says.

Identifying the areas where you need to grow professionally can be a challenge for anyone — at any level within an organization. That means knowing your strengths, weaknesses and being eager to make progress is a key skill. “Constructive feedback isn’t always easy to hear, but keeping an open mind and assuming positive intent can go a long way to making those improvements,” Kyle says.

The bottom line: High-achieving SEO editors have strong editorial sensibilities, know what makes a great pitch and aren’t afraid of feedback. They understand the dynamics of search and can translate data into actionable insights for their newsroom. Like any other newsroom editor, they’re 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.

Managers: What did we miss? Tell us in the comments.

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THE JOBS LIST

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 — US only).
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).