The importance of search engine optimisation for websites is not unknown. It has become a general practice for most organisations with online presence. If you happen to own a news website, start thinking about your SEO strategy right now! News websites have a very dynamic nature of functioning with a high number of new web pages being added daily. If your website caters for local or international audiences, the main objective should be to increase reach.
Recently just over a week ago, BBC announced the changes they would carry out to boost their SEO strategy so that the content they make is easily retrieved by search engines. Generally users tend to visit the BBC website through search engines, personal recommendations on social media websites and RSS Feeds if not from the BBC front page. “We estimate that about 29% of BBC News website UK traffic comes from search engines .", says Steve Herrmann, editor of BBC News website. Hence, by understanding the importance of search engine traffic, BBC has decided to make these changes.
BBC Changes
Journalists now have the opportunity to create two headlines for a particular story if they want. A short headline which appears on the front page will remain limited to between 31 and 33 characters. The second headline, which will appear on the page itself, can go up to 55 characters. This allows journalists to include keywords that are expected to be searched for. An example of the difference between longer and shorter headline can be seen below.
Short Headline – "Possible counter-bid for Cadbury"
Long Headline – "Ferrero and Hershey in possible counter-bid for Cadbury"
These changes are very minimal but can affect traffic positively. News websites should be encouraged by these changes and start reviewing their own SEO strategy and take appropriate actions to benefit from them.
4Ps Marketing offer Search Engine Optimisation for businesses and news website owners that are looking to seriously develop their online strategies.
About the author: Gerard Harris
SEO Manager – Gerard HarrisGerard is the SEO Manager of one of 4Ps Marketing’s search engine optimisation teams. He manages a team of 4 and a portfolio of 15 SEO clients. His day to day work involves managing client relationships to make sure they are getting the best ranking positions in search engines, leading to increases in relevant traffic to client websites.