SODP Dispatch - 19 September 2024

How to grow and nurture your audience in the age of privacy, learn from the principal product manager at The Economist, Google revamps entire crawl documentation + more

Hello, SODP readers!

In today’s issue:

  • From SODP: Growing your audience with newsletters

  • Tools & Resources: Chrome productivity and content performance extensions

  • News: Google revamps entire crawl documentation, TikTok is becoming a popular news source for American adults + more

FROM STATE OF DIGITAL PUBLISHING

Newsletters: Growing and Nurturing Your Audience in the Age of Privacy

By Saida Ayupova

In the age of media fragmentation and endless sources of information, developing deep relationships with an audience and keeping it connected are increasingly difficult tasks for publishers.

Most publishers aspire to develop these meaningful connections with their readers – to become a part of their daily lives instead of a one-off site visit.

Newsletters can help achieve these objectives.

PubTech2024: New Panelist Announcement

Zack Zubair
Principal Product Manager, Subscriptions & Partnership Platforms | The Economist Group

TOOLS & RESOURCES

🛠️ Productivity Chrome extension

HyperWrite is an AI-powered assistant for web browsing, content creation, online research, task automation, and more.
See more ▸

🛠️ Content performance extension
See the most shared content, trending topics, and influencers in your industry with BuzzSumo Chrome extension.
See more ▸

BITE-SIZED ADVICE

By Vahe Arabian

➡️ Creating evergreen content

  1. Focus on Evergreen Formats: Focus on evergreen content types that have proven to produce long-term value and remain relevant over the longer term: how-to guides, ultimate guides, listicles, product reviews, etc.

  2. Go In-depth: An in-depth article can cover very broad topics and still provide enough information that advanced users will still find the article useful. These pieces not only prove topical authority to readers, but also prove to prospective clients that the creator is a thought leader in the field.

  3. Use SEO Best Practices: A few SEO techniques include keyword research, internal linking and building a high-quality backlink profile.

  4. Hack Trends, Avoid Fads: Tracking trends is a great way to gain traction quickly, but without a solid approach to the content creation the article won’t hold up over the long term. For instance, instead of writing about a trending diet fad, focus instead on wellness tips or healthy lifestyle content.

  5. Use Multimedia: Multimedia is a great way to create engaging content. Not only does Google appreciate multiple forms of media in articles, but visitors will too. Just remember to limit the number of stock images and content within the articles as this content is likely to appear elsewhere and drag down article originality.

  6. Remember to Update: In an effort to build trust with readers, content does need to be kept up to date. Different content will require different levels of revising and editing to keep it fresh and competitive in the SERPs.

  7. Think of The Audience: Avoid overly technical language to improve the user experience and help curate better engagement from readers. Also format the article so it’s easy to skim, breaking up the text with a lot of images and different forms of text.

WHAT WE ARE READING

Google Revamps Entire Crawler Documentation | Search Engine Journal

Google has launched a major revamp of its Crawler documentation, shrinking the main overview page and splitting content into three new, more focused pages. Although the changelog downplays the changes there is an entirely new section and basically a rewrite of the entire crawler overview page.
Read more ▸

The Guardian in talks to sell The Observer Axios

The Guardian Media Group is in talks to sell The Observer, the world's oldest Sunday newspaper, to Tortoise Media, a U.K.-based media startup. A slew of U.K. newspapers are up for sale as media owners try to globalize their brands and move away from the British tabloid era.
Read more ▸

Data providers: Google August 2024 core update was very volatile | Search Engine Land

Google said the March 2024 core update was their biggest core update but the August 2024 core update did shake things up, in a big way.
Read more ▸

Google outlines plans to help you sort real images from fake The Verge

Google is planning to roll out a technology that will identify whether a photo was taken with a camera, edited by software like Photoshop, or produced by generative AI models. In the coming months, Google’s search results will include an updated “about this image feature” to let people know if an image was created or edited with AI tools.
Read more ▸

TikTok Is Becoming a Popular News Source for American Adults | Bloomberg

Pew survey: 17% of US adults say they regularly get news on TikTok in 2024, up from 14% in 2023 and 3% in 2020; 39% aged 18 to 29 do so, up from 32% a year ago.
Read more ▸