G.K. Chesterton once said that journalism largely consists in saying “Lord Jones is dead” to people who never knew Lord Jones was alive.
Mark Zuckerberg may well disagree with that in the light of latest development at Facebook (FB).
For folks in the digital and marketing space, focus will have to change fast, from traditional link building — whose likely demise has been long debated — to social link building to others, for instance, depending on traffic, volumes and preferences.
Platforms
FB is betting on digital journalism, launching alternative products such as Instant Articles to deliver relevant news and value-added content on its social platform. Hence, FB becomes the news provider.
Some background before we delve into FB’s move and its impact on search engine optimisation (SEO).
In early June, at the World Media Congress, Emily Bell (Columbia University) said that the future of the free press was in the hands of platform companies. The trend is increasingly going towards the consumption of news through digital platforms, especially among the youngsters.
That came only a couple of weeks after FB had announced the launch of Instant Articles, a product aimed at publishers, which would allow FB to deliver fast, tailored articles, with interactive content.
The New York Times, Buzz Feed, National Geographic are among some of the big names that have signed up — other publishers are reportedly testing the product. Notewhorty: FB’s Instant Article service is available only on FB’s IOS app at the moment.
Now, how relevant is all this for SEO monkeys like me, really — at a time when, incidentally, Apple is hiring a bunch of journalists to run its Apple News service?
Here are some key points you ought to consider:
- According to trends we sight daily, publishers will continue to experience a significant decrease in traffic on their own websites — SEO becomes a more important tool to determine a flawless strategy.
- Changes in the link building process should be expected — but that depends on whether FB’s attempt will be successful. Either way, a SEO assessment should be sought.
- A big question is how Google will determine the rankings according to the authority of the website in question: it may consider the authority of the original source (the publisher) or that of the platform (which is more difficult to gauge). A SEO audit will help clients understand the changes.
- Since Google has its own news section, results will show in a different way on the SERP, yet the outcome cannot be predicted at present, although we believe that Google will be biased towards the publishers.
The web is alive and well, has anybody noticed that?
If you want to discuss this topic with our team, please email us at info@hedgingbeta.com