SEO 'necessary' in online news

Online news websites need to utilise search engine optimisation (SEO) techniques if they want their stories to be found by readers.

This is the suggestion of Telegraph.co.uk communities editor Shane Richmond, who wrote in the current issue of the British Journalism Review that "there's no room for argument" when it comes to adopting SEO.

He explained that while journalists have concerns over whether the quality of their copy may be affected by harnessing SEO techniques such as inserting keywords, ultimately this is not an issue as long as writers view SEO as a tool for making stories more relevant and interesting to their readers.

"SEO is about relevance. An irrelevant keyword does you no good at all and in some instances might be harmful because it can leave the search engine confused as to what your article is about," Mr Richmond explained.

Ilicco Elia, head of mobile for Reuters, told the WAN World Digital Publishing Conference earlier this year that SEO considerations should be a "given" for news sites, emphasising the fact that it is a low-cost way of increasing traffic, reports Journalism.co.uk.