Does SEO spell the end of wittily crafted journalism? Charlie Brooker’s dig at easily searchable posts - “Online POKER marketing could spell the NAKED end of VIAGRA journalism as we LOHAN know it” – suggested that quality content was losing out in the race to the top of the Google search results.
But love it or hate it, making sure that your blog/articles/comments can be found is crucial to online journalism. After all, If no one can find it, no one will read it. And as trainee journalist, it’s also important that your online profile is visible. Unfortunately for me, a search for Amy Gardner returns the eponymous West Wing character and a Washington Post journalist. Tough competition, then.
Reassuringly, the recipe for search engine success is simple: what would you type? Think of the keywords surrounding a story and then try and fit as many of them as you can into the headline and first paragraph of the story. Puns are obviously out.
So someone searching for me would presumably type, Amy + Gardner + UK + Journalist. I changed my twitter profile to include these keywords and it’s now top of the search list on Google. Brilliant. But my blog is nowhere to be seen, even with this dry, does-what-it-says-on-the-tin headline. I’m stumped. Search engines are clever things and it obviously requires more than a profile tweaking to manipulate them. Hopefully by the end of the Online module I’ll have resolved this issue, but in the meantime any suggestions or explanations are welcome.
