How to do SEO for a Newspaper Site?

Hi Guys,

I've got a new job as fulltime SEO for the local newspapers of medium big city.
I will start over there in a few month, but I am totally clueless how to do SEO for them?

They already have a proper on page optimization and are ranking first for keywords like "newspaper [cityname]".
I never worked in the News niche.

Questions are
What could be profitable Keywords for them?
How to build backlinks for this kind of sites?

I think we will go more for an overall authority, and not for particular terms, as the news are changing daily.
Once you get them ranked, they are already old news.

+ I am pretty sure a newspaper company would not be amused to see backlinks from web2 with spun content :stupido:

Any ideas that can help me - I am pretty scared to start while not haveing a strategy in my mind. I worked only on eCommerce sites and other kind of more "selling - orientated" sites.

Thank you for every hint and suggestion.

Maybe u can keep backlinking for Newspaper+City Name and also try ranking for city name+newspaper and other variations as most of them search that way. Those are your main keywords..

And along with that once you publish a news article just distribute them to PR sites. This way you will gain backlinks along with additional traffic.

IMO, you have the right strategy going for overall authority, site quality etc. when it comes to doing SEO for them.

In addition to raising general authority for the site, especially since it already ranks well for its local "newspaper" keywords, I'd focus on some of the more static type pages that the page has.

For example, local newspapers here have classifieds, job listings and other pages that probably garner some searches on their own. I can see social media playing a large role in the relevance and authority of a newspaper site.

One way that one of the biggest newspapers in my area has profited is by using their media leverage to move into related areas. I.E. in addition to running their own SEO, marketing and what not, they have started providing SEO and other new media services in addition to traditional advertising opportunities.

Congratulations first on securing this great appointment - well done

I work contracted to several international news publishers where attribution and viral pick play a major role in the SE indexing and backlink process

Hit me up on PM if you need help

just wondering, what kind of work do you in the office?

steelballs said:

Congratulations first on securing this great appointment - well done

I work contracted to several international news publishers where attribution and viral pick play a major role in the SE indexing and backlink process

Hit me up on PM if you need help

Click to expand...

thank you for your generous offer!
do you have skype? i'd love to chat with you about this topic and want to participate from your knowledge.

@techcrunked: i will manage their ppc campaign and shall. tweak on and off page seo of their 4 sites they run.

This is very interesting topic.. I have a news site and it's almost 2 months but my traffic is so slow.. about 90 to 200 per day.. Is there anyway to increase my traffic like submitting my RSS url, putting auto share tools and etc.

I'm using WP in my website with 4-6 post per day from different contributors.

Do I need first to be the authority if brand or etc..

Any suggestion guys.. Thanks in advance..

It's pretty easy. Start by building a wikipedia page for your newspaper. Contact local entities about articles inside your paper. They may link to it or quote them. Create FB page. and so on. It's pretty straight forward old school marketing where backlinks will fly on their own.

Optimize Each news headline..as that is way of Viral marketing a News Site. I run a Gossip Site with Celebs news and bios So I know it works..also try to Optimize Images as they bring more traffic..Try to make some small RSS Blogs for site ....etc....Video marketing ...

I would like to know this as well..

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can you say press releases