SEO for Publishers

As a publisher, have you ever written something or read something that you felt deserved more recognition, yet it wasn’t reaching the right audience? Whether you produce or distribute digital content, it’s always the goal to have your work find the right viewership. After all, in the world of publishing, visibility equals influence. Without the right reach, even the most valuable content can get lost in the digital noise.

News outlets and industry media sites, in particular, rely heavily on ad revenue. That’s why driving more impressions and clicks through SEO is essential—it helps you stay profitable and relevant. 

Our SEO strategy is designed to increase organic traffic and elevate your site’s visibility, ensuring your publications reach the right audience. This translates to more impressions, more clicks, and ultimately, more revenue. In a constantly shifting digital landscape, your best content deserves to stand out and make an impact.

SEO for publishers is the process of optimising digital content to improve its visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs), helping to drive organic traffic and increase revenue.

A significant portion of a publisher’s income comes from ad revenue, typically generated through a cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) model. This means publishers are paid a fixed fee for every 1,000 views an ad receives, making it essential for them to attract as many views as possible.

For instance, let’s consider a publisher with a high-traffic article on their site. They have an ad from a popular streaming service:

• CPM: $20  
• Current Views: 300,000 daily  
• Current Revenue: $6,000 per day from this ad space

By implementing an effective SEO strategy, they could increase traffic by 25%. This would bring an additional 75,000 views per day, leading to:

• New Views: 375,000  
• Additional Revenue: $1,500 per day  
• New Total: $7,500 per day  
• Monthly Increase: $45,000

This simple increase in traffic results in a significant revenue boost. For publishers who rely heavily on ad income, driving more impressions and clicks through SEO is essential for maintaining profitability and staying competitive.

Publishers need SEO to thrive in today’s competitive digital landscape. In a world where content has the power to sway opinions and shape conversations, standing out from the noise is more important than ever. 

SEO ensures that your content reaches the right audience at the right time, increasing visibility, engagement, and revenue.

• Increased Competition & Revenue: The publishing industry is growing more competitive every day, and publishers must find innovative ways to rise above the noise. SEO plays a crucial role in attracting high-quality, relevant traffic, converting casual visitors into loyal readers, and ultimately boosting ad revenue. 
• Dominate Search Engine Results: Appearing on the first page of search results significantly enhances your reputation and credibility. Readers tend to gravitate toward articles visible on the first page, rather than those buried on later pages. With a tailored SEO strategy, you can increase your website’s visibility and improve its ranking by focusing on specific keywords, optimising page speed, refining site navigation, and enhancing user experience.
• Target the Right Audience: SEO drives targeted traffic to your site by ensuring your content reaches those who are actively searching for the information or services you offer. This approach not only boosts engagement but also increases the chances of turning visitors into long-term readers, delivering a higher ROI compared to other marketing techniques.
• Cost-Effective and Long-Term Investment: SEO offers a cost-effective, long-term strategy for reducing marketing costs and increasing revenue. Unlike paid ads that stop delivering results once the budget runs out, SEO continues to work for you over time. It’s also measurable—allowing you to track key metrics like traffic, page views, and bounce rates to assess the effectiveness of your SEO strategy and make data-driven improvements.
• Maximise Visibility on Google: To succeed in today’s digital publishing landscape, visibility on Google is essential. Google offers three key ways to drive traffic: organic search, news, and discover. For publishers, success largely depends on appearing in Google News and Top Stories, particularly on mobile devices, where many readers consume content. 

Keen on attracting, engaging, and retaining your readership with SEO? Our specialised services for publishers include: 

First, technical SEO audits ensure a website adheres to Google’s requirements for optimal crawling and indexing of articles. These audits identify technical issues such as: 

• Website Architecture: This involves checking the website’s structure and navigation to ensure it is easily crawlable and indexed. 
• Page Speed: We identify factors slowing down your website and provide recommendations for improvement. 
• Mobile Friendliness: Through audits we check the website’s responsiveness and mobile usability to ensure mobile users experience seamless navigation. 
• Crawlability & Indexability: This ensures search engines can easily access and understand your published content by checking for broken links, crawl errors, and other technical issues. 

Second, editorial SEO audits evaluate the quality of content to ensure it is aligned with SEO best practices. Key areas examined during an editorial audit include: 

• Keyword Optimisation: We identify relevant keywords and incorporate them into your published content to improve search visibility.  
• Content Structure: A well-structured article with clear headings, subheadings, and concise paragraphs improves readability and user experience. 
• Content Relevance: The SEO audit will assess the content’s relevance to the target audience, its accuracy, depth, and overall quality to ensure it meets search engine standards. 
• Internal Linking: We’ll analyse the internal linking structure, ensuring that the content is consistent across the website, improving both user navigation and search engine understanding of the site’s structure. 

Third, we offer strategic consulting that helps publishers enhance their search visibility in targeted topical areas. This involves: 

• Market Research: We’ll conduct thorough market research to understand your target audience and their reading preferences. 
• Content Calendar Creation: We will plan and schedule content creation and  publication to ensure consistent and timely content delivery. 
• Content Promotion & Distribution: We will work with you to develop strategies to promote and distribute content across various channels including social media. 

Fourth, we provide site migration support, in which SEO best practices are followed during website replatforming and domain changes. This service includes: 

• Pre-Migration Planning: We analyse your existing website structure, and identify potential SEO risks.  
• Technical Implementation: We ensure a smooth technical migration with proper redirects to your content, preventing both broken links and loss of search engine visibility. 
• Post-Migration Monitoring: We closely monitor your website’s performance after the migration to identity and address any issues that might arise. 

Last but not the least, we offer ongoing SEO support to help publishers develop and grow their organic search traffic. This service includes: 

• Regular Website Audits 
• Content Optimisation & Updates 
• Link Building & Outreach 
• Technical SEO Maintenance 
• Performance Monitoring & Reporting 
• Algorithm Updates 

You might think that as a growing publication, SEO isn’t essential. But that’s where you’d be mistaken. SEO offers the opportunity for publishers to compete with established media giants and capture the attention of your target readership. A well-implemented SEO strategy can boost your online presence and elevate your publication’s visibility among the right audiences.

With over 15 years of expertise in SEO for publishers, we know what drives reader behaviour. We’ve worked with established and emerging publications to deliver impressive results and a stronger digital footprint. Partner with us to tap into these insights and enhance your publication’s reach. Reach out today to discover how our expertise can help your publication succeed.