SODP Dispatch - 21 March 2024

Brand Launch: SODP Media

We are delighted to announce the launch of our sister brand - SODP Media!

SODP Media is a consultancy offering audience growth solutions.

SODP Media services for digital publishers and news media include:

✅ Audience development strategy
✅ Publisher SEO
✅ Martech consulting
✅ Content strategy
✅ Website migration and digital transformation

Other industries SODP Media caters to with custom SEO solutions: edtech, fintech, marketplace, OTT, and tourism.

Check out the website, learn more about the solutions, and follow the page on LinkedIn.

Online Event: Monetization Week 2024

Here comes the next online event and a fantastic learning opportunity for our community: Monetization Week 2024!

🗓️ 27-31 May 2024
🕒 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM CET | 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM ET

The event features five sessions across five days. Register for an individual session or the entire event.

Confirmed presenters include:

• Yavor Popov | CEO, PhoneArena

• Simon Beauloye | Founder & Publication Director, Luxe Digital

• Susanne Sperling | Founder, Stratechmedia

• Radu Tyrsina | CEO, ReflectorMedia

• Gabriella Petrova | Head of Revenue Operations, PhoneArena

Check out the program and grab your pass!

On-Demand Webinar: How Can Newsrooms Capitalize on Election Season to Drive Growth

On March 8, 2024, Chad Hussain, VP of International Partnerships at Quintype, hosted a live webinar on how newsrooms can use the election season to solidify their digital publication’s role as a trusted news and analysis source.

During the webinar, we delved into the lessons learned from 2019 elections, the importance of content diversification, how to build trust with your audience through balanced content, set up technical infrastructure, elevate engagement, and more.

If you were not able to attend the live session but would still like to benefit from the valuable insights that Chat shared, we have great news: the webinar is now available on-demand!

By Aslam Multani, CTO & Co-founder, Multidots

⚙️ Improving your website’s performance

Last month, we hosted WP Publisher Success Week. Day 3 featured a workshop on workflow and website performance. This tip of the week is a summary of the advice Aslam Multani shared with the attendees on optimizing the performance of WordPress-based websites.

Whether you already have your digital publication on WordPress, or you are planning to migrate to the WordPress CMS, there are multiple things you can do to improve performance.

During WP Publisher Success Week, Aslam Multani, CTO and Co-founder of Multidots, identified 5 main aspects:

1️⃣ Choose compatible themes and page builders
Your choice of theme can have a huge impact on your website performance and CWV metrics. If you are migrating to WordPress, pick a theme that is compatible with the page builder you plan to use for the site.

2️⃣ Use fewer plugins
While plugins are great for customizing your website and adding new features, they can also severely compromise performance.

3️⃣ Stick with native architecture
When it comes to content architecture, the best option from a performance perspective is to go with the native architecture. Whether it is articles or any other type of content elements, use WordPress native custom box types or taxonomies for better performance and future extendibility.

4️⃣ Use optimized hosting platform
Using a managed WordPress hosting instead of standard hosting can have a big impact on performance. With managed hosting, you don’t have to worry about managing servers and keeping track of security updates.

5️⃣ Continuous monitoring
Performance optimization is not a one-time task. Even if you have optimized everything before launch, a lot can change over time, including changes to critical pages, new content, algorithms, security parameters, and plugins.

📚 Ebook: WP Publisher Success Week – Key Learnings from WordPress Experts

Weren’t able to join us last month for WP Publisher Success Week? We got you covered. Check out the ebook of key learnings from the event. It includes a summary of the takeaways + access to video recordings and slides.
See more ▸

🖥 Debugging Fetch Priority

Check out this very useful video by Google's Barry Pollard and Jecelyn Yeen explaining the Fetch Priority API and how it can be used to improve LCP image load times.
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AP Launches E-commerce Site with Taboola | Axios

The Associated Press is launching an e-commerce site called AP Buyline, powered by Taboola. It's part of a broader effort by the AP to diversify its business by adding more consumer revenue.
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Google March 2024 Spam Update Done Rolling Out | Search Engine Land

The spam update took 14 days and 21 hours to roll out, starting on March 5, and ending on March 20. The March 2024 core update is still rolling out and will likely continue to roll out for the next couple of weeks.
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The Intercept Charts a New Legal Strategy for Digital Publishers Suing OpenAI | NiemanLab

Raw Story, AlterNet, and The Intercept are among the first smaller publications to go up against the AI goliath for copyright violations. These new suits come just two months after The New York Times filed a landmark case in U.S. Federal District Court. The Times was the first major American media company to sue OpenAI for infringing on its copyright in training the lucrative GPT large language models (LLMs).
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BBC Develops AI Plans and Talks to Big Tech over Archives Access | Financial Times

The UK’s national broadcaster is seeking to use its decades-worth of journalism to “train” a generative AI model — systems that can quickly produce text, audio and code — according to people familiar with the moves. This could then power products, such as tools to help journalists produce stories, that can be used in-house.
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Google Confirms: High-Quality Content Is Crawled More Often | Search Engine Journal

By consistently improving page quality and the usefulness of your content to searchers, you can overcome any assumed limitations on crawling. The key is to analyze your site’s performance, identify areas for improvement, and focus on delivering the best possible experience to your target audience.
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