Rich Julius: Blogging Writes

Feb12

SEO and SEM for News

In Blogging Writes thus far I have discussed the state of the newspaper industry, and started to present some of the innate strengths that the industry can leverage in order to survive. But I also want to dedicate a good few postings to very practical matters, balancing between those that drive news revenue and those that drive visitor traffic and reader engagement. Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and its paid counterpart, Search Engine Marketing (SEM), are critical for the success of a news site. They are one of the primary drivers of online traffic (circulation). No matter how good the editorial product, word-of-mouth viral growth will always need a boost from SEO. There are many web sites that discuss SEO, and there are many especially bad how-to sites (based more on myths and just plain voodoo than on fact). As an SEO expert it’s tempting to write about SEO generically and try to dispel some of the common misconceptions, but that’s likely to drive some controversy and confuse the point of this blog. Instead, I’m going to focus on the art and science of SEO as it relates specifically to the news industry. This will be a multi-part series, covering...

Feb03

Trusted Advertising: The Value of Newspaper Web Sites

In 2010 comShare published a study titled “Site Matters: The Value of Local Newspaper Web sites” (sponsored by the Newspaper Association of America, representing some 2000 US newspapers) that “measured consumer attitudes and behaviors regarding local newspaper Web sites and content compared with other online sources of local news and information.” While the study discussed which types of online content consumers most trusted for local information, one remarkable fact emerged that bears discussion in this blog: Newspaper web sites ranked highest in terms of the credibility and trustworthiness of their advertising. This is an important fact missed by many newspapers; the fact that their web sites are more capable of selling than any other local sites. Someone please alert the newspaper sales department! Newspapers are not only themselves trusted brands, as discussed in my previous post. They are also purveyors of trust: some of the faith that people have in the reliability of local news rubs off on the newspaper’s advertising as well. Place an ad in your newspaper’s web site and people will more likely believe the message. When you add to this the fact that local news consumers are also well-qualified leads–they live, work, and make purchase decisions in the same market...

Feb02

Capitalizing on News Assets

Noted journalist Bob Garfield is the author of The Chaos Scenario, a 2009 book about the collapse of traditional media. Garfield was recently interviewed by Peter Conti, EVP of Borrell Associates, an advertising and media industry research and consulting firm. (Garfield will be presenting the keynote address at Borrell’s annual Local Online Advertising Conference in New York City.) The interview, available on YouTube, is titled ‘The future isn’t in hyper-local news’ (an admittedly disheartening title for those of us in the local news industry). Mr. Garfield says: “The combination of incredible fragmentation, which limits your audience size, and the inexorable downward trajectory of advertising prices, means that nobody, nobody is going to have the critical mass to professionally and profitably deliver news. In my opinion, the future isn’t in hyperlocal per se, as a standalone operation. In my opinion, weirdly, the answer is going to be in consolidation. I believe that in every market, the winner will be the entity, whether it’s a local TV station, a public radio station, a local newspaper, a series of hyperlocal sites banded together, or some parties as yet unthought of, to form strategic relationships for content and for revenue, with other players in that market. And the combination of...