Can SEO’s and Journalists Really Be Friends? This was the question asked by Rachelle Money at CyberJournalist.net. Because journalists often shy away from “stuffing” key words into their articles to gain online traffic, Money explains the art of using SEO’s and how journalists can use them to improve their writing.
The SEO mantra: ‘content is king’ is one shared by journalists. We’ve always believed writing to be incredibly important. The SEO wants to create great content and the journalist wants to write a good news story. Both SEO and journalist want their articles to be read by as wide a readership as possible. It’s important that they appeal to readers and generate some debate. Maybe it’s the journalist’s ego but we want our stories to cause a stir, we want people to respond to them through comment sites, forums and blogs. That means our stories need to be found on the internet in the first place, and that’s why SEO has to become our new best friend. Put simply, we can use SEO to make sure that many more people read our stories.
So, when you are compiling blog posts, updated your twitter or writing an article for publication, do you think about using keywords to reach a wider readership? If so, what are those key words, and how should a person identify them and use them correctly? The world of journalism is certainly evolving, and those not willing to change might be left in the dust. I thought this article might stimulate some dialogue, so let’s compare notes!
Nobody, journalists or SEO experts, should stuff keywords in their articles. Stuffing keywords is itself unprofessional and can turn readers away. And search engines can penalize a deep web site for keywords stuffing.
The key to any successful online public relations and marketing campaign is providing credible content. Keywords, as important as they’re, should be used sparingly and cautiously so as not to dilute the overall meaning of content may it be a blog post, press release, or news article.
As for journalists, I would say they can’t afford not to pay attention to keywords. Why? Keywords in themselves give us an insight into the search behavior of online communities. They answer the question: what kind of language do online users use to look for all sort of information, including current affairs? If journalists don’t know what online readers are interested in, then it goes without saying they’ll continue feeding the web with irrelevant content that their intended audience will never locate. And the effects of this can be devastating. There will be no advertisement revenue because no company would be willing to advertise on a low-trafficked web site.
A deep understanding by a journalist of the language online communities use can provide a very clear pointer to the kind of content online communities are interested in. Let’s say a language analysis reveals “education reforms” to be the most popular popular keywords among online communities countrywide. It would serve a journalist working for news web sites better if he/she can increase the coverage of education reform-related events because this is what readers are interested in.
Jay Byrne, a highly respected expert in online communication, has written a fabulous article on how online newspapers can benefit from the web. The article is available here:http://www.v-fluence.com/blog/453/the-death-of-print. You can also read my blog on the same here:http://vsuade.wordpress.com/2009/04/13/newspapers-must-change-to-be-viable-online/
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