In the rapidly evolving digital landscape, publisher SEO is more crucial than ever for maximising visibility and engagement in the News and Media industry. This blog post explores the latest trends and challenges answers common questions about publisher SEO and presents a detailed case study showcasing significant growth in Google Discover traffic.
Google Discover Data and News Industry Stats
- Organic Search Traffic in News and Media Declined over the past 37 months, as observed from Similarweb data.
- Clicks in Google Discover: Increased by 215.14%, from 95.8K to 302K.
- Impressions in Google Discover: Rose by 160.16%, from 1.23M to 3.2M.
- Click-Through Rate (CTR): Improved by 20.51%, from 7.8% to 9.4%.
News & Publisher Industry Insights
Recent data from Similarweb highlights a concerning trend in Australia’s News and Media category: a steady decline in traffic volumes generated from organic search over the past 37 months. As illustrated in the provided chart, organic search traffic peaked around mid-2021 but has experienced a downward trajectory with intermittent fluctuations. This trend underscores the growing challenges publishers face in maintaining and enhancing their visibility through organic search. Factors contributing to this decline could include changes in search engine algorithms, increased competition, and shifts in user behaviour towards other content discovery platforms like social media. This decline in search engine traffic also opens up the conversation about Google’s intentions moving forward. Does Google want to become a publisher itself, and if so, what does this mean for current publishers and their content and revenue streams?
Common Questions about Publisher SEO
What is Publisher SEO?
Publisher SEO refers to optimisation techniques explicitly tailored for online publishers. These techniques involve enhancing various website elements to improve its visibility in search engine results and content discovery platforms like Google Discover. Key aspects include:
- Optimising content for relevancy.
- Improving website performance.
- Ensuring the site adheres to Google’s guidelines for quality and authority.
What is SEO in Newspapers?
SEO in newspapers involves applying search engine optimisation strategies to online news content. This includes optimising headlines, meta descriptions, and body text to include relevant keywords, ensuring fast page load times, and using structured data to enhance search engines’ understanding and display of news content. Effective newspaper SEO helps increase the reach and impact of news articles by making them more discoverable to readers through search engines.
What does it mean to be a Publisher of a Website?
Being a website publisher means you are responsible for creating, curating, and managing content published online. This involves producing engaging and informative content and ensuring that the content is optimised for search engines, maintaining the website’s technical health, and engaging with the audience through various digital channels. Publishers must balance editorial quality with SEO best practices to maximise their content’s reach and impact.
How to Use SEO in Journalism?
Using SEO in journalism involves several vital practices:
- 1. Keyword Research: Identify and use relevant keywords that your audience is searching for.
- 2. Optimising Headlines and Subheadings: Crafting compelling and keyword-rich headlines.
- 3. Structured Data Markup: Implementing schema markup to help search engines understand the context of your articles.
- 4. High-Quality Content: Ensuring your content is informative, accurate, and engaging.
- 5. Link Building: Acquiring backlinks from reputable sources to boost the credibility and authority of your articles.
- 6. Mobile Optimisation: Ensuring your articles are easily accessible and readable on mobile devices.
Case Study: Significant Growth in Google Discover Traffic
Client’s Achievement in Google Discover:
- • Clicks: A remarkable increase of 215.14%, from 95.8K to 302K.
- • Impressions: A surge of 160.16%, from 1.23M to 3.2M.
- • Click-Through Rate (CTR): Improved by 20.51%, from 7.8% to 9.4%.
Strategies Implemented
- Strong Core Web Vitals
- CWV Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) and Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) issues were addressed.
- Enhanced caching and CDN delivery with robust hosting solutions.
- Achieved positive mobile page experience metrics.
- CWV Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) and Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) issues were addressed.
- Reinforced E-A-T Signals
- Optimised key author profiles with schema markup.
- Enhanced brand and author positioning in the knowledge graph.
- High-Quality Content
- Provided guidelines for constructing compelling content with engaging headlines, images, and videos.
- Timely Publishing on Trending Topics
- Ensured content was relevant and published promptly to capture trending topics.
These comprehensive strategies collectively contributed to the substantial growth in Google Discover traffic. The improvements in Core Web Vitals and E-A-T signals, combined with high-quality, timely content, were pivotal in achieving these results.
Conclusion
The significant growth observed in our client’s Google Discover traffic is a testament to the power of well-executed publisher SEO strategies. Yes, the challenge is real if you are a web publisher and rely on organic search traffic to reach your audience. The landscape has changed, and now is the time for you to adapt or possibly die a slow death.
As a publisher, you can dramatically enhance your visibility and engagement by focusing on website performance, reinforcing E-A-T signals, and consistently delivering high-quality content.
Additional Resources
For more insights into publisher SEO, you can explore the following resources:
• True Anthem: What Is Publisher SEO
• Purple Publish: SEO for Publishers
• UnitedAds: SEO for Publishers
• State of Digital Publishing: SEO for Publishers
• SEO for Google News: Most Common SEO Issues News Publishers
