Social Media Matter

Use of social media in the UK has skyrocketed over the past year, and using it wisely can mean big boosts to website traffic, according to presenters at the Digital Editors Network meeting in Preston this week.

One in 10 UK internet users now visits a social networking site -- they have overtaken both porn and shopping! -- and the sites account for about one in every five page views, Robin Goad of Hitwise said. Facebook is by far the most popular, with a 41.2% market share.

Patrick Altoft, the director of search for Leeds-based Branded3, stressed the use of applications such as Digg to boost the number and quality of links to a website. Those links can significantly enhance search engine rankings and overall traffic; for instance, he said, the Guardian has nearly 16 million links pointing to its content.

Altoft, whose DEN presentation is available online, highlighted the emphasis on Digg at successful national news websites such as the Telegraph's; he said telegraph.co.uk gets around 2.2 million users a month -- more than 70,000 a day -- from social media links and another 8.3 million from searches.

Twitter also can be extremely influential. Altoft said CNN.com has 1.4 million followers; other major media, inluding the BBC and the Guardian, have hundreds of thousands.

Being first to post a story makes a difference -- Google News, for instance, includes a "freshness" algorithm that gives priority to the latest version of a breaking story -- but so does promoting it. The first 30 minutes are critical, Altoft said; he urged media organizations to create an automated promotion network that draws on social networking tools to boost visibility and interest.

Online Newspapers & Missing Links

Newspaper websites are not engaging fully with the Web’s link culture, according to a digital director at Johns Hopkins University.

Tim Windsor believes that link journalism is not “taking root” in newsrooms and is proving a source of frustration to readers.

The Web strategy chief also asserts that not deploying links to third-party content means losing “an easy SEO opportunity”.

Writing on Nieman Journalism Lab, he notes that links can be found in blogs written by journalists but are still a rare sight within news articles.

“Reporters blog. Reporters podcast. Reporters build mashups, tweet, create tumblogs, shoot video, host meetups. Everything but link,” says Windsor.

“Whatever the reason, the missing link has to stop being a hallmark of newspaper-related sites.”

If you want to know more, check out the blog post’s comments where the issues behind non-linking are discussed by Windsor, bloggers and journalists.

And if you want to know how good / bad you are with links, Malcolm Coles has published a linking scale on the Online Journalism Blog.

[HT - Martin Stabe]

Study Suggests Future News Models

The future of the press and television in the digital age is the subject of an in-depth study from the University of Oxford.

“What’s happening to our news” paints a picture of the current trends in the news media as a result of the digital revolution – such as the impact of search engines and search engine optimization.

Author Dr Andrew Currah also predicts bad news ahead for the industry if newspapers continue along this route, chasing “clickstream” audiences online and reducing expenditure on original news-gathering.

To this end, Currah concludes his extensive study by proffering some possible solutions to ensure a positive future for newspapers.

He suggests that the government could introduce “targeted tax breaks for public interest news publishing” to ensure the funds are there to support investigative journalism.

In addition, the University of Oxford lecturer recommends the government should also look to widen the scope for charitable organisations to fund news providers which concentrate on original news-gathering and reporting.

Currah also contends that some form of voluntary kitemark could help restore public trust in media products.

The detailed report, produced by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, is available online as a pdf file .

An edited extract of the report from Dr Currah can be found at guardian.co.uk and an email interview with the author on the issue of kitemarks can be seen on the Online Journalism Blog.

How To: Improve Google News Rankings

Top tips for getting the most out of Google News crawlers could help newspapers improve their articles’ rankings.

Coming straight from the horse’s mouth, the recommendations feature in a Google News blog post in answer to some of the most frequently asked questions from publishers.

And here are some of Google’s top tips:

*Make Publication Dates Known

According to Google, newspapers need to place the date and time of the news story in the HTML in order to enable the crawlers to access the information.

*Tag Titles Correctly

“In order for Google News to crawl the correct titles for your articles, make sure the title you want appears in both the title tag and as the headline on the article page.”

Plus, Google suggests it’s good practice to use the article’s title as the anchor text in any links to it.

*Follow Photo Formatting Rules

Images that are crawler-friendly are JPEG images of reasonable size, close to the actual article and with good descriptive captions accompanying them.

*Keep Press Releases Separate

Because Google News treats press releases differently from original articles, Google recommends keeping them in a section distinct from other content.


