What SEO Experts Can Learn From Journalists? Learn more

Well-trained and experienced journalists have a skillset that can add 10 times the value to any content marketing campaign. These skills including the actual writing, strategy as well as keeping everything super organised.

Editorial teams are very frequently put at the front line of SEO. That’s quite correct because editorial is – without a doubt – the front line of SEO. Of course, there are extremely important technical aspects to SEO which involve code, URLs, redirects, robots files, rel canonicals and more like this. And many SEOs are techies by virtue of their background so this side of SEO continues to get much emphasis.

But all that technical business is almost like the mechanical work on a racing car. It’s very important however it won’t win you any races. In order to win you need strategy, a game plan as well as a driver. To win the race of SEO you’re going to require quality editorial content. Without that editorial, your SEO is going nowhere.

Good Research Skills

From day one, every journalist learns that they need to rely on the “Five Ws and How” (or, as it’s sometimes called, 5W1H). This abbreviation stands for:

• Who
• What
• When
• Where
• Why
• How

This is the very straightforward formula that journalists use in order to gather information during their research phase It’s a must when collecting information or interviewing someone.

At the moment, most of the interviews take place on the phone, through a chat, or via online conference through software like Zoom or MS Teams. However, an in-person face-to-face interview will always deliver the best results.

When you employ the 5W1H formula, your research will have all the material which is needed in order to answer questions as well as solve problems – the two main elements to type of any content marketing campaign.

For online content to be successful and respond well to SEO principles, each piece – whether a blog, service page, an infographic or a video – should try to answer all of these six questions. The most important are the who, what, why and how. If these four queries are not covered, the content’s message will not resonate with your readers.

Engaging Your Readers

The best journalists take the dull and then make it energetic. This has much to do with the specific journalist’s writing or reporting style. The foundation of taking something which is dull and making it interesting is clarity. Journalists are schooled in clarity. They really would like to deliver their information to the largest number of people possible.

The term ‘clarity’ means clearly answering the 5 W’s and How while avoiding any jargon that is typically associated with the subject matter. For example, if you’re writing content for a medical journal – and your target audience consists of dermatologists – then you would be able to use words such as hydradermabrasion or microdermabrasion.

However, the typical audience for most businesses – prospects who are out there to learn – want information in its most straightforward form. Journalists understand clarity, and this asset is essential for long-term content marketing success.

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