Before you click out of this article and think, “this isn’t another keyword research guide,” let me tell you something I learned firsthand from working with national news publishers: The basic research for publishers is very different.
The skills, techniques, checklists, and tools you’re using now won’t be of much use in this category.
Forget about submitting your keyword list to an editor using the traditional keyword research method. Those keywords are long overdue!
Also, let me save you hours of scrolling through the thousands, if not millions, of news websites that you are often targeted for.
SEO for news is different – and so is keyword research.
About the winner Top Stories optimization. This will give you the lion’s share of daily search traffic for a news site.
The purpose of this guide is to equip you with a quick keyword research framework to teach your writers so they can win more at those Top Stories sites.
Why Is Keyword Research For News SEO Different?
Contents
Trending Topics
News websites require a different approach to keyword research than other types of websites.
They tend to focus on short-term, short-term goals.
As a result, news sites need to quickly identify and rank for keywords being searched for at any given time (differently called the trending topic optimization).
Optimizing for poetic content requires a completely different approach to word search.
Traditional research is usually based on 12 months of aggregated data, while news keyword research is based on in general topics (these are topics that have not been tested before).
Data
Many local and national news sites cover a wide range of topics. If it’s a story of public interest, you can expect a publisher to cover it.
For example, at Christmas, you would expect a lot of news sites to give advice on happy cooking or shopping.
You also expect these publishers to publish stories that capture public interest, such as COVID-19.
And just like seasonal events like Christmas, or global events like a pandemic, these topics go in and out of general public interest.
The difference is the data; When looking at query data for a news story, you have a timeline and trends to consider. These things can also be the reason for your traffic to be either up or down.
Intent
When a topic is familiar or well-known, Google provides news sites of interest for this query. This is called “query deserves freshness” (QDF);
“The QDF solution revolves around determining whether a topic is “hot.” If news sites or blog posts are actively writing about a topic, the sample model is one that is more likely to users need the latest information.
For this reason, news sites can jump in and out of the search engine results page (SERP) for any query.
A simple example to explain this is to compare two American presidents, one past and one present.
If we take the current president, Joe Biden, and compare it to George Bush, the 43rd US president, we can see the QDF in action.
For Joe Biden, all the top stories are pushed to the top of the SERP, and the news articles are listed below.
Image from Ahrefs, November 2022
But, if we observe the results for Bush, the SERP is very informative.
Image from Ahrefs, November 2022
Note the low level of top stories, too.
Entities
Keyword rankings for news sites are based on the five Ws of journalism: who, what, when, where, and why.
These are basic questions any writer should ask when publishing an article.
Answering these questions in an essay usually gives the writer a good foundation.
To help the authors perform well on the SEO page with their titles and headings, focus on W and reduce on “keywords” as we know as SEO pros.
Forget about defining metrics like problem solving, monthly search volume, cost per click, or sentiment. Trust me, you will lose them, and they will return to ignore SEO.
Detail
People forget that since it’s an online story, it can also be in the newspaper – and writers need their work for two audiences.
In print, you can quickly take in everything that surrounds the title, such as all images and titles. In digital, it might just be a general image and a title.
Space is the real issue, since there are only so many spaces in a digital format.
In print, short words that have an impact are very important. And sometimes, it also depends on the number of lines in the header.
As for SEO, it can hinder the reach of that story.
The best instruction you can give writers is to include one of the five W’s in the title.
And don’t be afraid about giving too much information in the title.
This is a simple framework to use with a non-SEO writer to help them understand keyword research.
Who Is The Story About?
People search by name of person, place, or thing.
Tip: Using the full name of the person, place or thing will be more effective in searching.
Elon Musk will do more research than Musk.
Image from Ahrefs, November 2022
What Is The Story About?
To help search engines return our articles when people search for them, we need to tell readers and searchers the facts of the story.
If this is the election, it should be in the headlines.
Search engines are always the first users of your website; they can’t see the big picture the way a human can.
With SEO, if a title does not contain the keyword or what the reader is looking for, the search engines will not show the article in their searches.
Where?
Tip: Adding exactly what happened or what the story is about will help your story stand out.
People may travel, listen briefly to the news on the radio/TV, and use their smartphones to find out what happened.
Sometimes, their only place to find news is Google. For example, “Ukraine.”
Image from search for [ukrainian], November 2022
It’s less about keyword research and more about the elements of the story people are looking for.
The Why?
When something happens in the news, people have questions – and many people turn to search engines to help them answer their questions.
For example, in 2016, Britain voted to leave the EU; People searched for answers based on how it affected them. i.e., “Why did the UK vote to leave the EU,” “What does Brexit mean,” “What is the impact of Brexit on Business” and others.
Breaking news is very useful for SEO and generating new traffic.
Breaking News Keyword Research
News is a term used by the media industry to describe real-time events or recent events.
