Why Traditional Journalism Matters for SEO
Amongst SEO practises, the depth and level of knowledge we’re expected to have as practitioners has grown exponentially over the last few years – and many digital marketers are now expected to have a wealth of knowledge in PR, journalism, outreach and web optimisation to fully feel the benefit of marketing work. In this article, we’ll look at traditional journalism and the role that plays in SEO and digital marketing – and discover why it is so beneficial to have a broad skill set within this industry.
Editorial
Editorial coverage online has become important – feature pieces for online journals and magazines are being consumed avidly by a far larger cross section of audiences than they once were. This means that companies who are working on their SEO and online presence need to be aware of the consumer importance of editorial coverage – and act as PRs to ensure they get their name out there.
Google recognises that longer, more detailed editorial pieces featured in some high quality online magazines are not only beneficial for the company but hugely beneficial for the consumer too – and there is therefore likely to be some significant SEO gains to be had by taking the time to promote your company without necessarily writing the content yourself.
Press Trips and Social Media
Social media plays a huge part in press trips these days. In fact, many companies and organisations sometimes invite people on press trips based entirely on the amount of followers they have. Getting companies, and even small businesses you meet along the way, involved in these trips can provide a huge boost. It’ll increase brand awareness and social media following – and both of these things are looked upon hugely favourably by the powers that be at Google.
Long Tail Keywords
This is a factor of ‘journalism’ that would have been absurd even ten years ago – but the truth is now that many journalists and especially online news sites tailor their stories and news pieces around long tail keywords – to ensure they are still ranking up there in years to come when people search for old stories.
The Importance of Stories
With the ‘content is king’ mantra being thrust upon us as SEOs for many years, we are required to take a slightly different approach to how we create content. For true success and recognition, audiences have to truly believe in the content and the stories we’re creating, and with such a wealth of this online, stories have to be better researched, more genuine, more interesting and more insightful than ever. Traditional journalism is worth bearing in mind here – in many cases journalists and reporters would go to whatever length possible to ‘get the story’ – the same has to be the case for creating content these days. Don’t think of yourself as a mindless writer – you are a journalist and writing is what you do – go that extra mile to get the story nobody else can get.
Traditional journalism, despite what many people say, is actually alive and well. It’s manifested itself in a number of different ways over the last few years, but in terms of SEO, it’s worth bearing in mind that stories, real connections and real human interactions within content and editorial is more important than ever. Find people to connect with and share with – Google will recognise this online and your social media followers will benefit enormously too.
