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SEO in the Newsroom: Best Practices for Journalists and News Publishers

SEO in the Newsroom: Best practices for journalists and news publishers
SEO in the Newsroom: Best practices for journalists and news publishers

Search engine optimisation (SEO) has always been important for newsrooms to ensure that news and stories reach the right audience at the right moment. But with the growth of generative AI and evolving search algorithms, news editors and journalists must adjust their strategies to remain relevant. Conducting keyword research and strategically placing keywords in articles are still important for ranking in search engines, yet it's not enough on its own. In this guide, we are going to take a look at the key SEO trends influencing newsrooms and what news organisations must focus on to maintain their visibility.

Don’t Forget the Basics: Technical SEO Still Matters

While new trends such as AI-driven search are changing how news content is discovered, the fundamentals of SEO remain just as important for the overall website visibility. Newsrooms must take care of technical SEO to secure a good ranking.

  • Core Web Vitals: Faster-loading pages rank better and improve user experience. You can check your website’s speed using the PageSpeed Insights tool.
  • Mobile Optimisation: With the majority of users reading news on smartphones, a mobile-friendly design is essential. Search engines like Google use mobile-first indexing, which means that Google’s web crawler primarily indexes the mobile version of a website’s content rather than the desktop version.
  • Structured Data: Implementing structured data helps search engines understand a website’s content. For instance, Google recognises numerous structured data markups, so select the one that best aligns with the content and purpose of your pages. By using structured data, your pages can show up as featured snippets or in “Top Stories,” which make your pages stand out from others in search results.
  • Clean URL Structures: URLs with keywords make articles easier to index and improve click-through rates.
  • Crawlability & Indexing: Proper sitemaps, internal linking, and avoiding duplicate content ensure that search engines can efficiently crawl and rank stories.

The Principle of E-E-A-T

Google’s E-E-A-T framework (Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness) is a cornerstone of modern SEO. Newsrooms need to show their credibility with high-quality and industry-specific content to rank well. To achieve a high ranking, you should focus on the following key elements:

  • Experience: Including first-hand reporting, interviews and insights, unique opinions, and original multimedia (such as videos or images) builds credibility.
  • Expertise: Articles reviewed by experts with proven qualifications in their field enhance the value of the news content.
  • Authority: Citing trusted sources and linking to authoritative sites builds up authority.
  • Trustworthiness: Up-to-date and accurate content establishes trust. Transparent author bylines and naming of sources, fact-checking processes, and clear editorial standards strengthen credibility with both readers and search engines.

AI Overviews

For news websites, Google’s AI Overviews have significant potential to fuel  future growth. These short, AI-generated summaries appear at the top of the search engine results page (SERP), above all other types of results. Answers are generated by collecting information from multiple sources, with the relevant links to these sources providing users more information.

The objective of introducing AI Overviews is to improve the search experience by providing quick answers to user queries. The feature is mostly appearing connected to informational queries. Your news site appearing in AI Overviews can increase visibility and click-through rates. At the moment, there are no specific optimisation strategies, but following SEO best practices, such as technical SEO, high-quality content, including keywords in your news article, and backlink building is the best approach.

Additionally, structuring content to answer questions with relevant topics and keywords might help your article appear in AI Overviews.

The Importance of a Good CMS

A reliable content management system (CMS) is crucial for SEO in the newsroom. Modern CMS platforms come with built-in SEO tools, allowing journalists to optimise meta descriptions, alt tags, and URLs, as well as implement schema markup without technical knowledge. It's also important to ensure fast loading times, a key ranking factor for Google, particularly on mobile. When shopping for  newsroom software, always check if it has adequate SEO features, such as those found in Superdesk, which can improve your website’s ranking in search results.

Google Top Stories

Appearing in Google’s Top Stories is one of the most effective ways to drive traffic to your website, especially during breaking news events. Being among the first to cover a story can improve your chances of appearing in Top Stories, but accuracy is just as important. Optimising your content is key, which includes using structured metadata and AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) for better mobile performance. Also, don't forget to update your content as the story develops; this helps maintain rankings and keeps your coverage relevant.

Using a live blogging platform such as Live Blog can also improve a newsroom’s chances of appearing in Top Stories. Live blogs signal ongoing updates, which Google prioritises. Rather than publishing multiple static articles, a well-maintained live blog keeps content centralised and up-to-date, increasing its chances of ranking highly. Live blogs encourage user engagement and longer session durations, both of which are positive signals for Google’s ranking algorithm.

Google News

Google News serves as the main source of news on Google where news articles are gathered from the past 30 days, organised into topics and displayed based on the reader’s location, language settings and interests. For news publishers of all sizes, Google News presents a valuable search ranking opportunity. While larger publishers often seem to have greater visibility, local news outlets can get successful results as well, through features such as the local tab, the “For You” section, and the “News Showcase.” Smaller publishers can also appear in Google News when their authoritative coverage areas are highlighted on a category page.

The Google News Initiative prioritises transparent and original news content by rewarding higher page rankings. Including author bios, credentials, and news organisation details in the article can enhance trust with audiences, improving ranking potential.

To optimise news content for Google News, start by creating clear and factual headlines with relevant keywords in prominent positions. Publishers should prioritise timely, factually accurate content with original reporting. Each article should feature relevant, high-quality images, since most images on Google News appear as thumbnails.

Conclusion

In a competitive media climate, the most successful newsrooms will be those that integrate SEO best practices into every stage of their workflow. By focusing on technical SEO, deploying a strong CMS, and adhering to Google’s E-E-A-T framework, media organisations can ensure their content remains at the top of everyone’s news feed. 

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