SEO is a difficult code to crack, but there are ways–and it doesn’t have to be black or even grey hat. One white hat SEO strategy many don’t consider is coinciding their blogs with breaking news. If you can get something out within hours of the story breaking, then it’s possible to ride the news wave and pick up a nice traffic spike along the way.
Here’s an example of how exactly this is done, and with a new blog, with less than 20 posts, nonetheless:
Stratfor, a global intelligence strategy think tank, recently announced in a letter to its subscribers that they had been the victims of a major hack job. One of those subscribers forwarded that letter to the editor of Learn Chinese Business Blog and within the hour an article titled, Was Stratfor Hacked by the Chinese, was posted. As you can see in that article, the entire letter was referenced with only a small amount of commentary by the editor. When the story was fresh and no one knew what was happening, everyone was typing in “Stratfor Hacked” and because this blog was one of the first on the scene with the published letter on its site, it received nearly 100 hits from organic search during the next hour or two after the letter was released. As it turns out, there were reports that it wasn’t the Chinese who hacked Stratfor, but the group anonymous (which was noted post-article in an editor’s update).
While this blog doesn’t drive traffic to an ecommerce store, the strategy works just the same. Ecommerce merchants should stay aware of new developments within their own industry via “as-it-happens” Google alerts, insider tips, and even news shared at live events. The more obscure the topic, and narrowed down the keyword phrase, the better chance at catching waterfall traffic.
However, here are some caveats to keep in mind while deploying this powerful SEO tip in your online marketing strategy:
1) Be careful not to copy the entire news story, and always attribute or reference quotes.
2) Remember the half-life on breaking news service is at best a day or two (most likely only a few hours), and if your content isn’t relevant, visitors won’t stay long enough to check out other pages, which means the traffic spike is nearly valueless in terms of conversion potential.
3) Hype isn’t the way to develop readership. It may have been a stretch for Learn Chinese Business to post the Stratfor hack report, but it was a relevant question many China watchers were asking. However, to continue blogging about it now that it has been determined that Chinese hackers weren’t responsible, would be considered abusively grey or black hat.
4) Don’t use this strategy for every single blog, or you’ll be seen as a mere news aggregate, and lose your identity in the process (unless you can find a way to add valuable commentary and insights to the news you highlight).
Let us know how this SEO tip works for you. Feel free to comment to add anything we may have overlooked.
