9 Journalism Tactics That Work for SEO Content Writing

Journalism is dead.

SEO is dead.

Content writing is dead, soon to be taken over by AI.

There’s so much supposed death in my working life that I was forced to take a stand against the naysayers, focusing my efforts on all three of these dead practices.

And the outcome? Success over and over again among clients and personal writing.

I’ve worked as a journalist since 2001 — first as a traditional reporter for a newspaper, then as a motorcycle journalist since 2008 and through today. I’ve also interviewed ghostwriting clients across various industries since 2013.

And I’ve been doing SEO since around 2010.

Let me tell you: when journalism and SEO join forces, the outcome is… um, deadly for the competition.

Many journalism tactics can help your SEO content writing today.

In this column, you’ll learn journalism tactics you can use to add SEO muscle to your content, which simultaneously fueling Google’s E-A-T guidelines (Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness). Each tactic will help influence the E-A-T elements by: Positioning you as an expert on the subject and within your industry.

Positioning your website as an authoritative source because many other sources link to your content due to its strength.

Positioning you and your website as a trustworthy source because of the above two combined.

And it all begins with one of the very first concepts every journalist learns about. 1. The Inverted Pyramid The concept is simple. You communicate what’s most important in the article’s lead paragraphs, and structure the content from most essential to least important.The structure derived from the first days of the telegraph, which Samuel Morse invented (yes, the Morse Code Morse) and first used in 1845.The telegraph sometimes lost transmission, so notes began with the most important elements first, followed by the supporting details.Of course, the concept has evolved over the years.You can think of using the inverted pyramid structure to provide the most crucial information first within an engaging lead, followed by a body of info that supports that information.Within the body, you funnel information down until you get to the least important information.The inverted pyramid style will not only hook your audience and explain just what they’ll get from your article, but it’ll also support SEO because of that engagement.You also can frontload many target keywords , which shows search engines that you’re placing importance on these elements.Also, I advocate outlining stories before any writing begins.When you’re thinking in an inverted pyramid style, you outline your story for what’s needed in the opening paragraphs to engage, then what it’ll take to educate and inform in the body.For a majority of online articles, this means outlining your listicle or subtopic points.These are then turned into header tags (typically H2 or H3s) and help search engines grasp even quicker about what’s important. Remember always to use keywords within your subtopics.Through personal and client work, I found related keywords work best here, such as having “inverted pyramid” as a subtopic that’s related to journalism. 2. Answer the 5Ws + 1H Regardless of what […]

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