SEO for Journalists: How to Rank a News Article on Google

Indexing

In this case of SEO for journalists, indexing plays a very important role, as news is daily and almost in real-time. Therefore, they become outdated almost before being indexed.

Normally, high-authority digital media publish frequently, and Google crawls and indexes their content very often because the crawling frequency is algorithmically established based on the publication frequency.

Just in case, and to ensure they are indexed correctly, it is ideal to once the news has been published, update the content and work on internal linking so that search engines continue to crawl and index it.

It also helps in indexing to force its crawling through Search Console, have an updated sitemap, and be registered in Google News.

It is worth noting that besides real-time news, there is also evergreen content, which attracts recurring traffic, helping with positioning. An example would be interviews, podcasts, reports...

Working on both types of content is a good strategy for SEO for journalists.

The architecture of information

In any website, the structure of information is important for SEO. In SEO for journalists and media, it is even more so, as current news can be about sports, politics, or Christmas dates.

A logical organization of categories, subcategories, and internal linking will improve crawling for Google and facilitate navigation for the user, also increasing their time spent on the page.

Unlike e-commerce sites, here tags are important to index, for example, a tag called “Cristiano Ronaldo” that groups hundreds of URLs on that topic.

A lack of control in the structure can cause excessive depth of the website (usually caused by pagination), which is harmful for SEO in media and newspapers.

Quality content? Of course!

Needless to say, if the content is not useful, original: “turn it off and go home.”

In SEO for journalists and media, we depend on text, but that information can be accompanied by a video or image to capture the reader's interest.

For example, in sports media, it is common to see a news article accompanied by a video clip.

You need to conduct a keyword search relevant to the topic being addressed. You should ask yourself how people search to meet that user's needs with the content.

Regarding writing, they should include keywords, and the more semantic richness the text has, the better for SEO, as Google rewards this aspect and it is also better for the reader as it provides clarity.

Titles should have the main or related keyword. You can use a clickbait title but without overdoing it, as you know what is seen out there: “Bisbal devastated by the terrible loss” and then it turns out his cat has died.

Title and meta description in each article should also include keywords for greater clarity and to increase clicks on the news.

Internal Linking

On the other hand, good internal linking also becomes fundamental to transfer part of the value of links from high-traffic pages to other news article pages.

The ideal is to link to the main site to develop the media's reliability in the long term.

While this strategy is more complicated for real-time news, it is more viable for evergreen or timeless content.

EEAT

EEAT stands for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. In Spanish, we can translate it as Experience, Knowledge, Authority, and Trust.

More and more, and now in all topics (not just YMYL), Google takes these factors into account in its work to offer quality and reliable content.

The experience is especially important in digital content as with the emergence of AI, we see many of them that are not written by humans, which is why Google takes into account the author of the content, who must demonstrate that they have knowledge about the topic they are writing about and is not an artificial intelligence.

To generate trust, a media requires a history of publishing high-quality content that invites the reader to read.

And in Google's eyes, authority is a relevant factor, as the quality and quantity of links it receives from other media determine its reputation.

Link Building: Quality and quantity of links

In addition to the content being useful, high-quality, and including keywords, you will need something more to position a news article on Google: You will have to obtain a quantity of valuable links to the news article.

And what does valuable link building mean?

It means having your news linked by authoritative media in the same topic as yours.

For example, imagine your media is small and about cooking, and a very well-positioned and authoritative blog, like Karlos Arguiñano's, links to your news. This will get other media to recognize you as relevant, reliable, and of quality.

Thus, it will increase your media's online authority and reputation, and Google will value you as a reference site.

Join Unancor

On the other hand, it is very common for digital media to use their authority to monetize through link sales. This strategy is highly advisable if done correctly.

To this end, you can include your media in our MATCH tool where we offer you:

• Receive proposals easily to publish sponsored content.
• 17,298 advertisers interested in publishing in a media outlet, which could be yours.
• It's very easy, you just have to register your media in Unancor, set the price, and we take care of everything else to “match with the ideal advertiser” based on topic, keywords, traffic, and authority.
• We have professional writers, although you can always write yourselves if you prefer.
• Additionally, we link naturally, without risk to your SEO, and you decide the number of dofollow links you will include.

Come on, sign up!