Though news and magazine websites are dime a dozen on the internet, many people still choose to start one because of the immense opportunities they offer. This is mostly because a well written hot news item can easily spread like wildfire and attract millions of views to the webpage in just a few hours.
If you too are planning to start an impressive news or magazine style website, you can certainly make it a great success if you offer content that is high in demand. However, high end content alone may not ensure success, and you must SEO seriously, because will act as the backbone of your news and magazine style website and will greatly help you drive long term organic traffic within your budget.
Here are the basics you need to follow in order to ensure that your website comes out on top.
1- Be a News Site
Always remember to focus on publishing news content rather than just random articles. If you check most of the famous news websites, you will see that they almost exclusively publish up-to-date content. And Google too is more likely to index your posts and publish it in their news feed if they see that your website actively publishes news articles. Unfortunately, many publishers start posting non-news content in order to gain more views. This will only backfire as the website’s identity of being a news website will diminish, which in turn can affect your Google rankings and traffic.
2- Headlines for Users
When writing headlines for your new articles, be sure to craft it in a way keeping the users in mind. Trying to make the title be more attractive for the search engines by stuffing in some keywords may make the title itself look dull. And as a news item, if the title looks dull and does not generate interest, the users will be less willing to click the title links and visit the website to read the full content.
3- Low Competition Keywords
When starting out, it is better if your focus on low competition keywords to quickly get ranked on Google. This is because high competition keywords already have a very tough competition going on between top websites. As such, if you try to compete against them, you will only be wasting your time and money. But by focusing on keywords which have little to no competition, you have a better chance of getting your website into the first page of Google, thereby getting you tons of organic traffic. And once your website gains sufficient authority, you can start focusing on high competition keywords. Consult a local marketing firm by searching “SEO St. Louis” to know which keywords to target to build up initial traffic to your website.
Title Word Limits
When search engines display results, they will only the initial 70 characters of a title. And this is for a desktop search. As far as mobile devices are concerned, the displayed words can even be less. As such, you must ensure that the title you write for a news item conveys its meaning to the users within the first 70 characters itself. Otherwise, a user will not be able to understand the meaning of the title, which will essentially decrease their interest in clicking the link and visit your website.
In addition to the above, make sure that you post news articles consistently to your website. This will ensure that your web pages get indexed more number of times in Google news feeds, thereby helping you build up the authority of your website.