In an attempt to get its stories to the top of search engine results pages, it appears that the Associated Press encouraging publishers to begin implementing search engine optimization (SEO) as an industry standard in the journalism world.
An article last week from the AP notes that the wire service is proposing descriptive tags be included with articles in an effort to make sure they are more easily found by online users performing a search.
"Tags identifying the author, publisher and other information – as well as any usage restrictions publishers hope to place on copyright-protected materials – would be packaged with each news article in a way that search engines can more easily identify," says the article.
The AP is already using the format but says all news organizations – including blogs – should adopt it as an industry standard.
Although a number of news outlets have begun using search engine optimization (SEO) to make sure they get higher rankings for stories in searches, the AP is going one step further and attempting to give search engines the information for a story rather than letting it crawl and find it itself.
Last month in an interview with Beet.tv, Mark Larkin, vice president of programming and operations at CBSNews.com, said the site’s strategy of increasing viewership focused on search engine optimization (SEO) and original content.
