Editorial Dashboard - Article Optimisation

Article Optimisation

Choose a main keyword that is semantically relevant to the article topic: an person's name, event name, place name or a keyword that reflects a newsworthy topic
Example: Coronavirus vaccine breakthrough announced - but who would be likely to get a jab first? - with the main keyword being "Coronavirus vaccine"
Place the main keyword as close to the beginning of the headline as possible

Do not include a date or time in your article headline
Optimal headline length for article page is 55-100 characters and should never exceed 110 characters (including spaces and punctuation). Shorter versions of the headline can be used for internal links from other pages where necessary but the full headline including important keywords needs to be displayed on the article page.
The better optimised the article headline is for user searches, the greater the chance that Google will display it as specified

a standfirst is a brief introductory summary of an article, typically appearing immediately after the headline and typographically distinct from the rest of the article
a meta description appears below the title in a Google search result and should generally inform and interest users with a short, relevant summary of what a particular article is about
a recommended practice is to use the first sentence of the standfirst as a meta description
a good standfirst will be between 260 and 400 characters
a good meta description will be a minimum of 115 characters

Include at least 2 exact matches for the main keyword in the body text of the article
Use related keywords, such as singular/plural versions, variations by tense, or other semantically-related ideas
Google favours above-the-fold content, so be sure to use the main keyword and related keywords early, ideally in the first 100 words
Write content for readability and include the main keyword and related keywords in a natural way
Following the primary article image or video the first two paragraphs (roughly 80 words) of text should not include embedded components or other formatting (podcast links, bullets, related links, etc) that impede the user getting into the story
Ideally articles important for SEO would target a word count of 600+ words

General Information

Only link to the same page from the same page once (identical links are only counted once)
The text that links to a page is called anchor text. Avoid using generic terms like ‘see more’ or 'click here' as anchor text

Linking from a new article to existing pages

To find other relevant articles and pages to link to, look through the article and identify internal linking opportunities.
Look for semantically related themes
Once you've identified internal linking opportunities, you may want to do a site search to see which pages within your site Google sees as most relevant (e.g. site:https://news.sky.com/ [search term])
If there are no good opportunities to use anchor text, use Related: [article title] in a contextually relevant part of the article, preferably near the top.

Linking from existing pages to a new article

By the same token, look for existing pages from which you can create an internal link to the new article.

Adding external links to prominent and semantically relevant external websites can be very beneficial
Links to competing publishers (e.g. BBC, Guardian, etc) should be avoided.
Best practice is to link words as anchor text that we are not competing for with the external website

Post the link to your article on your official Facebook page, Twitter stream and any other relevant social channels
For articles with significant viral potential, it is a good idea to give an initial paid boost to maximise distribution

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