The news can be something that is happening in your local area or something that is happening in the world.
For the most part, the topic may be of little interest in the first search. As a result, traditional keyword research tools are of little help here.
Keyword research tools usually base their data on 12-month average search volume.
For example, before COVID-19 became a global pandemic, and most of all the news was published, it was rarely investigated.
Image from Google Trends, November 2022
And before February 2020, if you used your standard search tools, searching for COVID-19 would have yielded no information (or shown no search volume).
So, how do we do keyword research for news when there is no data available?
It’s simple: stop thinking about keywords the way you normally do. Instead, consider organizations when doing keyword research for news.
Focus On The Five Ws
To prove the effectiveness of this method, let’s use Google Trends for the top keywords on COVID-19 which has more than a year’s worth of keyword data.
The top word for COVID-19 is, not surprisingly: Covid 19.
Image from Ahrefs, November 2022
Even the three or four key words, “Covid vaccine” or “Covid 19 symptoms,” are also answered by the question, “What is it about?”
Tip: Keywords in the headlines are a very powerful indicator that Google uses to show a new story on the news.
And don’t just say that. See what Google itself has to say:
“The most important indicator of the relevance of information is when it is in an article similar to your search” points from Google’s guide to the use of news.”
This is probably the reason why many news outlets were instructed by their SEO teams to use the so-called kicker in front of their editorial headlines, that is, {SEO Keyword}: {Editorial Headline}, to be and keywords closer to the beginning of the title get more weight.
Using this method can help a story rank high on Top Stories. But it doesn’t always happen.
Depending on the owner of the ad, including information anywhere in the title can also be useful.
When breaking a story, as mentioned many times in this guide, the most important words to include are the five Ws.
The What, Who, And Where Components Of The Story
Unlike social media, push alerts, and newsletters, where people are notified of updates, when people search, they look for information on a topic. This is true for news stories.
Most of the time, people hear a story in another way, such as radio, TV, or a colleague. They are given clear descriptions of a story. But people have questions.
Most people, when they have questions, turn to search engines to find answers.
The best place to start keyword research for news is to open Google Trends and use the first keyword about the story.
Google Trends
At the time of writing this – the topic “Typhoon Hinnamnor” is the news.
Image from Google Trends, November 2022
As you can see, before the news was published, there was no search interest for the topic.
Making sure that the keyword is used in the title for any news updates in the topic is step one.
As we can see from the SERP archived below for “Typhoon Hinnamnor,” all the ads are using the keyword in the title.
Image from Google Search, November 2022
Tip: You can use – https://web.archive.org/save to save a search over time.
It is very useful for recording top stories, such as a topic that is no longer news or publications that do not contain a topic, the Top Stories carousel SERP feature will no longer be displayed.
Let’s break this keyword down again using the formula above.
What Is The Story About?
Where Is The Story Taking Place?
Typhoon Hinnamnor in South Korea.
For the most part, people will search for the latest information on an article – but as you can see above, Google has introduced a video, which means that people are also looking for images.
Once the latest news and videos are covered, the next place to look is Google Trends.
Step 1: Type The Main Keyword Into Google Trends
Image from Google Trends, November 2022
What you will see is that there are topics and questions that are classified as questions.
According to Google Trends, a breakout search term means that it increased by more than 5000% during the requested period.
Target questions give you an idea of what research to look for.
What you want to do here is take related articles and find their top keywords.
For example, if we use the term “Typhoon” and filter it to its top questions, we can see that “What is a typhoon” is one of the top questions.
Image from Google Trends, November 2022
Note: The top questions are the questions that are trending, but the top questions are the most searched questions.
The next step is to plug in the keyword and use Google search.
Image from the search for [what storm], November 2022
This can be a good place to find keywords and topics to include in a news article. They are also called “branches” of the story.
The main story is about the news on the Typhoon in Japan, but the branches are what people want to know now that they know the news.
Tip: use a star as a symbol to represent a space that can be filled with anything. You will be given several related questions to follow.
For example “what are the effects of a hurricane” can be a good topic for a description of a hurricane.
Image from the search for [what “storm”], November 2022
And if you want to do this research on a large scale, freemium tools like answerthepublic.com and alsoasked.com will help you here.
Adding the inclusion of these branches as part of the media work order for news media is that these details then turn green.
Here’s a great example of a dynamic index created by the New York Times that targets more than 400 keywords related to diversity in the between storms, storms, and hurricanes can be used whenever there is a disturbing news story.
Image from Ahrefs, November 2022
It’s the magic when working with management teams.
The secret is how you can get the editors to order more products.
When running and promoting an article, give them the topic they need to write about too – but post it like “this is what they’re looking for.” Our audience is watching our broadcast on this news.”
