How to start a new news SEO job

So, you just started a new SEO role! Here are seven steps to starting your news SEO job on sure footing.

Feb 03, 2025

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Hello, and welcome back. Jessie here, back from a very snowy weekend in Toronto. I spent an above-average amount of time indoors, primarily watching The Pitt and sewing the scrap monster (the ever-growing monstrosity of my too-tiny fabric cast offs).

This week: So, you just started a new SEO role! Exciting times. Here are seven steps to starting your news SEO role on sure footing. Tell us in the comments (or on Slack) what we missed.

This Thursday: Join us, in partnership with Indiegraf, for a free webinar on writing headlines that rank!
Also this month: Our next community call is February 19 at 3 p.m. ET/8 p.m. GMT. Mark it in your calendars and see you there!

Sitting *this* close to your new colleagues is not required to excel at your new job (but getting to know your colleagues is).

Let’s get it.

In this issue:

Understanding organizational goals
Technical and content audits
Planning next steps

THE 101

SEO is a long-game. It requires consistent effort, which should start in your first weeks in your new SEO role. It’s crucial you use this time to learn your outlet’s goals, meet with newsroom and key stakeholders and review where your organization currently stands in search. Here’s how to make use of that new job energy for long-term success.

THE HOW TO

Understand the organization’s goals, objectives and KPIs

To build a successful SEO strategy, you need to know the organization’s high-level business and editorial goals.

Ultimately, the goal of SEO is increasing traffic.

Other KPIs — like a paywalled site growing its subscriber base or a non-paywall site increasing time spent metrics — are part of the broader audience strategy. SEO plays a huge role in both examples, but the focus and prioritization of tasks will vary depending on the end goal.

Dan Shure, an SEO consultant, recommends asking for available audience insights or personas to understand who the outlet is trying to reach with its journalism. He says SEO editors should also get a grasp of the “end goals” — revenue or subscriptions targets, for example — for the publication over the next six, 12 and 24 months.

Andriy Terentyev, an SEO consultant and advisor for the Kyiv Independent, says understanding the financial budget is another early must-have. “It's crucial to make sure our SEO goals align with the company's overall objectives and that we have the necessary resources,” he says.

Get to know the newsroom

Identify the SEO champions in the newsroom you can collaborate with as soon as possible. Newsroom training should be an early priority. This helps establish best practices for the day-to-day workflow, but also help you get to know the editors and writers who are keen to adopt these tactics.

Dan recommends asking about the existing workflow for the editorial team, including how stories go from ideation to final approval, existing planning documents and the weekly output totals. “All of the above (and more) would help me understand how to think about priorities, content planning and next steps,” he says.

Ella Jinadu, audience editor for The Filter at The Guardian, agrees with that sentiment, and underscores the value of collaboration. “I think the most important thing is figuring out how you can best work with the team around you,” she says.

Training becomes really valuable here. Think about how to create opportunities for colleagues to learn about your work and expertise. Start with a drop-in meeting, then create a recurring calendar of newsroom training when you have established yourself in the newsroom.

Start with a technical audit or review

Solid technical SEO is the foundation of all good SEO. In the first weeks of your new role, get a clear sense of your publication’s technical health.

Before anything else, ensure your publication is indexing properly. Search “site:SITENAME.COM” to check if URLs are showing up in results. If they are, then the site is being seen by Google.

If they are not, and there’s a “Try Google Search Console” recommendation (see screenshot), then review:

Your robots.txt file to ensure it’s not blocking crawlers;
Your site’s source code for a “noindex” directive on the homepage (and important pages);
Google Search Console’s Pages report to see which URLs are currently indexed.

From there, perform a full crawl of your site using an SEO tool, such as Screaming Frog or Sitebulb. Consult SEMRush and Ahrefs for fulsome guides on conducting an audit — but keep in mind these are not specific to news SEO. They will likely highlight issues that are not applicable to your site.

The goal of this technical check is to understand your site's SEO health and identify big red flags that need immediate attention. Track this in a spreadsheet or Google doc.

Some key considerations include:

Is my site indexed properly? Is all content being crawled and indexed as expected?
Are robots.txt files and XML sitemaps properly configured with no redirections or 404 pages?
How much thin and duplicate content does the site have? What about orphan pages?
What is the benchmark for site speed and Core Web Vitals?
How many redirects are currently on my site? Are they necessary and implemented correctly?
Identify any redirect hops. Can you eliminate them?
What is the site’s backlink profile?
Do you have AMP? Evaluate if it’s currently necessary; if yes, ensure it’s implemented properly.
Is there a logical site hierarchy with a proper navigation and linking structure to help with crawling and user experience?
…and more.

If budget and timing allows, consider a full technical SEO audit by an expert like Barry Adams. Consultants provide neutral, third party perspectives that prioritize your next steps.

