Source: http://www.findandconvert.com
Laura Oliver wrote an interesting article on Journalism.co.uk at the start of the week which is well worth a read. The piece looks at how more and more newspapers are beginning to rethink their search engine optimisation strategies which not only improve the online experience for the user, but also lead to a rise in traffic.
Head of audience development at the Telegraph, Julian Sambles, said the paper’s plans were about empowering staff with “the knowledge and understanding that they need so they can apply it to their daily production process and make informed decisions about content when they’re writing or publishing it.”
This reminded me of the answer Alan Burkitt-Gray gave me when I asked him if he had to change his writing style with SEO in mind?
All professional journalists adjust their writing and editing style for the medium they’re writing for. So I’d write and/or edit differently for a weekly news magazine, a national title, a monthly technology magazine, a bi-monthly business magazine (which is what GTB is, on paper) and the web — in its many different formats. So writing a headline and standfirst for a one-page feature is very different from writing and editing an item that will appear on a website. Of course.
There is no doubt that journalism constantly evolves and it is interesting to see how SEO is fast becoming a major factor when copy is being produced. Ultimately, I personally think it will always be content that drives the popularity of a site, but there is no doubt that SEO is proving a major factor when trying to get those readers for the first time.
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