The beauty about this work schedule is that it will not only use the audience’s expectations for daily news, as well as the subscribers’ expectations, but it is still and can be renewal as well as reconnection to the next storm or similar pressure. The topic of weather has entered the news list.
Now, apply this idea to seasonal events, such as Christmas, Easter, and summer. There are issues that will be published each year.
The key is the timing and delivery of the main topic when the subject occurs in the news list.
News Event Keyword Research
Google Trends is a good starting point when researching keywords for an upcoming news story.
Let’s take Black Friday as an example.
Step 1: Input The Target Keyword In Google Trends
Image from Google Trends, November 2022
This gives us information about when to see this topic relative to the last five years. Usually, it happens in November when Black Friday happens.
Image from Google Trends, November 2022
This will give you an idea of the top keywords people are searching for.
You need to help your editorial team understand when and what to publish for search results – not just what keywords are there. current events in the present, but historical events.
You can use Google Trends to provide you with this information.
And David Esteve, social media expert, has posted the best Twitter thread on how to do this in an hour. David said:
“Since Google carefully evaluates the imminence of the time to publish your news in relation to the time when there is an increase in searches for that information, having a “view” of the time of will begin to make those studies, which will give a very strong opportunity to the preacher who is making such plans.”
Photo from Twitter, November 2022
The key to getting this information for any topic is changing the parameters of the default URL that Google Trends gives you.
For example, if we do this for Black Friday 2021, which is Friday, 26 November, we need to edit the default URL that Google Trends gives us: https://trends.google .com/trends/explore?q =black%20asoaso&geo=US.
We are happy on Friday, 26 November 2021.
Therefore, the first step is to use the date filter to find a specific date range, that is, the 21st until the 27th.
Image from Google Trends, November 2022
Well, if you look at the top questions, you’ll find specific questions that researchers were looking for at that time:
Image from Google Trends, November 2022
On the day of Black Friday, to know when and what to advertise using David’s trend of adding hourly data, such as https://trends.google.com/trends/explore? date=2021-09-26T00%202021-09- 27T20&geo=US&q=black%20Friday.
We can see that in the morning there was a high level of search – that is, the day of Black Friday, it is important to give your media to publish as soon as possible and cost best but don’t wait for them to come in, like the search. interest can die at the end of the day.
Image from Google Trends, November 2022
With SEO news and keyword research, what we are looking to achieve is to inform the editors about what the audience is looking for, but also when they search, to increase the reach. to the story.
As shown above, Google Trends is a very useful tool that helps inform the editors of what people are searching for and when.
Key Takeaway
News sites often rank for thousands, if not millions, of keywords.
There is no point in doing keyword research for news using traditional methods if the topic is not researched first.
Instead, focus on the five Ws, and teach writers how to use these in headlines and on the page to increase SEO for websites on the Top Stories carousel.
Featured Image: Tero Vesalainen/Shutterstock
How do you get approved for Google News?
The request for your website to be included in Google News:
- Go to the Google News Publisher Center.
- Verify your site’s ownership in the Search Console.
- Submit your request for inclusion.
- Add site information and update the URL section.
- Click ‘Submit’.
How is Google News selected? Computers know what is displayed on Google News. Algorithms determine which articles, photos, and videos are displayed, and in what order. In some cases, people like publishers and the Google News team choose stories. Google News displays some content in a special way.
What does Google News Approved mean? Being certified will be listed as a final source in Google News and you will be given some ranking options, but it does not mean that your site will automatically be found. traffic from Google News, Chris.
How do I know my site has been approved by Google News? When I check to see if a site is approved as a Google News source, I usually do a âsite:â search for them on Google.com, then click on ‘news’ tab. If their articles are listed under news, they are a ‘verified website’.
What are the 4 types of keywords?
While searching to find out the user’s intention behind making a search, we can categorize all keywords into four main areas of purpose: business, commerce, information, and navigation.
What are the main keywords? According to SEO, the words and phrases that searchers enter into search engines, are also called “search terms.” If you burn everything on your page – all images, videos, copy, etc. â down to simple words and phrases, those are your key words.
What are the four key words? While searching to find out the user’s intention behind making a search, we can categorize all keywords into four main areas of purpose: business, commerce, information, and navigation. We will see what these types are in a brief overview of each type.
How many types of keywords are there?
There are 9 types of keywords: short tail, long tail, short term, long term, product definition, people definition, geo-targeting, and purpose. All of these keywords have their own unique power that can boost your SEO efforts when used in different contexts.
What are the 2 types of keywords? When conducting keyword research it is important to consider two different types of keywords, one is high volume keywords and the other is long tail keywords. . Knowing what type each keyword is can help you target the right keywords with your SEO strategy.
How many types of keywords are there on the computer? A keyword is a reserved word. You cannot use it as a variable name, constant name, etc. There are only 32 keywords in C language.