Review our technical SEO newsletters and Barry’s talk on conducting a technical audit, as well as the above Ahrefs/SEMRush guides to add more questions to the list. Ahrefs’ audit template can help organize your work.

Ella suggests noting “as many things as possible that seem interesting or unusual with the site.” Doing this early into your tenure is helpful, she explains, because “once you've been there a while, quirks that you'd initially noted as needing fixing can start to seem normal.”

At the end of your technical audit, review your spreadsheet and identify key immediate action items. What issues can be sent to your developer/site team to fix? An audit is meaningless if recommendations are not acted upon.

Pro tip: Refactoring has a great tip sheet for getting your SEO requests approved.

Zoom out and analyze current search traffic levels

If you, like numerous publishers, have experienced traffic declines recently, analyze what has changed. Use the GSC Guardian Chrome Extension in Search Console to see major Google algorithm updates visually overlaid on your site's performance. This helps to identify if traffic changes align with updates or are due to other factors.

Extract the GSC data into a spreadsheet then conduct data analysis to identify and compare topic areas where you ranked well before versus now. Review your current coverage to see if it has the correct E.E.A.T signals, is properly linked together and follows on-page best practices.

When initially reviewing content, Dan says news SEOs should note the content types/formats with strong performance and visibility. If, for example, local evergreen guides perform well, that’s a format to be replicated on future stories.

Oleg Korneitchouk, an SEO consultant, shares the same perspective. “When I first audit a website, I like to break down the organic traffic by template to get a better feel for which sections are performing well (or poorly) and the types of keywords they rank for,” he explains.

Page templates and common formats also likely align with how the website is structured. “It is usually also efficient for developers to implement technical SEO updates by template, as they can knock out several changes to a single file,” says Oleg.

Fair warning: Declines in search and social traffic is something many publications around the world are experiencing. What used to work may no longer guarantee success.

Focus on what you can change and celebrate the little wins you secure, while communicating effectively with senior leadership about the long term risks to your site.

Understand your site’s visibility and current ranking

News SEO is all about maximizing the reach of your outlet’s journalism. Establish clear benchmarks for overall search visibility, keyword(s) ranking and general traffic trends.

Search visibility, typically expressed as a percentage, is the amount of available traffic your site receives overall or for specific keywords. Compared to raw traffic, it’s a more holistic benchmark from which you can improve (and here’s how).

Review your historic visibility. Over the last 12 to 18 months, how has your visibility changed? In that period, was there a major Google update, or rollout of new SERP features? Were there technical changes, like a redesign or migration? Can you isolate the cause?

Keyword ranking — where on search results your outlet’s content appears — tells you the topics/queries where Google is already rewarding your output. What are your top-referring keywords now, and how has that changed over time? Where there are fluctuations, is that because of changes in the news cycle (i.e., a major event concluded) or the impact of a core update?

While reviewing your current keyword ranking, also:

Find keywords your competitors rank for, but you don’t. Content gaps — where other outlets rank for important keywords that you don’t — can be addressed with SEO-informed editorial planning.
Identify what content and keyword opportunities exist. Use Google Search Console or Ahrefs/Semrush to find the keywords already driving traffic to your site. Use those, plus Google Trends, Glimpse or People Also Ask, to analyze other keyword opportunities. For terms that align with your editorial priorities, create a content strategy accordingly.
Compare branded and non-branded search terms. Determine what portion of traffic comes from readers actively seeking out your publication (branded) versus those looking for topics that you have an established authority on (non-branded).

Ensure best practices are documented and communicated

In your first three months, try to get an understanding of the content publishing process. From there, make sure reporters, assigning and copy editors have access to SEO best practice documentation.

We have covered best practices for on-page SEO in depth. Review our best practice guide (with a checklist!), along with individual editions on winning headline strategies, internal link strategy, image SEO and subheadings for more guidance.

Ensure your newsroom has easy access to your internal best practices. Conduct regular training sessions to reinforce best practices (and get to know more colleagues). Don't be afraid to remind editors of your guidance in the daily workflow when necessary. Here’s how to run a successful newsroom training.

Review initial analysis and identify next steps

After reviewing your website’s technical health and content performance, you should have a list of issues and opportunities to tackle. From this, create a prioritized list of tasks to complete and strategies to develop.

Work with your product team and developers to address the biggest technical fixes. Find editors and reporters in the newsroom who will champion SEO best practices. Make a game plan to collaborate on projects big and small, offering guidance where possible.

Create a calendar reminder for each quarter to review the list of opportunities and track your progress. Communicate regularly to senior leadership, making effective internal reports part of your recurring work.

Good luck! And remember: SEO is a long game. Small, incremental updates that align with an overall strategy lead to long term success.

Get our GSC masterclass with Barry Adams

The bottom line: Start by understanding your outlet’s goals, then conduct content and technical audits to understand your website’s health. Create and share best practices, and hold training sessions to communicate those standard habits.

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