Visit the Google News Blog for the full post.

[HT – Poynter Online]

How To Conquer SEO

A ten-point guide to improving search engine results has been published by the Search Engine Journal.

Reporter Monica Wright believes that editors and journalists can easily get to grips with search engine optimization (SEO) and has produced some handy hints for beginners.

Here’s an excerpt from Wright’s article entitled “10 Ways Journalists and Newsrooms Can Conquer SEO”:


1 - Multi-purpose headlines

According to Wright, headlines need to work not just for your story but also need to work out of context so they make sense to readers coming to the story via search engines.

2 - Tags

“The title tag is one of the most important factors when optimising your pages, so be as literal and specific as you can be, without making it too long.”

She adds: “Use your meta description tag to summarise your story. Provide the ‘who’, ‘what’, ‘where’ and ‘why’ as concisely as you can.”

3 - Make Most Of Anchor Text

As hyperlinked text plays a part in SEO, Wright recommends using specific terms when linking to other pages/sites rather than generic links such as “See Related Story”.


4 – Deploy Effective Keywords

Services which suggest keywords and alternative words may be useful here.

5 – “Evergreen Content”

Wright notes that non-time specific features such as guides etc can draw in search traffic and attract long-tail interest.

Visit the Search Engine Journal for the full story.

[HT – Martin Stabe.]

Site Offers Tech Tips For Journalists

Helping reporters to use digital technology is the aim of a new website launched by a techie and a journalist.

NewsTechZilla is the brainchild of two Tennessee-based bloggers looking to aid journalists who are relatively new to the world of digital media.

The site essentially comprises two blogs – one categorised as “From the tech perspective” and the other hosting posts “From the journalist perspective”.



The tech blog provides journalists with practical tips and features posts on using tools like Twitter and on subjects such as Search Engine Optimization.

Responding to the question of why they created this site, founders Trace Sharp and Scott Adcox write: “The genesis of this project was the countless conversations we’ve had over IM discussing these very issues, time spent reading about the shifting media.

“One day, it just made sense to make these conversations public so others could benefit and contribute.”

They conclude: “Our hope is that we can all learn from each other and discuss the changes that are taking place in news, media, and technology.”

[HT – Poynter Online.]

Journalism Skills Study Published

The full results from a survey about the skills that journalists need in the 21st century have been released.

Carried out by the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ), the Journalism Skills Survey asked both employers and course providers about the skills they see as most important for trainees.

The study also reveals the skills that companies believe their new recruits working in print, TV and radio are lacking at present.

Among the traditional reporter skills needing improvement according to employers are the ability to find stories, knowledge of media law and language skills.

Employers were also questioned on new skills and responded that incoming journalists need to improve their video skills, writing for different platforms and knowledge of how to use the Freedom of Information Act.

NCTJ chairman Kim Fletcher writes in the report’s foreword: “What emerged strongly was that these were not areas for compromise.

“There was no question of old or new: employers were clear that they wanted both.”

The full study is available as a pdf file on the NCTJ website and more details can be found on holdthefrontpage.co.uk.

SEO & Journalism: A Defence

A defence of using search engine optimization (SEO) techniques in journalism has been published by Telegraph.co.uk’s communities editor.

Writing in the British Journalism Review, Shane Richmond asserts that tailoring headlines and intros to suit search engine algorithms is a viable way for reporters to attract more readers to their content.

And he rejects suggestions (recently highlighted in an article from Guardian writer Charlie Brooker) that using SEO strategies inevitably leads to irrelevant headlines, tons of stories on the most popular search terms, and “conning readers”.

“There’s always been a certain formula to journalism: focusing on the five Ws – who? what? why? when? and where? – that underpin any good story,” writes Richmond.

“SEO rules are as important as any of these and in fact they bolster the first two.

“SEO is value-neutral. It doesn’t require you to dumb down, to fill your stories with the names of celebrities or to write 500 articles about Viagra every month.”

Richmond also points out that SEO techniques are an important tool to draw the audience which comes to articles via news filters, social bookmarking sites and recommendation sites such as Digg.

And he illustrates the changes that implementing an SEO strategy would bring to headline writing by using The Sun’s infamous “Gotcha!” splash during the Falklands conflict.

Visit BJR.org for the full article.