Publishing has undoubtedly been experiencing a transition period for a number of years, with the influence of digital that over time has almost completely altered the way users enjoy information. Along with this, a significant weight has taken over the transition from “consumer” to “prosumer”, giving it the opportunity to become the source of new, faster and more accessible information.
Yet this change in the world of publishing does not hint a collapse, rather it expresses the need to intervene and integrate old ways with new strategies. Although the latest data from the Trust Barometer shows how web users feel more confident in search engines and less in traditional information channels, digital subscriptions and visits to official portals of various headlines are on the rise.
Most of the operators in this industry are already working to respond to new needs through tactics and web marketing strategies that we can mainly relate to the SEO for publishing. Organic traffic, the one coming from the visits that result from the “natural” search results, can reach 80-90% of the total traffic in editorial portals; that’s why SEO is currently an efficient tool to try and maintain or increase your visits and, more generally, advertising revenue, the primary source of funding for online news portals.
Still, there are still many doubts about the potential of SEO for publishing or about the influence that new practices have on information quality and authorship of online newspapers. We will deal with this topic together with Alice Tammaro, SEO Specialist at SEO agency Pro Web Consulting, to build a more complete picture of the best SEO practices for publishing.
INFORMATION AND AUTHORITY ON THE WEB: FROM NEWS TO KEYWORD
There is probably still a problem of regarding credibility of online information, caused mainly by the proliferation of improvised newspapers, often of poor quality. However, the expert reminds us that “the average user is now accustomed to differentiating quality sites from baiting sites or low-quality editorial portals“; the game now revolves around the capability of the newspapers to gain reputation and authority through building a solid identity and a clear editorial line.
This, however, also means being able to distinguish the portals that display actual news and portals that touch only hot themes. The SEO specialist points out”In the first case, reporting the news quickly and effectively is the key to compete with other newspapers; in the case of in-depth cases instead, a keywords search could certainly be successful“. By declining the principles of SEO optimization for publishing, it is possible to make editorial calendar planning according to a user-first approach through search intelligence actions, that is to observe the behavior of online users, monitor the most relevant trends and search volumes and sought-after keywords from the target user.
THE IMPORTANCE OF USER EXPERIENCE
An editorial portal must be designed according to a structure that meets the user’s navigation needs: nothing can be entrusted to randomness nor can it resemble the logics that characterize the subdivision of content of a traditional newspaper. User experience, in fact, is definitely the key element in creating and managing an information portal. “By working well on a site’s structure, you can get the twofold advantage of having both good SERP rankings and a positive response from the user in terms of bounce rates,” says Alice Tammaro, who adds that “tagging is often underrated on information portals and on the web in general. A well-tagged tag page allows you to rank for a keyword for which it would be impossible to create a special category on the site, for example, specific terms that are related to a particular period of the year, or topics that become popular in a short time and whose success fell after a few months.”.
Creating categories and subcategories, along with tagging, user-friendliness, site navigation optimization and content consultation, as well as the “presence of “related articles”, is definitely a component to exploit on information sites, as it may entice the user to visit multiple pages and thus decrease the bounce rate. It is clear, however, that if we talk about press agencies, with sites full of synthetic information, the presence of a high bounce rate does not have to scare us but should rather be considered physiological.“.
DUPLICATE CONTENT COPYRIGHT PRESERVATION
One of the main problems for editorial portals is the creation of duplicate content, especially since often some are replicated in different sections of the site. In other cases, to quicken the publishing process, an article is taken and reported identically to the original source. It is now known that the constant presence of duplicate content generates penalties that can lead to a rapid downgrade in ranking that can be difficult to recover from – this should be absolutely avoided or reported to the search engine.
“Proposing users original news and not the simply pasted content should be a rule of any editorial portal. You also have to keep track that the contents of your own newspaper are not copied by others: Google does not recognize the paternity of a news item, so you risk of being ranked lower than a site that copies the articles but has a higher trust” the expert points out. The same does not apply to a text translated into another language, not considered duplicate, as well as a short quotation in an original article which will not cause any kind of penalties.
This does not apply to copyright, that is how to protect the copyright of photos and texts online. There is no good practice in this case. However, it is important to always be careful of any “content thieves“. The expert explains: “First, if you’re working on web content editing, it’s always good to monitor the SERPs to make sure that this kind of violation does not happen: just a simple manual search on Google is enough, copying and pasting a part of our quoted text to make sure that no one has stolen it. A copyright and intellectual property disclaimer in the footer of the site is always a great deterrent, as well as a legal advice. As far as images are concerned, credit attribution is legally required and improper use can be pursued”.
Going beyond the application of SEO strategies for publishing, the link between SEO and Social is also widely discussed, with the benefits that a social media marketing strategy can indirectly have on an online information portal. “The relation is certainly minimal, as social links, such as Facebook, are notoriously non-follow, that is, they do not generate trust to the linked resource,” says Alice Tammaro. Undoubtedly, however, they have a weight that should not to be underestimated in terms of awareness: a comprehensive web marketing strategy must include all those disciplines that can bring a benefit to the brand, from SEO to AdWords, from Digital PR to Social.”