With so many places for people to find information on the internet some traditional news organizations are struggling to receive traffic and visibility online, but some are turning to search engine optimization (SEO) to gain viewers.
Charleston, South Carolina television station WLCN will be working with local advertising agency Fuel Interactive to increase the online marketing for the station’s website.
The company says it will create a "content centric" site for the television station and will develop a program that will allow the station to distribute news and information to mobile devices.
In addition the company intends on creating a search engine optimization (SEO) campaign in an attempt to place the station as the news leader in the Charleston region.
Using search engine optimization for news providers appears to be a growing trend in the media industry. In an article last month on Poynter Online, Amy Gahran wrote that journalists who may not normally work online may need to learn how to write SEO-friendly headlines and ledes.
The techniques already appear to be happening in the UK where Drew Broomhall, the search editor for the Times of London’s website, said in an interview with the Association of Online Publishers that he has already seen a shift in journalists using search engine optimization (SEO).
"All organizations now seem to understand the importance of headline writing to SEO, and I see more and more journalists load up their headlines and intros with relevant keywords," he said.
